Sundance Channel Blog

2013 Sundance Film Festival Announces Feature Film Awards very_good_girls_01

Today at Sundance — Day 10: Awards Ceremony, and your last chance to catch Festival premieres jobs_01

Today at Sundance — Day 9: Ashton Kutcher carries the iTorch for Steve Jobs sweetwater_01

Today at Sundance — Day 8: take a trip to the wild west with Ed Harris and January Jones in SWEETWATER

Sundance Film Festival

Article: Amy Adams' road less traveled leads straight to Oscar

Posted September 05th, 2012, 2:09 PM by Sean O'Connell

It was, at the time, the pinnacle of Amy Adams’ career.

By 2005, Adams had appeared in a handful of television shows (The West Wing, Smallville) and logged a minor role in Steven Spielberg’s CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. But her open-hearted performance as sweet and simple pregnant Southerner Ashley in Phil Morrison’s JUNEBUG put her on the map, establishing her as one of the brightest new stars in Hollywood. The buzz began with a Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and continued as she won an Independent Spirit Award, multiple critics’ group nominations, a Critics’ Choice Award and an Oscar nomination.

Article: Review Revue: PARANORMAN, COMPLIANCE, ROBOT AND FRANK

Posted August 16th, 2012, 1:08 PM by Dan Heching

Going to the movies should never, ever be stressful (unless, of course, you’re planning on seeing the latest Lars von Trier flick). You want to see something new and relevant so that you can talk it up with your know-it-all friends. But you don’t want to sit through the one film that everyone thought would be great but… isn’t. So here is our formula, simplifying the should-you-see-it conundrum:
5 new releases x 2 critical samplings = what you should go see.

Simple enough, right? This week we have a serious creep, a kid born from a tree, RPatz cruisin’ in a limo, a jewel thief assisted by a robot and some unmentionable activity in the back of a fast-food joint.

Article: No snoozing — SLEEPWALK WITH ME is here!

Posted August 10th, 2012, 4:08 PM by Nina Hämmerling Smith

Comedian Mike Birbiglia turned a kind of serious problem — chronic sleepwalking — into one helluva funny story, about relationships, marriage and stand-up comedy. SLEEPWALK WITH ME won the Best of Next! Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Check out the trailer:

Article: Trailer alert: Sundance favorite YOUR SISTER'S SISTER

Posted August 10th, 2012, 3:08 PM by Sundance Channel

Filmmaker Lynn Shelton had a comedy hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival with YOUR SISTER’S SISTER, a surprising and compelling exploration of the rivalry between contrasting sisters. There is Iris (Emily Blunt), a flighty professional whose best friend, Jack (Mark Duplass), is still grieving the loss of his brother one-year prior. Iris, who used to date Jack’s brother, invites Jack to her family’s remote cabin in the woods to find himself. Unbeknownst to Iris, her older sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), a lesbian fresh out of a seven-year relationship, is laying low at the cabin, and a rowdy night of tequila drinking between Jack and Hannah kicks off a bizarre stretch of days — made even more hilariously awkward when Emily pops in for an unexpected visit.

Article: BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD's Sundance journey

Posted June 28th, 2012, 1:06 PM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

It’s no secret we’re stoked about this week’s release of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD. It was the breakout hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and, just between you and me, everybody was crying their eyes out at the screening I went to (and it was all critics, media and film industry folks — not the softest bunch). So, to get you ready to see the movie talking about lately, we’ve rounded up what we’ve got on the festival fave.

Article: Review Revue: BEASTS are pure MAGIC

Posted June 28th, 2012, 1:06 PM by Dan Heching

Going to the movies should never, ever be stressful (unless, of course, you’re planning on seeing the latest Lars von Trier flick). You want to see something new and relevant so that you can talk it up with your know-it-all friends. But you don’t want to sit through the one film that everyone thought would be great, but…isn’t. So here is our formula, simplifying the should-you-see-it conundrum:
5 new releases x 2 critical samplings = what you should go see.

Simple enough, right? This week we have stormy little girl hero, a vulgar talking stuffed animal, mystery siblings, flirty Torontonians and some hot male strippers.

Article: From Amanda Palmer to DETROPIA: How established artists build crowdfunding communities

Posted June 06th, 2012, 10:06 AM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

We’re used to our friends’ Kickstarter pleas and occasionally throw cash their way (the average project that meets its funding goals rakes in about $5,000). Recently, however, some big names in indie talent have made headlines thanks to their own campaigns on the crowdfunding platform. In this corner, we’ve got punk cabaret doyenne Amanda Palmer, who raised almost $1.2 million via Kickstarter to fund her new album. And in the blue trunks, we’ve got Oscar-nominated documentarians Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (JESUS CAMP, THE BOYS OF BARAKA), who wowed everyone at Sundance with their latest film DETROPIA, but still failed to find a distribution deal. Instead, they’ve

Article: Dear Readers, Thanks for helping us win some Webbys

Posted May 02nd, 2012, 1:05 PM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

Wow! We’re touched (in a totally platonic way). You, dear readers, helped us run away with two Webby Awards this year. Our Sundance Film Festival site scorched the Peoples’ Voice competition and the Sundance Channel original series BEGINNINGS beat down the field for best Documentary Series. Congratulations to all of the winners! We’re breaking out the Champ…oh, I mean the Prosecco right now.

