The Sundance Film Festival has long had a secondary focus on music. This year’s official, Sundance-sanctioned performers will include Lou Reed, who has a documentary short, RED SHIRLEY, premiering in the festival. And there are also afternoon showcases at the Sundance ASCAP Music CafĂ©. The festival provides “an especially welcoming environment for musicians; the Sundance…
If you think things are going to be busy for you during the Sundance Film Festival, spare a thought for the actors who have more than one film premiering there. Take, for instance, Kyle Gallner, a 24-year-old actor who stars in both Kevin Smith’s horror film RED STATE and Elgin James’ in-competition LITTLE BIRDS. Gallner, best…
Of course we’ll be passing along news of acquisition deals at the Sundance Film Festival here on SUNfiltered. But if you’re an obsessive deal tracker, you might also want to bookmark Cinematical’s “Sundance 2011: Full List of All Distribution Deals.” The site promises to update the page throughout the festival with “links to the official…
More Sundance Film Festival picks! The buzz experts at E! Online have compiled a list of “the 15 buzziest films hitting the festival this year.” Their selections — most, if not all, of which feature bold-face names — are … 1) THE SON OF NO ONE 2) HERE 3) FLYPAPER 4) CEDAR RAPIDS 5) LIFE…
Lots of people will be picking through the films at the Sundance Film Festival in search of a common theme, but in an interview with Reuters, festival director John Cooper notes that those themes are not pre-selected by festival organizers, but rather emerge from the films organically, reflecting the concerns and curiosities of our time:…
Which films are you most looking forward to seeing (or hearing about) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off today? Everyone has his or her own picks. New York magazine’s Vulture has just shared its “Ten Most Anticipated Films at Sundance” list with the world, noting, “Sundance is by far the most important…
Here’s one to file under Sundance Film Festival 2011 trends, and frankly, it’s kind of a heart-warmer: A record number of films in the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition were nurtured in the Sundance Institute’s workshops for emerging filmmakers. As Brooks Barnes notes in Wednesday’s New York Times: A number of currents run through the 2011…
The Sundance Film Festival doesn’t officially kick off until tomorrow, but the deal-making action is already heating up. Two more films were snapped up on Tuesday, with A&E picking up Alex Stapleton’s CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL and HBO acquiring all domestic rights to James Marsh’s PROJECT NIM, which will premiere at the…
It must be January. Having packed the Golden Globes, the AFI luncheon, the Broadcast Critics Film Association awards, and a zillion other galas and parties into one weekend, it’s now on to the next thing: Sundance, which kicks off on Thursday, meaning Hollywood has exactly three days to get over their hangovers, charge a few more North Face puffy jackets to the AmEx, and figure out how, exactly, to fit in three movies, four dinners, and two after-parties into one Saturday night.
Here come the judges! With the Sundance Film Festival set to kick off on Thursday, the Sundance Institute has announced the members of the five juries who will decide which films will be taking home not only happy memories from this year’s festival, but awards as well. Actor/director Tim Blake Nelson, a Sundance Institute alum,…
Mere days before the Sundance Film Festival kicks off, later this week, Sony Pictures Classics has snagged the North American, Latin American, Australian and New Zealand rights to Jeff Nichols’ TAKE SHELTER, a psychological thriller starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain that will debut at Sundance in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Deadline.com has the details…
“Sundance Channel HQ” Is TV And Digital Hub For All Of The Films, People And Happenings Of Independent Cinema’s Biggest Festival Sundance Channel sets up shop in Park City, Utah for the network’s biggest ever exclusive, all-access, multimedia experience at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, taking place from January 20th – January 30th.  For the…
The Sundance Film Festival is still more than a week away, but the festival-film deal-making has already begun. Roadside Attractions has snapped up the U.S. theatrical rights to Jim Kohlberg’s THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED, which will premiere on Sundance’s opening night, Deadline.com reports. The film, based on a case-study essay by Dr. Oliver Sacks called…
If you think your home is chaotic and your family connections complex and emotionally fraught, consider the household of Olga Nenya, the subject of Julia Ivanova’s FAMILY PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE, which will be featured in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. In a small Ukrainian Village, Nenya is single-handedly raising…
The Korengal Valley is one of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan, so dangerous, in fact, that it’s known amongst soldiers as “the deadliest place on Earth.” It’s also the setting of RESTREPO, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary on the Second US Platoon that was stationed there for 14-months between May…
When I say that WINTER’S BONE has swept up since its debut in Park City, I’m not just tooting my own Sundance horn. This low-budget wonder has wowed audiences and critics alike in a big way, nabbing the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, along with a recent Best Film…
Exciting news for anyone heading to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and looking forward to the movies and events but dreading the Internet and cell-phone glitchiness the festival has also become known for. Premiering at this year’s festival: Free, reliable high-speed Wi-Fi. The Wall Street Journal reports: To improve the overall festival experience (and encourage…
Amid the short films set to debut at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival is on FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT REVISITED, directed and written by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch. Though information about the film is limited – “After the boys leave the party …” is the only description currently available — there are a several reasons…
How did a couple of New Yorkers, Daniel Meisel and Amy Wendel, end up making a movie about a young, female third-generation Mexican-American high school athlete whose chances of breaking out of her small south Texas town are pinned on winning the state powerlifting championship? As part of its ongoing series of interviews with 2011…
Lou Reed has a reputation as a tough interview – though I honestly found him charming when I sat down with him a few years back – but in his new short film, RED SHIRLEY, which will have a special screening at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the veteran rock star gets a taste of…
Something to seriously look forward to from the Sundance Film Festival, whether you’re headed to Park City or not, is the LIFE IN A DAY project, which promises to tell “the story of a single day on Earth.” How, exactly, does it plan to do that? OK, here’s the deal. A while back, the project’s…
After football star Pat Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan, he was dubbed a national hero was was posthumously bestowed with all the honors befitting that title. His family was informed that he died while charging the enemy in an insurgent attack, effectively saving the lives of the men in his unit. But it…
With more than 100 films set to screen at the Sundance Film Festival this year, festival-goers and watchers from afar can use all the help they can get in figuring out what’s headed their way. One highly useful tool is the series of interviews the website indieWIRE is rolling out in which directors whose films…
Interesting celebrity-sibling fact: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s younger sister, Elizabeth Olsen, is starring in not one but two films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this month. In writer/director Sean Durkin’s MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, the 21-year-old actress (a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School in…
Those of you who haven’t had a bite of McDonald’s food – a sip of shake, a single fry, a morsel of McRib – since Morgan Spurlock’s SUPER SIZE ME permanently altered your perspective will be interested to learn that the filmmaker/provocateur is returning to the Sundance Film Festival this year with THE GREATEST MOVIE…