Category: News

NEW YORK – The Sundance Institute will receive a $5 million grant for its Documentary Film Program to help raise awareness on human rights, the Open Society Institute announced today.
“Films can play a powerful role in inspiring action on human rights, justice, accountability, and other open society issues,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Institute. “The Sundance Institute’s work helps filmmakers shed light on the most pressing challenges of our time.

Los Angeles, CA — Today, Sundance Institute announced the six musicians selected for the 2009 Sundance Institute Composers Lab, which runs from July 15 – July 29 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. This year’s Composers Lab Fellows are Kim Carroll, Chanda Dancy, Magda Giannikou, Lili Haydn, Christopher Lord, and David Poe. The selected composers bring an eclectic range of talent to the two-week lab, which focuses on the process of writing music for film with the support and guidance of the industry’s leading film composers and film music professionals.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Sundance Institute announced today the expansion of its Creative Producing Initiative designed to nurture emerging independent producers in both narrative and documentary fields. For 2009-2010, the Initiative will include the re-conceived Creative Producing Summit (formerly the Independent Producers Conference), the Creative Producing Lab supporting six Fellows from the Feature Film Program and, new for this year, four from the Documentary Film Program, as well as Sundance Industry Meetings to connect filmmakers with industry members at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
The Creative Producing Initiative is designed to support producers with project-specific support through Labs, grants, and long-term advisor relationships and to also reinvigorate dialogue within the independent producing community.

BANFF, CANADA — The Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre, ZER01: The Art and Technology Network, and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier initiative today announced the formation of The Locative Cinema Commission, a joint venture to stimulate and showcase the creation of a locative cinema project. The Commission is presently soliciting proposals. The chosen artist or artists will realize their proposed project during a residency at The Banff Centre, to be completed by July 2010.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Sundance Institute and Cinereach announced today a $1.5 million three-year grant to form the Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute. The program, underwritten by Cinereach, will support a unique and flexible resource pool for documentary and feature film projects with themes that evoke global cultural exchange and social impact.

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute announced today the acting company for its 2009 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab to be held July 7 to July 22 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. The 2009 ensemble company includes: Oni Monifa Renee Brown, Baraka de Soleil, Colman Domingo (The Wiz, Passing Strange, Well ), Giancarlo Esposito (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Peter Friedman (Ragtime, Body Awareness), Tracy Gilbert, Meredith Hinckley (Kennedy Center Irene Ryan Acting Award Winner), Laura Innes (ER), Lisa Joyce (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, That Pretty Pretty), Francis Jue (Coraline, Yellow Face, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Ellen Maddow, Sahr Ngaujah (FELA!), Denis O’Hare (Racing Demon, Take Me Out), Adesola A. Osakalumi (FELA!), Maximillian Osinski, Adriana Sevan (Taking Flight) and Maria Thayer.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced a trio of screenings for local Utah audiences bringing the best summer has to offer — timeless southern storytelling, the search for the “perfect wave,” and the warm twang of Appalachian mountain music. Always free of charge, the screenings are highlights from previous Sundance Film Festivals and are part of the Sundance Institute Film Series, a year-round community event program that offers works that best represent the Institute’s spectrum of programs. The films in this summer’s screenings showcase some of the memorable artists and talent to emerge from Film Festival — Amy Adams’s role in Junebug led to her Hollywood fame, while Riding Giants director Stacy Peralta first came to the Festival with ­Dogtown and Z-boys in 2001 and became a three-time Festival alum in 2008 with Made in America.

Park City, UT – The 2009 Sundance Film Festival generated an overall economic impact of a record $92.1 million for the State of Utah, supported close to 2,000 jobs, generated over $18 million in media exposure and provided millions in tax revenue according to a recent 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 findings, announced today by the nonprofit Sundance Institute, were generated using an economic impact model known as RIMS II, developed by the U.

Los Angeles, CA –Sundance Institute today announced the selection of 12 Documentary Film Fellows representing six projects to participate in the sixth Documentary Film Edit and Story Laboratory, June 21 – 28 in Sundance, Utah. Held in the Wasatch Mountains at Sundance Resort, the Lab convenes filmmakers in the process of making feature-length independent documentaries for an intensive week of creative feedback in a supportive community setting. Films this year span the globe, from stories of life in Post-Soviet societies such as Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Romania, to the role of the United States in areas such as Afghanistan and Yemen.

  Sundance Institute Announces 2009 George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Directors Lab Fellow Andrew Okpeaha MacLean Selected for His Project About Friendship, Murder, and Turmoil in the Arctic
Park City, UT– Sundance Institute announced today that Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, with his distinctive project, On the Ice, will be the 2009 George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Directors Lab Fellow.

PARK CITY, UTAH — When Robert Epstein initially sought to make a film about the dynamic, up-and-coming San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, he had no idea that Milk’s life would end tragically. He also couldn’t predict that The Times of Harvey Milk would screen at the first Sundance Film Festival, win an Academy Award, and decades later inspire a young Dustin Lance Black to write the screenplay for the feature dramatic film Milk. On Wednesday, June 3, at 7 p.

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute today announced the four Fellows and projects selected for the 2009 Sundance Institute Ford Foundation Film Fellowship: Sydney Freeland (Drunktown’s Finest), Adam Piron (The Last Thanksgiving), Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson (Nanum Kigutinga (The Nanuk’s Tooth)), and Brian Young (Walk in Beauty). Chosen from a pool of distinguished artists representing diverse Native communities and backgrounds, these fellows will participate in the Institute’s Native Filmmakers Lab to be held on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico May 18-22, and attend various events at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Under the guidance of Bird Runningwater, Associate Director, Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program, the Native Filmmakers Lab provides an opportunity for Native filmmakers to workshop their early-stage work in an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration and risk-taking.