When Alysa Nahmias, co-director of Unfinished Spaces traveled with FILM FORWARD to Puerto Rico, she was in for a surprise. Audiences in Puerto Rico experienced the film in a deep way, resonating similarly to how the film was received in Cuba. Puerto Ricans laughed during the film in all the same places and with equal belly force as Cuban audiences.

Los Angeles, CA (October 4, 2012) — The Autry National Center and Sundance Institute announce the second Sundance Institute at the Autry Presents Native Films program, a partnership that enables free public screenings of films created by emerging filmmakers from around the world, organized in cooperation with the University of California, Los Angeles, American Indian Studies Center. The screenings will take place on November 3 during the Autry’s American Indian Arts Marketplace weekend, which attracts over 180 American Indian contemporary artists to Los Angeles.
“The Autry is pleased to collaborate once again with Sundance Institute and UCLA’s American Indian Studies Center to bring Native films to Los Angeles, home to the largest urban Native American population in the country,” said Shelby Tisdale, the Autry’s Vice President of Curatorial and Exhibitions and former director of the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

As soon as you get over the “back to school” frenzy, it’s October and the costume and candy craze commences. It’s been a couple of decades since I’ve been in school, but you run into all of this by merely going to the store. In our latest edition of Short Order, we offer a pair of short films from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival that manage to capture all the pertinence of the seasons.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the six projects selected for the New Frontier Story Lab that will take place from October 21-26 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. Inspired by New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival and built on the Sundance Institute Lab model, the Lab is supporting projects that use technology to deepen story and engage audiences.
The projects, a mix of fiction, non-fiction and hybrid, are: Gregory Bayne and Cory McAbee’s The Great American Funeral, a collaborative film and music project; Yung Jake and Vince McKelvie’s Kickstarder, which uses audience participation to guide the narrative progression of the project; Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s Reinvention Stories, which combines radio, documentary cinema and online interactive storytelling; Eli Horowitz and Russell Quinn’s The Silent History, a serialized novel written and designed specifically for the iPhone and iPad; Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons’ Touch, a first-person interactive documentary designed for tablet devices; and Roger Ross Williams and Woo Jung Cho’s Traveling While Black, which combines collaborative storytelling, digital cultural mapping and a role-playing interactive game.

The Chickasaw Cultural Center is located in Sulphur, Oklahoma, one and a half hours from Oklahoma City and two and a half hours from Dallas, Texas. Sulphur has a population of about 5,000, so local Oklahomans were understandably surprised and elated that it was selected as one of four domestic  destinations for FILM FORWARD 2012.
Media and Journalism students from the University of Oklahoma  made the drive down from Norman to meet some well-known alumni including Bird Runningwater, Director of the Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program, and Sterlin Harjo, writer/director of Barking Water.

New York, NY — The Sundance Institute Theatre Program today announced that it will return to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) for its Fall Lab, which provides creative support and direction for innovative musical theatre and ensemble-generated projects. Also announced today were the three projects that have been selected to participate.
Under the supervision of Philip Himberg, Artistic Director of the Theatre Program, and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the two-week Lab (November 25 – December 9) marks the Theatre Program’s second collaboration with MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States.

Participating Artists Include Mike Mills, Parker Posey, Shirin Neshat, Susan Sarandon, Amy Sedaris, Morgan Spurlock, Mike White, Lauren Greenfield, Stacy Peralta and John Waters
Specialty Items include ‘Todd Oldham for the Sundance Film Festival’ Recycled Bags and Wallets and ‘Sundance Film Festival A to Z’ Art Book
All Items Available December 17 at www.sundance.org/store

Todd Oldham for the Sundance Film Festival
 
Designs by Todd Oldham
 
Art by John Waters

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced a collaboration with artist and designer Todd Oldham to produce a custom line of limited-edition products exclusively for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, including several pieces designed by artists and Sundance Institute alumni.

“Cinema is magic because it transforms people and moves us forward,” said the writer/director of ‘Grbavica’, Jasmila Zbanic.Coming from Bosnia, Zbanic brought magic with her on FILM FORWARD’s trip to Puerto Rico in the form of her subtle and deep film about the often unspoken, psychological effects of war through the story of a mother and daughter. 
She talks about her experience screening ‘Grbavica’ and engaging with audiences in San Juan and beyond in this exclusive video:

Her appreciation of the “deep and meaningful way” she was able to connect with people through this film in Puerto Rico is reflected back by the audiences who participated.

Alysa Nahmias is the co-director of ‘Unfinished Spaces,’ a documentary about the visionary design of Cuba’s National Art Schools in the wake of Fidel Castro’s Revolution. She joined FILM FORWARD in Puerto Rico this week to screen the film for local audiences and participate in post-screening discussions.“A work of art is the sum of its destructions.

Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai’s Spiral Notebook.
Preparing to meet Latisha It started sweet.

Jasmila Zbanic, director of ‘Grbavica,’ writes about her experience traveling to the United States with heightened sensitivity after living through the war in Bosnia. She shares her first impressions of Puerto Rico and how they transformed as the trip progressed.
Every screening of Grbavica is different, and this one in Puerto Rico in the FILM FORWARD program is especially peculiar.

Alysa Nahmias is the co-director of Unfinished Spaces, a documentary about the visionary design of Cuba’s National Art Schools in the wake of Fidel Castro’s Revolution. She joined Film Forward in Puerto Rico this week to screen the film at the University of Puerto Rico Architecture School and participate in a post-screening discussion with audience members. I’ve been told several times since I landed here in San Juan that Puerto Ricans and Cubans consider their countries to be brothers (paises hermanos).

With last week’s semi-bizarre, fully nostalgia-inducing news that Bravo is on board to adapt a television series based on the ‘80s classic Heathers, we figured another edition of Sundance Alumni Updates was in store. Winona Ryder starred in the original Heathers, which screened at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival and again at the ’89 Sundance Film Festival in Tokyo, a rapport that very few films can lay claim to. There’s more on the television adaptation here, a trailer below, and a collection of project updates involving recent Sundance alumni.

LOS ANGELES — Sundance Institute today announced that its president and founder, Robert Redford, will present journalist and film critic Roger Ebert with the Vanguard Leadership Award in recognition of his advocacy of independent cinema. The award presentation will take place at the third annual ‘Celebrate Sundance Institute’ benefit, chaired by Institute Trustee Lyn Lear and her husband, Norman, on June 5, 2013, in Los Angeles.Ebert is known for the Chicago Sun-Times film review column he has written since 1967.