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Creating, connecting, and contributing
A few weeks ago, I read a letter from George Saunders to his students at Syracuse University. He pointed out that while we may not have experienced a pandemic quite like this before, this is not the first or the last time the world has been upended. “And always there have been writers to observe it,” he wrote, “and (later) make some sort of sense of it, or at least bear witness to it. It’s good for the world for a writer to bear witness, and it’s good for the writer, too.”
Between sickness, anxiety, crushing financial realities, and isolation, it’s not easy to make art in a pandemic. A recent survey from Americans for the Arts found that 95 percent of artists have lost income because of COVID-19. But even in the face of extraordinary hardship, artists are doing extraordinary things: the vast majority report that they have used their work to raise morale, help those who are struggling, or bring people together.
Over the last few weeks, we at Sundance have found ourselves passing around stories of artists who are finding new ways to provide hope and joy, bring people together, and lift up their communities. These stories have been a bright spot, and helped guide us as we navigate a tumultuous time. So we come to you today not with program updates or announcements but to hopefully pass along a little inspiration.
As people everywhere continue to respond to this crisis, the actions of these artists and many others are a reminder that creativity, joy, resilience, and compassion are all around us, even in uncertain times. We look forward to continuing to lift up the stories of artists who are creating, connecting, and contributing: If you or someone you know is using art to make a difference, we’d love to hear from you; please share your project on Twitter or Instagram and tag us (@sundanceorg).
Last week, filmmaker, Sundance Institute alumnus, and Sundance Labs creative advisor Rodrigo García captured what so many are feeling in a beautiful letter to his father, Gabriel García Márquez: “I’m still in a fog. It seems for now that I’ll have to wait for the masters, present and future, to metabolize the shared experience. I look forward to that day. A song, a poem, a movie or a novel will finally point me in the general direction of where my thoughts and feelings are buried. In the meantime, the planet keeps turning and life is still mysterious, powerful, and astonishing.”
We’re grateful to everyone using art to lead the way forward and shine a light on all that is mysterious, powerful, and astonishing.
Thank you,
Keri Putnam
Executive Director
To read past COVID-19 updates from the Institute, please visit our archive.
Many of our summer programs, including our labs, are moving onto our digital platform, Sundance Co//ab.
A Note from the Sundance Co//ab Team
We have thought a lot about our programming and really want to keep it going for the many of you who are already planning to participate in our upcoming events.To make it a bit easier for everyone for the next few months, we are going to make all of our member webinars and Master Classes free to attend. We will also be adding a forum for your questions and concerns at this time where we encourage you to support one another, to tell your stories, and to be generous as always with listening and advice. We will soon be adding a focus for any ideas, questions or concerns you want to share with us, where questions will be answered by Sundance Institute staff and artist mentors, advisors, and alumni.
Our team has been thinking deeply about the programming we will roll out this month to help support you. Please check the newsletter where we'll add our special events and features to the top. There will be new programs as we take some of our live programs digital, and also special events dedicated to addressing the impact of the pandemic and the economic slowdown on the creative community.
We are all in this together and will do everything we can to ensure that this community supports you and your work. We look forward to your energy, creativity and brilliance at this time, so please use the forum to let us know what you need.
Michelle Satter
Founding Director, Feature Film Program
Tara Hein-Phillips
Chief Product Officer, Sundance Co//ab
Sundance Institute labs, intensives, and sessions will take place on our digital platform, Sundance Co//ab, through August 31, 2020.
Applications are still open. Learn more about the latest Sundance Institute opportunities as we continue our commitment to offering dynamic programming that supports artists at every step of the creative journey.
Sundance Film Festival: London to be rescheduled
Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong to be rescheduled
Announcing the Sundance Institute COVID-19 Respond and Reimagine Plan with $1Million in Emergency Relief for Independent Artists and Organizations
Being an independent artist means daring to tell bold, authentic stories with no strings attached and no compromises. It means taking risks, centering new perspectives, searching for meaning, and deepening our connection to the world around us.
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a bright light on the importance of art, reminding us that, as Joan Didion famously wrote, “we tell ourselves stories in order to live.” It has also laid bare the vulnerability of independent artists, who are mostly freelance workers and often left out of the current support systems despite their cultural and economic impact. Further, our attention is called to examine the systems and structures across our field that were already stressed and now face serious threats, from independent cinemas to acquisitions for smaller and risk-taking independent films.
