Category: News

Like many of you, I find myself reflecting and looking ahead to a new year, with both optimism and a sense of trepidation.I’m hoping it will bring positive changes: a return to democratic values, more justice for all, less divisions and anger, and a renewed consciousness for our civic duty to protect the environment we all depend on, no matter which political party we align with.I’m also looking back a bit (something I don’t allow myself to do too often).

Distinctive Projects from Unique Voices Reflect Boldness and Passion;
Ten Alumni Projects to Premiere at 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Los Angeles, CA — Fifteen screenwriters from countries including the U.S., Lebanon, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom will bring twelve projects to the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, taking place January 18-23, 2019 at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute spotlights work at the dynamic crossroads of film, art and
technology with the New Frontier selections for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, announced today. This curated
collection of cutting-edge independent and experimental media works are by creators who are pushing artistic
innovation across new mediums that include VR, AR, mixed reality (MR) and AI. Programmers assembled a global slate of
work from a mix of invitations and submissions to an open call for VR work earlier this year.

Four projects include New Work from Palestine, Australia and U.S.A.

12 Episodic Works, 73 Short Films, 4 Special Events Join Festival Slate
Park City, UT — Works selected across the Indie Episodic, Shorts and Special Events sections of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival were announced today, underlining Sundance Institute’s commitment to showcasing bold independent storytelling regardless of form, format or length.
Kim Yutani, the Festival’s Director of Programming, said “Our newly-expanded programming team took in a full spectrum of human experience across genres and formats in creating this year’s Festival program. Following the success of last year’s inaugural Indie Episodic section, we’re immensely proud to showcase these stories told across installments, alongside several provocative, conversation-starting Special Events.

A theater can serve as a sanctuary of sorts. Stories on screen can whisk us off to worlds unknown, or introduce us to voices seldom heard. They can liberate us from the clamor of daily life, or excavate truth when it’s been submerged for far too long.

RECORD-BREAKING 14,259 SUBMISSIONS FROM 152 COUNTRIES

Pahokee, photo by Patrick Bresnan
Park City, UT — The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the showcase of new independent
feature films selected across all categories for the
2019 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival hosts
screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, from January 24 – February 3, 2019.
The Festival is the Institute’s public program flagship alongside Festivals in London and Hong Kong and other
screenings and events elsewhere throughout the year.

Reimagined Program Expands Former Women at Sundance Fellowship to Include Artists from Underrepresented Communities; Alexandria Bombach (On Her Shoulders) and Yance Ford (Strong Island) Among Artists Supported

Los Angeles — Sundance Institute announced today the eight members of the inaugural class of the Momentum Fellowship, a full-year program of deep, customized creative and professional support for writers, directors, and producers from underrepresented communities working across documentary and feature filmmaking, episodic content, and virtual reality, who are poised to take the next step in their careers.

The Momentum Fellowship evolved from the former Women at Sundance Fellowship, a highly successful model that merited evolution and expansion for impact across a greater cohort of underrepresented communities. Those eligible for this larger, more intersectional program now include artists identifying as women, non-binary, and/or transgender, artists of color, and artists with disabilities.

Park City, Utah — With less than two weeks until the program is announced, and less than three
months until Day One, Sundance Institute today announces new hires on its programming team and new initiatives to
deepen support for independent storytellers and broaden access to the Festival. The 2019 Festival will showcase work
drawn from over 14,200 submissions, a record high.
Kim Yutani, the Festival’s recently-named Director of Programming, said: “This
year’s record-breaking number of submissions are phenomenally strong: we’re invigorated and inspired by
the work we’ve been seeing.

ReFrame and IMDbPro Recognize Gender-Balanced TV Programs including “GLOW,” “Insecure,” “Jane the Virgin,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “This Is Us”
Los Angeles, CA — ReFrame™ (ReFrameProject.org), a coalition of industry professionals and partner companies founded by Women In Film and Sundance Institute—whose mission is to increase the number of women of all backgrounds working in film, TV and media—and IMDbPro (imdbpro.

Fifteen Filmmakers Ages 18 to 24 Selected from Short Film Competition to Receive Year of Creative and Professional Mentorship, All-Expenses-Paid Trip to 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute and Adobe announced the class of 2019 Sundance Ignite Fellows today, chosen from a broad global pool of more than 1,200 applicants. The fifteen 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers selected for this one-year fellowship hail from three continents, with creative groundings spanning from personal documentaries to commercial content to narrative shorts.
“This year’s Sundance Ignite fellows are an immensely talented group of emerging artists, creating stories that are at the forefront of what’s next in our culture.

The Sundance ShortsCast is now live on Soundcloud, where you can listen to upcoming filmmakers discuss the unique and crazy backstories behind their short films that played the Sundance Film Festival. These bite-sized podcasts were recorded during the Festival and go up every Monday and Wednesday. To kick off the series, we checked in with ShortCast host and Sundance Film Festival senior programmer Mike Plante.