Category: News

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced that the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which took place in Park City, Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah in January, generated an overall economic impact of close to $70 million for the State of Utah, according to the independent annual economic and demographic study conducted by the University of Utah’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the David Eccles School of Business (BEBR).
The Economic Report, posted in full on the Sundance Institute website, also found that the 2013 Festival: supported over 1,407 jobs; generated over $56.8 million in international media exposure; provided nearly $5.

Those familiar with the work of 2013 Directors and Screenwriters Lab fellow K’naan—as a poet, rapper, singer, and instrumentalist—shouldn’t be surprised by his latest creative endeavor: filmmaking. K’naan’s penchant for storytelling has seen him shift fluidly from hip-hop musician to children’s book author to screenwriter and filmmaker. After participating in the January Screenwriters Lab earlier this year, K’naan returned to Sundance Resort this June to continue to flesh out this project Maanokoobiyo, a tale that follows a Somali orphan as he embarks on a harrowing journey across the war-torn African nation in search of his last surviving relative.

The oft-discussed parallels that bridge Zal Batmanglij’s debut feature, Sound of My Voice, to his sophomore effort, The East, nearly undermine both. Perhaps it’s the burden of creating worlds on screen so vividly unique that they can only be compared to one another. But for all those similarities—the “thriller” label, Brit Marling, cult culture—Batmanglij’s captivating follow-up is an entirely new experience, and one that showcases his evolution as an exciting young filmmaker.

Meredith Danluck is an artist, filmmaker, and 2013 Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Lab Fellow working on her project State Like Sleep. Earlier this year, she showcased her four-screen film installation North of South, West of East as part of the New Frontier exhibition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Below, Danluck offers up some details about her screenplay that probes the disorienting worlds of deception and loneliness, the perceptive work of the Creative Advisors at the Labs, and how she plans to infuse this experience into her future projects.

On my first morning in Puerto Rico, kites filled the air over El Morro, one of the old Spanish fortresses on the coast. I stepped onto the field, filled with summer camp kids and their families, with two aims: to get someone to let me fly their kite and to get over my fears and use my long dormant Spanish. I would seamlessly weave myself into the scene.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute and Time Warner Foundation announced today the 11 artists selected for the 2013 Sundance Institute | Time Warner Foundation Fellowship Program, including the four artists selected for the Sundance Institute | Time Warner Foundation Native Producing Fellowship. The Fellowship program promotes cultural, socio-economic and gender diversity as well as artistic collaboration and innovation among emerging film and theatre storytellers, documentary filmmakers and film composers.
Each Fellow was identified by one of the following core programs of the Institute: Documentary Film Program, Feature Film Program, Film Music Program, Native American & Indigenous Film Program and Theatre Program.

This week we’re offering up a small sample of our great New Frontier section of the Sundance Film Festival. With media installations, multimedia performances, transmedia experiences, panels, films, and more, New Frontier highlights work that celebrates experimentation and the expansion of cinema culture through the convergence of film, art, and new media technology. In the New Frontier shorts, we get into exploring with repurposed nitrate film (Light Is Calling), looking at a health crisis in an unusual and thoughtful way (Last Address), hilarious animation with a political tinge (Because Washington Is Hollywood For Ugly People), and the new world of indie video games (McDonald’s The Game).

I spent this past week traveling around Puerto Rico showing Beasts of the Southern Wild to a variety of audiences in San Juan and Ponce with Film Forward. Over the past year and a half I have screened Beasts in many places and done tons of Q&As and events around the film, however I can very safely say that none of the other screenings or events were anything like this week.
The week started with the opening night screening at the incredible Teatro Arriví a beautiful restored old theater.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the selection of 22 Fellows representing nine documentary film projects to participate in the 2013 Documentary Edit and Story Labs, June 21-29 and July 5-13 at Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah.
Built upon the immersive Lab model launched in 1981 by Sundance Institute President & Founder Robert Redford, each session of the Documentary Edit and Story Labs brings together director and editor teams with world-renowned documentary filmmakers and Sundance Institute staff to support creative risk-taking around issues of story, dramatic structure and character development.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Sundance Institute provides support to film projects at all moments in their lifecycle, and our Documentary Edit and Story Labs focus specifically on critical moments of postproduction.

In 1521, the conquistador Ponce de León built his colonial residence in San Juan, naming it Casa Blanca. Today, almost 500 years later, the house is a museum where I had the privilege of screening my film Valley of Saints. In Puerto Rico, it’s hard not to see that the dialogue we’re having isn’t just between people, but between the past and the present.

Filmmakers Jeff Orlowski, Chasing Ice Patricia Riggen, Under The Same Moon (La Misma Luna)
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced today that FILM FORWARD: Advancing Cultural Dialogue concluded its third year hosting free screenings of seven films, panel discussions and artist roundtables in China.  Filmmakers Jeff Orlowski and Patricia Riggen traveled with the program and participated in film events at Beijing Film Academy, Inside Out Museum, Chinese Academy of Drama, Chinese University of Communications, Anhui University, Kafka Bookstore, and CNEX Foundation. For filmmaker blogs and a recap of events visit www.

In showing Beasts of the Southern Wild across San Juan this week, a really interesting conversation emerged.  The conversation was not so much a discussion about the movie but rather a conversation around an idea that the film explores which is a very real question for Puerto Ricans.  The question is: if a natural disaster was coming towards your community and you had the option of staying or leaving, what would you do?
The protagonists of Beasts deal with this with question when a storm comes towards their home.