Newspapers are on their way out, and documentaries have taken the place of investigative journalism. That’s what our boss said in an interview with the BBC a few months back.
Which is why it’s especially significant that earlier this week, Sundance Institute announced the titles of 27 feature-length documentary films that will receive $490,000 in grants from its Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP).
Filmmaker Benh Zeitlin (BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD) and philanthropist George Gund will be the first-ever recipients of the Sundance Institute Vanguard Awards, presented by Tiffany & Co. The awards will be given at the second annual ‘Celebrate Sundance Institute’ benefit, June 6 in Los Angeles.
Sundance Institute and the Time Warner Foundation announced today the seven artists selected for the 2012 Sundance Institute | Time Warner Foundation Fellowship Program. Each Fellow was identified by one of the following core programs of the Institute: Documentary Film Program, Feature Film Program, Film Music Program, Native American & Indigenous Film Program and Theatre Program.
Sundance Institute today announced the 13 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 28 through June 28. Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, and the artistic direction of Gyula Gazdag, the projects selected for this year’s program include emerging filmmakers and projects from the United States, Italy, Romania, Australia, Algeria, France, Chile and the UK.
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.
Sundance Institute and The O2 announced today that BRIT Award-nominated psychedelic pop band Guillemots and Academy Award-winning musician/actor Glen Hansard will join the Opening Night Event An Evening with Robert Redford and T Bone Burnett at the first-ever Sundance London film and music festival on 26 April at The O2. Guillemots and Glen Hansard will perform separately during the event.
A still from CLEAR CUT: THE STORY OF PHILOMATH, OREGON
Sundance Institute announced thirteen films supported by the Institute that are for the first time available to rent, download and stream. Look for the films on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, SundanceNOW and YouTube. Films will be available on Netflix on March 1. For a full list of titles and where they are available, visit sundance.org/nowplaying or join Sundance Institute’s social media communities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Kickstarter.
Sundance Institute announced today the 22 members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the host of the Awards Ceremony on January 28. The Festival takes place January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Every week there are dozens of film news stories. Every week, we read them all and bring you the five most important ones in the single most important blog post you’ll ever read (today [at this moment]).
1. Sundance Alumni Head Upstream for Distribution
Thousands of movies have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival over the years, but only a comparative handful of those movies ever find theatrical distribution. Now a new partnership between the Sundance Institute and film distributor New Video will offer hope to festival filmmakers whose work has fallen through the cracks of the studio system. Soon any director that’s ever played Park City will have the opportunity to release his or her film through Sundance/New Video onto one (or all) of six web portals: Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, YouTube and SundanceNOW. Let the reconsideration of forgotten 90s indie gems begin. [The New York Times]
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the films from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival that will screen in independent theaters in nine different cities around the country. The screenings are part of Sundance Film Festival USA, a program designed to bring the Festival experience to film-loving audiences nationwide. The 2012 Sundance Film Festival takes place January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
On January 26, the second Thursday of the Sundance Film Festival, nine filmmakers will each travel from Utah to one of the following cities: Ann Arbor, MI; Boston, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Chicago, IL; Houston, TX; Nashville, TN; Orlando, FL; San Francisco, CA; and Tucson, AZ. Their travel is courtesy of Official Airline Sponsor Southwest Airlines. In each city, the filmmaker will introduce and screen their film and participate in a Q&A with the audience. A video featuring highlights from this year’s Sundance Film Festival will precede each screening.
The Sundance Film Festival USA initiative was established in 2010.
Sundance Institute announced today the program of short films selected to screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. This year’s Short Film program is comprised of 64 short films selected from a record 7,675 submissions, up 16% over submissions for the 2011 Festival. The Festival will be January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the out-of-competition Premieres and Documentary Premieres sections of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival will be held January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival.
Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the 2012 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT and New Frontier. The Festival takes place from January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival.