Article: Top 10 festival films you need to see ASAP

Posted April 24th, 2012, 2:04 PM by Matt Singer

Memorial Day is less than a month away and summer movie season is just around the corner. But if super-heroes ain’t your cup of cinematic tea, don’t fret: there are some excellent independent films coming out in the weeks and months ahead, and no one wears tights in any of them. In honor of the Tribeca Film Festival, which is rolling through New York City this week, here’s a list of some of 2012 festival favorites — from Tribeca, Sundance, South by Southwest, New Directors / New Films, and Cannes — hitting art house screens in the near future. With movies like these to keep you busy, it’ll be Labor Day (and Oscar Season) before you know it.

Article: More ways to see Sundance Festival films

Posted April 13th, 2012, 2:04 PM by Sundance Institute

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, today announced that the Institute’s Artist Services program has expanded to include four additional platforms and storefronts on which Institute-supported artists can make their work available to the public. New agreements with Microsoft Xbox, SnagFilms, Sony Entertainment Network’s Video Unlimited service and VUDU complement existing relationships with iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, Netflix, SundanceNOW and YouTube. Films will be available this summer on the platforms and storefronts announced today.

Article: Release the BEASTS (OF THE SOUTHERN WILD)

Posted February 23rd, 2012, 10:02 AM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

Sundance Film Festival favorite, and Grand Jury Prize winner, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD has a release date and we couldn’t be more excited. Now all of the folks we’ve been raving about the film to will be able to see it and figure out what we’ve been talking about. Because when I tell people I saw this amazing, post-apocalyptic fairytale about a brave young girl, melting polar ice, prehistoric warthogs and Hurricane Katrina, they generally look at me as though I’m crazy.

Article: Memorable quotes from Sundance 2012

Posted January 31st, 2012, 10:01 AM by Marlow Stern

This year’s edition of the Sundance Film Festival, like most years, featured an abundance of witty, memorable lines. Here are some of the best quotes heard in films that screened during this year’s fest….

Article: The Best of Sundance 2012

Posted January 31st, 2012, 10:01 AM by Marlow Stern

Now that the 2012 Sundance Film Festival is just a snowy, hectic memory, it’s time to bestow our own awards on the films we can’t get out of our heads….

Article: A (fairly) complete Sundance 2012 acquisitions list

Posted January 30th, 2012, 3:01 PM by Matt Singer

In our last distribution round-up, we compared the acquisition market at Sundance ’12 to a domino rally. Now, on the last day of the festival, it looks like that scene in every apocalypse movie where a terrified mob raids a grocery store, with people in a desperate scramble to get whatever they can before the shop closes forever. In three days, at least eleven distribution deals closed, with several more reportedly almost finalized.

Article: BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD: Director and star dish on the making of the best movie at Sundance

Posted January 29th, 2012, 12:01 AM by Marlow Stern

Benh Zeitlin, the 29-year-old director of the most talked-about movie—and now, winner of the coveted Grand Jury Prize—at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, is running late. So Quvenzhané “Nazie” Wallis, star of Zeitlin’s film, does what any other 8-year-old girl would do to pass the time—eats a couple oranges, guzzles a can of Sprite, extols the virtues of ‘Wizards of Waverly Place,’ and parks herself in front of my laptop computer for a rousing game of ‘Ninja Painter.’ It’s a far cry from the crawfish, vodka, and cardboard box-cave painting of her character, Hushpuppy.

Article: The Sundance '12 Awards (according to Twitter)

Posted January 29th, 2012, 12:01 AM by Matt Singer

It’s indie film, man: when things go wrong, you roll with the punches and improvise. So when Parker Posey, the scheduled host for the Sundance ’12 Awards Show fell ill, the fest found a replacement — BLACK ROCK director and star Katie Aselton — who teamed up with Festival Director John Cooper to emcee the evening. Things chugged along without missing a beat. “I’ve always wanted to be Parker Posey,” quipped Aselton.

Article: 2012 Sundance Film Festival Award Winners

Posted January 28th, 2012, 11:01 PM by Sundance Channel

Sundance Institute this evening announced the Jury, Audience, NEXT and other special awards of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony, hosted by Parker Posey in Park City, Utah. An archived video of the ceremony in its entirety is available at www.sundance.org/live.

“Every year the Sundance Film Festival brings to light exciting new directions and fresh voices in independent film, and this year is no different,” said John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival. “While these awards further distinguish those that have had the most impact on audiences and our jury, the level of talent showcased across the board at the Festival was really impressive, and all are to be congratulated and thanked for sharing their work with us.”

