Category: News

Last night Sundance Institute lifted the curtains on the first-ever NEXT WEEKEND film festival with an outdoor screening of the hilarious, idiosyncratic doc American Movie (1999) at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. (For those unfamiliar with the popular Cinespia summer screening series, yes, this means screening a film in a cemetery at night). Director Chris Smith and the film’s subject, quirky independent filmmaker Mark Borchardt, were in attendance along with a vibrant crowd for a double feature that saw a screening of Borchardt’s short horror film Coven, the making of which is documented in American Movie.

As part of our upcoming NEXT WEEKEND film festival in Los Angeles, we have programmed a fantastic shorts lineup consisting of 10 shorts that we played at the Sundance Film Festival in January, presented by YouTube. The NEXT section of the festival champions feature films with bold filmmaking style using innovative ways to tell stories. Short films fit perfectly within this adventurous realm of cinema Rather than be limited by a short run time, the filmmakers in the NEXT Shorts Program use the short format as motivation to craft something special with a personal vision.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 15 independent films that will make their digital debut this fall through a variety of platforms and storefronts, via the Institute’s Artist Services program, which provides access to self-distribution for artists supported by the Institute. Titles will roll out between August 13 and September 17. For details visit sundance.

We’re less than two weeks out from kicking off the first-ever NEXT WEEKEND film festival (Aug. 8-11) at Sundance Sunset Cinemas and partner venues throughout Los Angeles. Recently, we unveiled the 10 feature films screening throughout the weekend, and now each filmmaker has produced a video to introduce their film.

I remember taking a walking tour of Berlin many years ago, where the guide stopped every 10 meters to share a new and dramatic story about the surrounding space. The experience climaxed in the middle of an old city square, where she revealed layers of history: the Cold War, the Third Reich, World War I, Prussian aristocracy, even 9th Century Slavs. I visualized the atoms in my feet vibrating with the atoms of that well-trodden ground.

Jackie Sibblies Drury is a Brooklyn-based playwright participating in the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at Sundance Resort with her project Really Really Really Really Really. And yes, that is a calculated and precise five ‘Really’s’. Below Sibblies Drury delves into the varying themes of loss that pervade her play, the rationale behind her engimatic title, and the greatest creative challenge she’s faced at the Lab.

David Lowery attended the 2012 Sundance Institute January Screenwriters Lab with his screenplay for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, an Official Selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Below is the first part in a series of blog posts examining a single frame from the film. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints opens in theatres August 16 and On Demand August 23.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today that it has been awarded a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The grant, which was made through the Academy’s Educational Grants Program, supports four annual Labs hosted by the Institute’s renowned Feature Film Program (FFP): the June Screenwriters Lab, the Directors Lab, the Creative Producing Lab, and the Creative Producing Summit.
FFP Labs, built on a model established by Sundance Institute President & Founder Robert Redford in 1981, give aspiring independent filmmakers the skills and knowledge they need to make theatrical motion pictures.

Danny Yourd was a producer on the 2013 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary Blood Brother, and is collaborating once again with filmmaker Steve Hoover on their new film, Gennadiy. The team is using Kickstarter to help complete production of the film in Mariupal, Ukraine. Click here to support their campaign.

As part of the four-day lineup of screenings and events scheduled for NEXT WEEKEND, set to take place August 8-11 in Los Angeles, the festival will expand to the venues of four of the city’s leading film and cultural organizations on the evening of Sunday, August 11. NEXT SUNDAY will feature individual screenings co-hosted by the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre, Cinefamily on Fairfax, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television at the Hammer Museum.
Thanks to all of our cultural collaborators for helping make the first-ever NEXT WEEKEND film festival an event accessible to audiences across Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the participants for its annual Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit, both held the week of July 29 at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah. These activities are part of the Institute’s year-round Creative Producing Initiative, which encompasses a series of Labs, Fellowships and other events that support independent producers.
Eleven projects will participate in the Labs (July 29 – August 2), where they will work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors to advance their creative, communication and problem-solving skills in all stages of a film’s journey from script development to distribution.

In recent years, one has needed to look no further than the NEXT <=> section of the Sundance Film Festival to witness the vitality of independent film. That’s where, in NEXT’s four-year existence, films with a penchant for innovative storytelling and a blatant disregard for boundaries have premiered at the Festival. Now that renegade filmmaking spirit is coming to Los Angeles.