Category: News

Mumbai, India — Mumbai Mantra, the media and entertainment division of the Mahindra Group, is collaborating with Sundance Institute for various initiatives. The inaugural Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab 2012 has selected eight feature film projects of Indian screenwriters – chosen through an evaluation process of submissions from around the world, including the United States and France.
These Screenwriting Fellows will have the opportunity to work intensely on their feature film scripts with the support of Creative Advisors (established Screenwriters and Directors) in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking.

Mumbai, India — Sundance Institute announced today that FILM FORWARD: Advancing Cultural Dialogue, a program that promotes cultural dialogue through independent documentary and narrative film, is travelling from March 15 to 22, 2012 to five locations in India: Mumbai, New Delhi, Aligarh, Gurgaon and Noida. Mumbai Mantra Media Ltd and the American Center in New Delhi, in collaboration with Taj Enlighten Film Society and Whistling Woods International, will present the FILM FORWARD program which includes 10 films, filmmaker appearances and workshops at multiple venues in the five cities.  All FILM FORWARD screenings are free of charge for University students and the general public.

The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, was in Arizona last week as part of his Art Works tour. During the visit, he made a stop in Tucson to participate in the week-long Film Forward program and take in a screening of Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s On the Ice. Landesman was appointed Chairman of the NEA in 2009 and is responsible for leading the public agency in its efforts “to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.

Los Angeles, CA — Keri Putnam, Executive Director of the non-profit Sundance Institute, announced today that the Institute is launching an exclusive and free app for Ultrabooks® and other mobile devices featuring Sundance Institute “Now Playing” film news, behind-the-scenes content, and film trailers showcased on the Intel AppUpSM center now. The app will help support and market films as they become available to the public, including through the self-distribution component of Artist Services.Artist Services provides opportunities for creative self-distribution, marketing and financing solutions for filmmakers supported by the Institute, while allowing them to maintain ownership of their rights.

Last week, we showed On the Ice in Arizona as a part of Sundance Institute’s Film Forward program. I was there for three screenings. The first one took place in Sells, a small town on the Tohono O’odham reservation about an hour outside of Tucson.

LONDON — Sundance Institute and The O2 announced today the programme of 14 narrative and documentary feature films that will make their UK premieres at the inaugural Sundance London festival, taking place at The O2 from 26-29 April. These films premiered in January at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the premier independent film festival in the United States.“I welcome the opportunity to see how people in the UK experience these films,” said Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute.

Mr. Ahadi’s film “The Green Wave” shows the audience a harrowing and poignant look at the contested Iranian election of 2009. From cleverly created animated sequences of anecdotes of individual experiences to testimonies of people who were present and opinions of outside observers, “The Green Wave” tells the story of a people’s desperate cry for honest representation within the yoke of one of the world’s most ruthless and backwards regime’s attempts to survive in its war against the rest of world while claiming to give itself a shred of legitimacy.

Los Angeles, CA — Ten films supported by Sundance Institute are now available to stream from Netflix. These projects are participating in the Institute’s Artist Services program, which provides Institute artists with exclusive opportunities for creative self-distribution, marketing and financing solutions for their work.
The films include Semper Fi: Always Faithful, Obselidia (Independent Spirit Award Winner), Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007 Sundance Film Festival documentary on the arcade gamer competitions in the ‘80s), New York Times Critic’s Pick Lord Byron and 1994 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award Winner What Happened Was … by Tom Noonan.

New York, NY — Sundance Institute has announced the first-ever New York benefit celebrating its Theatre Program, the leading play development program in the United States. Taking place on the evening of Monday, March 12 at venues in lower Manhattan, the event will be hosted by Sundance Institute President & Founder Robert Redford and feature performances by some of the theatre world’s top talent, who are also Sundance Institute alumni.
The evening will begin at 7:00 p.

Enemies of the People was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Our lives have changed dramatically in the two years since our film Enemies of the People premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. What had been a very secret film in the making suddenly became very public, and its public life has been incredibly varied and intense.

“Sundance has a Theatre Program?” As I travel around the country to our different venues to develop new work, this is the question I hear most often as I’m chatting up my seatmates on planes or introducing the Institute to potential collaborators. I have my elevator speech down pat at this point: “Yes, we do have a Theatre Program and we’ve been around since the founding of the Institute almost 30 years ago. In fact, our program has seeded some of the most interesting work that audiences have seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the country, including the runaway hit musical Spring Awakening, indie favorite Passing Strange, and the regional theatre darling Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.

Can you imagine spending 12 years shooting one film about your own family? Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, a Brooklyn-based husband and wife filmmaking team, have been doing just that since 1999. Their film, American Promise, is about race, education, and achievement; it will air on POV in 2013. Michèle and Joe participated in the 2010 and Documentary Composers Lab and the Documentary Edit Lab.