Released: 05/08/08

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE SUPPORTS SCIENCE IN FILM

Los Angeles – Sundance Institute today announced filmmaker Michael Almereyda as the recipient of the 2008 Sundance/Sloan Commissioning Grant for THE STANLEY MILGRAM PROJECT and screenwriter Ryan Knighton as the recipient of the 2008 Sloan Fellowship for his script COCKEYED. Both the Fellowship and the Grant are part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's collaboration with the Institute's Feature Film Program to support independent screenwriters and directors developing projects exploring themes of science and technology.

“We're pleased to support Ryan and Michael who both demonstrate a powerful vision and individuality that is at the heart of independent film," said Ken Brecher, Executive Director of the Sundance Institute. “As recipients of Alfred P. Sloan Grants and Fellowships, these filmmakers are receiving critical support to help develop their projects."

“We’re delighted to continue our partnership with the Sundance Institute’s renowned Feature Film Program and to support such original and surprising ways of mining science and technology to tell captivating stories and portray vivid characters through cinematic art,” said Doron Weber, Sloan Program Director. “We applaud these two highly gifted, independent filmmakers.”

2008 Sundance/Sloan Commissioning Grant Recipient — Michael Almereyda

Michael Almereyda receives a $25,000 grant to develop the treatment for THE STANLEY MILGRAM PROJECT into a screenplay. Almereyda will continue to receive creative and strategic support from Feature Film Program staff as the development of the project progresses. THE STANLEY MILGRAM PROJECT screenplay centers on the obedience experiments conducted at Yale University between 1961 and 1962 -- experiments that came to be notorious for showing how “ordinary” people, yielding to authority figures, were capable of inflicting harm on fellow human beings.  The story will also provide a portrait of the man behind the experiments, Stanley Milgram, including his time at Harvard in the mid 60s, when Milgram came up with his “Small World” theory, the core idea behind Six Degrees of Separation -- exploring the puzzle of human identity and the unpredictable interconnectedness of modern urban life.

Michael Almereyda’s films include ANOTHER GIRL ANOTHER PLANET, NADJA, HAMLET, THIS SO-CALLED DISASTER, and WILLIAM EGGLESTON IN THE REAL WORLD.  His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, The Believer, and Film Comment.  He edited the anthology “Night Wraps the Sky, Writings By and About Mayakovsky,” published  last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

2008 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow — Ryan Knighton

Ryan Knighton brought his screenplay COCKEYED to the Institute's 2008 January Screenwriters Lab. Based on his memoir, COCKEYED tells the story of a working class punk rocker/poet whose life is transformed by the unexpected onset of blindness, forcing him to wrestle with issues of identity, family and love.  At the Lab, Knighton met one-on-one with experienced screenwriting advisors including Michael Goldenberg (HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX), Tom Rickman (COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER), and Pulitzer Prize-Winner Doug Wright. Knighton will receive ongoing creative and strategic support from Feature Film Program staff as well as mini-grants for living stipends and technical advice from a scientific advisor.

On his 18th birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a congenital disease marked by a progressive pathology of night-blindness, tunnel vision, and eventually total blindness. The book COCKEYED was shortlisted for several awards, including the Stephen Leacock medal, Canada’s national award for humor.  Knighton has written numerous satirical and comic essays for The New York Times, Salon, The Believer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Utne Reader, and The Globe and Mail. 

The collaboration between Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation also includes the Alfred P. Sloan Prize awarded at the Sundance Film Festival, presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. Alex Rivera's SLEEP DEALER, a Lab-supported film, won the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Alfred P. Sloan Prize, which carries a $20,000 cash award. SLEEP DEALER, which screened in Dramatic Competition, was selected for "its powerful and original storytelling and direction." The film is a visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy. SLEEP DEALER will be distributed by Maya Releasing later this year.

Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Shi-Zheng Chen, DARK MATTER (2007); Andrucha Waddington, THE HOUSE OF SAND (2006); Werner Herzog, GRIZZLY MAN (2005) and Shane Carruth, PRIMER (2004).

Additionally, former Sundance/Sloan Commissioning Grant recipient Greg Harrison recently had his project THE RADIOACTIVE BOY SCOUT featured as part of the Institute's Screenplay Reading Series of Works in Progress in Los Angeles, with a cast featuring Dan Byrd, Bryan Cranston, and Melora Walters.

Dedicated year-round to the development of artists of independent vision and to the exhibition of their new work, Sundance Institute was founded by Robert Redford in 1981. The Institute has grown into an internationally recognized resource for thousands of independent artists through its Film Festival and artistic development programs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers, playwrights and theatre artists.

Since 1981, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program has supported more than 450 independent filmmakers whose distinctive, singular work has engaged audiences worldwide. Program staff fully embrace the unique vision of each filmmaker, encouraging a rigorous creative process with a focus on original and deeply personal storytelling. Each year, up to 25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and around the world participate in a year-round continuum of support which can include the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Composers Lab, Independent Producers Conference, ongoing creative and strategic advice, significant production and post-production resources, a rough-cut screening initiative, a Screenplay Reading Series, and direct financial support through project-specific grants and artist fellowships. In many cases, the Institute has helped the Program’s fellows attach producers and talent, secure financing, and assemble other significant resources to move their projects toward production and presentation. 2008 marks the launch of the Creative Producing Initiative, a year-long Fellowship program for emerging independent producers, which will include a Creative Producing Lab, industry mentorship, and financial support. 

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

This Sloan-Sundance partnership forms part of a broader national program by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater; to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology; and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the popular imagination. Over the past decade, the Foundation has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production and an annual first-feature award for alumni. The Foundation has also started an annual Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival and initiated new screenwriting workshops at the Hamptons and TriBeca Film Festival. In addition, it continues to work with leading writer/producers and major studios to create more films, TV shows and TV movies featuring scientists, mathematicians and engineers.

The New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants in science, technology, economic performance and the quality of American life. The Foundation’s program in public understanding of science, directed by Program Director Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, and theatre, including not only Proof, Copenhagen, and Alan Alda’s QED, but dozens of new plays from the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons and the Magic Theater.

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For More Information Contact:

Amy McGee