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “As we close what was a remarkable 10 days of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, we look to the year ahead with incredible optimism for the independent film community. As filmmakers continue to push each other to achieve new heights in storytelling we are excited to see what’s next.”

Article: The Sundance Review Revue: 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK

Posted January 28th, 2012, 5:01 PM by Matt Singer

You see a lot of different genres at Sundance, but there’s one kind of movie — the most popular kind of movie, as far as the filmmaking establishment is concerned — that you almost never see in Park City: sequels. Julie Delpy’s 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK is a rare exception, and a follow-up to the actress’ critically acclaimed 2007 film 2 DAYS IN PARIS. In that film Delpy’s Marion and her boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) travel to Paris for a vacation intended to rekindle their sputtering romance. In NEW YORK, the romance has officially sputtered out, and Marion now lives with a new boyfriend, a journalist and radio host named Mingus, played by Chris Rock. Marion’s crazy French family travels to Manhattan for a visit and sends the couple’s relatively carefree lives into chaos.

Article: Oscar-winning MAN ON WIRE director James Marsh rips Best Doc Oscar noms, talks brilliant new film SHADOW DANCER

Posted January 28th, 2012, 1:01 PM by Marlow Stern

The opening salvo was fired on Nov. 18. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released their short list of 15 films for the Best Documentary Oscar, and many in the industry were up in arms. Where was THE INTERRUPTERS? No SENNA? Then, the actual nominees for the Academy Award for Best Documentary were announced on Jan. 24, and people were appropriately outraged.

One of the biggest snubs was PROJECT NIM, the poignant doc by Oscar-winning MAN ON WIRE filmmaker James Marsh about Nim, a chimpanzee who in the became the focus of a groundbreaking experiment in the 1970s attempting to teach apes to communicate. For a time, Nim was even raised in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Following MAN ON WIRE and PROJECT NIM, James Marsh is back at the Sundance Film Festival with SHADOW DANCER—a brilliant IRA drama set in 1990s Belfast about a young mother, played by Andrea Riseborough (in a spellbinding performance), who is forced to collaborate with an MI5 officer (Clive Owen) and act as an informant spying on her own brothers. The slow-burning thriller is already garnering comparisons to TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, and is one of the best films to screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Article: Follow the Sundance Film Festival Awards LIVE!

Posted January 28th, 2012, 1:01 PM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

Still bummed you couldn’t make it out to Park City? Well, Sundance Channel will be at the awards ceremony tonight and we promise to bring you up-to-the-minute reports on the winners, the losers and who is passing out from “altitude sickness”. Make sure you are following @SundanceChannel so you don’t miss a thing. And, if you’re really committed, you can watch a

Article: Joseph Gordon-Levitt opens up about hitRECord and DARK KNIGHT RISES’ Occupy Wall Street vibe

Posted January 28th, 2012, 1:01 AM by Marlow Stern

It’s more than an hour ‘til show time and the ticketholder tent outside the 1,270-seat Eccles Theatre, the Grand Théâtre Lumière of Sundance, is bursting at the seams for Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hitRECord: A Night at the Movies. Thus, the less punctual attendees are forced to brave the heavy snow and form a long line wrapping around the theatre. Judging by the high volume of beanies, as well as girls dragging their boyfriends around like disgruntled parents, the crowd is skewing very young—save a handful of older men who look like Julian Schnabel.

Article: KID-THING premiere photos: A total charm offensive

Posted January 27th, 2012, 2:01 PM by Sundance Channel

Actor-director (and parent sharing) duo David and Nathan Zellner returned to Park City with KID-THING. And despite the fact that they were often upstaged by their adorable, and incredibly talented, star Sydney Aguirre, the brothers Zellner charmed their way through Park City. Find out more about the film and check out our entire gallery of the day:

Article: Top Ten: Bad girls, good films at Sundance 2012

Posted January 27th, 2012, 1:01 PM by Paul Ohan

Everybody loves a bad girl, and the indie crowd at Sundance is no exception. This year we had ladies heating up the phone lines, facing off with nature and, well…doing drugs in the powder room. But, mirror, mirror on the wall? Who is the best bad girl of them all? You’ll have to read on to find out:

Article: My Premiere: Watch SAVE THE DATE director Michael Mohan premiere his film

Posted January 27th, 2012, 1:01 PM by Michelle Byrnes-Carney

Director Michael Mohan says his film SAVE THE DATE was a huge team effort, but the night (or afternoon, really) belonged to him. Follow Michael from writing his opening remarks to catching up with his cast and letting the applause from his premiere fill in. Check out all of the photos…and watch the My Premiere video.

Article: THE HOUSE I LIVE IN: A fascinating expose on the (racist) war on drugs

Posted January 27th, 2012, 12:01 PM by Marlow Stern

Since 1970, it has cost America $2.5 trillion and led to 44 million arrests.

Of the 2.3 million Americans behind bars, 500,000 have been arrested for it

Due in large part to its excessively draconian laws, with only five percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for 25 percent of its prisoners.

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