Looks like it just got easier for new filmmakers to raise money and promote their projects. The Sundance Institute has announced plans to team up with online crowdfunding company Kickstarter to help the Institute’s artists and alumni – including lab participants, grant recipients and festival filmmakers – place their projects on Kickstarter.com with Sundance branding…
“O.K., what’s up?” This is how Robert Redford, i.e. The Most Important Person on The Planet, as far as the Sundance Film Festival is concerned, starts a conversation. It’s Friday afternoon, and he’s just finished an interview for Sundance Channel, is about to dash off to do God knows what (judging by the number of…
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…
Robert Redford (R) with President Sarkozy (L). (Photo by FRANCOIS MORI/AFP/Getty Images) OCTOBER 14, 2010-(Paris, France)- Robert Redford received one of France’s most highly esteemed recognitions today in Paris, the emblem of the “Légion d’Honneur” established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. Redford was acknowledged for his work as actor and director, his decades long involvement…
Speaking about his long-time friend and mentor, Robert Redford told a crowd in New York City that he learned a great deal from the late Paul Newman, especially generosity. “Back then it was really about actors playing roles. It wasn’t until later that it became more about actors’ personalities,” Redford told a packed theater at Lincoln Center.
The crowd enthusiastically hung on Redford’s words. This was no doubt because of the star power of the great actor, director and Sundance Institute creator (particularly because the audience skewed toward his generation), but perhaps even more so because the crowd was packed with committed environmentalists. This was a special, intimate conversation between Redford, a longtime green leader, and veteran radio journalist Bob Edwards (formerly of NPR and now of Sirius radio), hosted by the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council (Watch video of NRDC head Frances Beinecke accepting a 2009 Heart of Green Award).
Sundance Institute announced today the first five grant recipients of the STORIES OF CHANGE: SOCIALENTREPRENEURSHIP IN FOCUS THROUGH DOCUMENTARY initiative, a $3 million, three-year partnership with the Skoll Foundation designed to explore the role of film in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship. This partnership creates new opportunities for leading social entrepreneurs and outstanding documentary filmmakers to collaborate and to create new projects about the innovative approaches found in both fields. The development and production grant awards announced today support the creation of feature-length independent documentary films that examine social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to the central challenges of our time.
Sundance Institute announced today the program of short films selected to screen at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. This year the Festival’s Short Film Program comprises a record 96 short films from 5,632 submissions, from U.S. and international filmmakers. Submissions grew by 10% over last year. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival runs January 15-25 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah.
Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films screening at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in the out-of-competition sections of Premieres, Spectrum, New Frontier, and Park City at Midnight. Celebrating its 25th year, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival runs January 15-25 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. A complete list of the films is available at Sundance Institute’s website at www.sundance.org/festival.
Sundance Institute announced today that Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape (1989 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award Winner) and Wendell B. Harris’s Chameleon Street (1990 Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize Winner) have been selected for the Festival’s From the Collection screenings. Each year the Festival presents two retrospective screenings of influential feature-length films from the Sundance Collection at UCLA, paying tribute to significant works in the history of independent film.
Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions for the 25th Sundance Film Festival. In addition to the four Competition categories, the Festival presents films in five out-of-competition sections to be announced tomorrow. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival runs January 15-25 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah.
While many acquisition execs, journalists, and film goers were often confused by what to make of the tangled mess of films at this year’s Sundance Festival, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis seems to have already named this year as a movement. In “New American Realism Emerges Amid Grousing and Hummers [www.nytimes.com],” Dargis identifies a certain perspective that permeates the better films this year:
Today, the Sundance Institute announced the events that are part of Sundance en Espanol, a celebration of Latin films and filmmakers participating in the Sundance Film Festival, January 17-27, 2008. This event features a collection of six Spanish Language films and four films in English by Hispanic and Latino directors, selected from the Festival program to screen in Salt Lake City on the evening of Wednesday, January 23, 2008. Each film was selected by the Festival’s programming team and reflects a variety of Spanish speaking cultures, from the indigenous Kuna Yala peoples of Panama to teens in Peru and struggling lovers in Mexico, seeking a better life. Sundance en Espanol celebrates independent films that speak to the diverse Latino communities, here in Utah,” says Jill Miller, Managing Director, Sundance Institute. “We chose films that range in place, voice and emotion, so our local community has a chance to enjoy some of the best offerings of the festival.”