Documentaries tell us both who we are and what we could be. By spotlighting challenging issues, documentaries can also be instigators of social change. The subjects of these films are often pioneering social entrepreneurs—enterprising idealists who dedicate themselves to affecting positive social change.

Park City, UT — Keri Putnam, Executive Director, Sundance Institute, and Cathy Schulman, President of Women In Film Los Angeles, announced today that the two organizations will collaborate to support independent women filmmakers working in both narrative and documentary feature film.  The announcement was made at a joint event at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival hosted by Putnam, Schulman, Sundance Institute trustee Pat Mitchell, and Women Moving Millions Co-Chair Jacki Zehner.
Putnam noted, “Sundance Institute has long believed in the value of diverse storytellers contributing to a vibrant culture.

On screen and off, Spike Lee always makes it interesting. Returning to Sundance with the entertaining and explosive Red Hook Summer, which in turn is a return to Lee’s micro-indie and Brooklyn roots, the director was on hand along with his cast and crew for the film’s World Premiere the Eccles Theater on Sunday night. The film takes place over the course of a hot summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where 13 year-old, Atlanta-raised Flik (newcomer Jules Brown) spends an eventful school break with his old school preacher grandfather, Enoch (The Wire’s astonishing Clarke Peters).

Los Angeles, CA – The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Skoll Foundation today announced a special Celebrating “Stories of Change” panel to be held at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The panel celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Stories of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary initiative, dedicated to exploring film’s role in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship.
At this special event on Tuesday, January 24, 3:00 p.

Some of the brightest young inhabitants of Hollywood’s thriving comedy community were on hand for the world premiere of Celeste and Jesse Forever at the Eccles Theater on Friday night, from film’s top-flight cast to supporters Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari.
Directed by Sundance veteran Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind), and written and starring Rashida Jones (The Social Network, NBC’s “Parks and Recreation”) and Will McCormack, the film chronicles the long, strange breakup of the titular married couple, played by Jones and Andy Samberg (“Saturday Night Live”).
Shifting between broad comedy and insightful drama, sweetness and bitterness, the film proves to be a great showcase for the two leads as well as for an ensemble that includes Emma Roberts, Elijah Wood, Chris Messina, Eric Christian Olsen, and Ari Graynor.

In addition to the 181 of films being presented at this year’s Festival, there’s also an ambitious slate of panels, populated by an eclectic mix of artists, film industry professionals and an array of leading edge thinkers, politicians and academics. What they all have in common is a shared interest and investment in how film impacts and intersects with the culture at large. To that end, we’re conducting a series of conversations with some of the more notable participants whose expertise lies in disciplines that on the surface might seem to have little to do with the filmmaking process.

Yesterday afternoon, Ice-T, a pop-cultural jack-of-all trades, added one more notch to his creative tool belt: director. He premiered his film, Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, in the Festival’s Documentary Premieres program. Co-directed by Andy Baybutt, the doc follows Ice-T as he literally takes to the streets to interview the pantheon of rap and hip-hop masters from over the last 30 years about the craft and skill of rapping; and how this art form redefined a generation.

Some three decades after his emergence as a pioneering hip hop artist, Ice-T is once again beefing up his resume as an entertainment extraordinaire. Having worked extensively in front of the camera on Law & Order, the reality series Ice Loves Coco, and a heap of feature films (including New Jack City and the upcoming Goats, which is playing in the Premieres section at this year’s Festival), Ice-T has now migrated behind the camera to the role he seems destined to play: director. His debut documentary, Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, screens in the Documentary Premieres section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and offers an intimate glimpse into the creative process of making rap music.

In addition to directing some of the most celebrated films of the past 30 years, Stephen Frears has mastered the art of self-deprecation. It goes deeper than humbly and nimbly deflecting attention away from himself, which of course he does. He can seem gruff in interviews, but his approach is less confrontational than a shrugging, “you’re asking the wrong guy” forthrightness, which is consistent with Frears’s working method.

While the Sundance Film Festival officially kicked off Thursday evening in Park City, nearby Salt Lake City hosted its own opening weekend celebration on Friday in the form of the Salt Lake City Gala and Screening at the Rose Wagner Theater. The event had a decidedly local flavor (with locals sporting dinner jackets instead of snow parkas) as sponsors, dignitaries, and filmgoers attended screenings and mingled at VIP receptions.
Zions Bank CEO Scott Anderson and Utah Governor Gary Herbert kicked things off by thanking Sundance Institute and praising the community for being an excellent host to the Festival.

The word “arbitrage” is often used in the cutthroat world of high finance, defining the practice of buying low and selling high (and hopefully getting filthy rich in the process). It’s the founding principle of capitalism, and the force many believe to be behind the greed attributed to America’s current financial crisis.In Nicholas Jarecki’s directorial debut, Arbitrage, the definition of the word is more nebulous.

Sometime around 10:30 am on Day Three of the Sundance Film Festival, a pack of road-weary filmmakers piled out of a snow-shrouded bus and into a halcyon vision of rustic repose otherwise known as the Directors Brunch. As they were ushered into a large open-air converted barn at the Sundance Resort where tea and sympathy (and a mid-morning feast) awaited them, the group seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief — as if this were the creative homecoming they’d been hoping for much of their professional lives. Or, in the immortal words of David Byrne (and the title of one of this year’s Premiere selections): This must be the place.

Gingger Shankar is a Sundance Institute Alumni Advisory Board Member and the director of the 2012 New Frontier installation Himalaya Song.
On Day 3, Mridu, Dave, and I (Himalaya Song) were able to start really settling in to the groove of things. We had our first major rehearsal on Thursday and now we’re two days away from our first performance.

Day Three of #Sundance on Instagram was all about the heaps of snow that fell on Park City. Between the cold stare of Eric Wareheim and the cold journey to a 6:00am screening, you may need to wear a sweater to look at these.

Don’t forget to use #sundance when posting to Instagram so your photo has a chance of making our daily roundup.