To put it bluntly: There can be no return to business as usual. When history looks back, this will either be the moment when we invested in artists, making it possible to turn what we’re feeling during these scary and surreal times into powerful, lasting creative work -- or it will be the moment we lost a generation of art and artists because we failed to support them when and how they most needed it. That’s why it is so urgent and essential to dig deep, even if it means making sacrifices, and act now to ensure that the world on the other side of the pandemic is one that’s full of art, storytelling, and vibrant, diverse perspectives.
Listening to artists and colleagues across our field, we recognize the need for an urgent response to the current crisis combined with longer-term reimagination of the ways we support artists and design the systems that enable their work to reach audiences. Today we are announcing part of our urgent response, as we continue to work towards longer and sustainable solutions.
Three things are clear: First, it is essential that significant resources go directly to artists who are struggling financially, in order to support their basic needs and their work. Second, the need right now is greater than any one artist or group and disproportionately affects artists from historically underrepresented communities. Third, it’s clear that collaboration and collective impact will be needed to address the extent of the challenge.
This moment calls for a radical shift in strategy in the way we support independent artists in film, media, and theatre. We are launching a $1 million urgent fund to support the immediate needs of artists in our community, as well as other filmmakers in need and organizations that share our focus on inclusive storytelling.
One-third of the fund will support Sundance Institute-curated artists, while two-thirds will be dedicated to emergency support for the wider community of independent artists, deployed in collaboration with partner nonprofit organizations.
In addition to financial resources, we have identified through our artist feedback urgent needs for support and training on several key topics -- including mental health, community building, and distribution and marketing strategy. We are creating a series of free public and private offerings for independent artists on Sundance Co//ab, which launched earlier this year, and is a community for global storytellers to learn, share work, and find resources. We have been particularly inspired to see that Co//ab users have grown four-fold in the last month, now reaching 50,000 people in more than 190+ countries.
For additional details on the criteria and application processes, visit our Artist Opportunities page. Applications are now open for the Artist Relief funds and can be found at www.artistrelief.org.
This is just the first step -- but it is an important one. We are extraordinarily grateful to our long-standing foundation and corporate donors for allowing us the opportunity to use their generous funding in a responsive, urgent way. We extend our thanks in particular to the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Family Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, Luminate, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Open Society Foundations, Sandbox Films, and Southwest Airlines. We are also grateful to the teams at Sundance Institute who have worked hard to build out this new plan. We are still raising funds to support the immediate needs of artists and address the longer-term impacts on our industry, and we are encouraged to see so many people joining these efforts.
As so many people the world over are reimagining what it means to be connected to one another, this is an important moment to send a message to independent artists: You are not alone. You are part of a resilient community -- a community that will continue to be a much-needed source of refuge, empathy, inspiration, and collective power in the days and weeks to come.
In solidarity and gratitude,
Keri Putnam
Executive Director
Michelle Satter
Founding Director, Feature Film Program
Tabitha Jackson
Festival Director
In these tumultuous times, artists have been on our minds, along with all of our friends and colleagues in arts, entertainment, and media whose jobs and organizations have been hard hit by the pandemic and accompanying economic instability.
We are inspired by everyone who is using this time of fear and uncertainty to find meaning in the form of poems, stories, essays, images, and ideas. The scale and urgency of this challenge are extraordinary, but so are the resilience, generosity, and community we have seen from our global community of artists. If we can approach this moment with that spirit, and listen to those who embody it, we can weather this crisis with our humanity intact and reimagine a future where we are more connected than ever before.
It’s clear from talking to artists and colleagues at nonprofits and in business that this moment calls for innovation, flexibility, and collaboration. Like many organizations, we at Sundance have spent the last weeks adapting to these circumstances that are so far beyond our control: transitioning teams to remote work, rethinking upcoming events, and preparing to weather the economic impact on our work, our community, and independent film and performing arts writ large. We wanted to share an update on where we are right now, and will continue to communicate going forward.
Finding our way through this situation as individuals and organizations -- and as a field -- is difficult, but it is also an opportunity to recognize and draw strength from the fact that we are all in this together. I have never been prouder to work with such a passionate, dedicated, and creative team of colleagues. We are committed to collective action and impact, to a spirit of experimentation, and to the very hard work ahead maintaining the health and vitality of Sundance and its mission in the face of this adversity.
More than 80 years ago, Bertolt Brecht asked and answered a question that has been on many of our minds these last several weeks:
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
We know many of you in our larger community, along with others around the world, are facing similar challenges, and we stand with you. We are immensely grateful for your support, and we look forward to the singing that will no doubt emerge from these dark times.
Keri