Category: News

(Hong Kong – 18 August, 2016) Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong returns for the third time in September, with a delegation of independent filmmakers presenting a line-up that includes premieres of award-winning films direct from this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A.

Suggested Release: #NewFrontier: @SundanceLabs and @JauntVR Announce Latest Additions to VR Residency Program bit.ly/SI-news

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute and Jaunt Studios announced today their latest class of creatives, at the forefront of innovation in media and entertainment, to join the Sundance Institute New Frontier | Jaunt VR Residency Program. Daniel Arsham, Yung Jake, and Lily Baldwin & Saschka Unseld will participate in the six-month program designed to empower artists on the cutting edge of storytelling.

After receiving Sundance Institute’s annual Vanguard Award to kick off NEXT FEST, Birth of a Nation writer/director/actor Nate Parker went off script to channel his attention and remarks towards a handful of Ignite Fellows—a group of 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers supported by the Institute with year-round mentorship. Parker’s message should resonate with all artists who’ve fought to have their voices heard, and the filmmaker’s own trajectory—tales of driving around in a rundown Honda Civic with no A/C included—are a revitalizing reminder the journey is almost never without peril. Check out excerpts from his moving speech below.

Click HERE for Photos (Credit: Ryan Kobane/Sundance Institute)
Click HERE for Video
Additional Photos at Wireimage.com

Los Angeles, CA — Nate Parker and the cast, Producers, and Executive Producers of The Birth of a Nation are investing in the next generation of diverse independent creativity with the Sundance Institute | The Birth of a Nation Fellowship for 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers participating in the Institute’s Ignite program. Parker shared details at Sundance Institute’s NIGHT BEFORE NEXT benefit at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles this evening, where he also received the Institute’s annual Vanguard Award presented to him by actor and Sundance alum Michael B.

There’s something almost therapeutic about Morris From America. It would be remiss to owe the film’s charming qualities to its pastoral German landscape, so we’ll just tip our hat to writer and director Chad Hartigan for an unfamiliar coming-of-age narrative, one that confronts race while providing a respite from violence (and no surprise that he must take us to Europe to do so). At the 2016 Sundance Film Festival Morris From America quickly became known as the attractive vehicle for one of this year’s most salient breakout actors in Markees Christmas, who plays the aspirational rapping teen ‘Morris.

Suggested Tweet:12 Fellows Selected by @SundanceLabs and @TimeWarnerFdn for 2016 Artist Support Grants Fostering Diverse Filmmakers bit.ly/sndnc-newsLos Angeles, CA — Twelve diverse independent artists will receive support from the 2016 Sundance Institute | Time Warner Foundation Fellowship Program. These Fellowships and accompanying grants mark their 10th anniversary this year and are part of the Institute’s year-round efforts to discover and support independent artists from diverse backgrounds in getting their work made and seen.

NEXT FEST is officially going down next weekend, August 12-14 (fun fact: Next Weekend was the name of the first iteration of NEXT FEST back in 2013). We’ve got the original Queen of Bounce (and twerk), a sonically indefinable talent in Shamir, a slate of indie films direct from the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and a Pokémon Go gym. OK, not that last part.

Los Angeles, CA — Three music videos, a full slate of VR experiences, a youth talent show and more join the lineup for Sundance NEXT FEST, alongside short film screenings hosted by Nick Kroll, music acts including “Queen of Bounce” Big Freedia, and the Los Angeles premieres of some of the most talked-about films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Sundance NEXT FEST takes place August 12-14 at The Theatre at Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles. More info and tickets ($15-25) at sundance.

The music video for Mark Pritchard’s “Beautiful People,” a buoyant and elegiac record featuring vocals by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke – though you’d hardly know it – will make its world premiere at Sundance NEXT FEST, taking place August 12-14. The video will precede the Los Angeles premiere of Under the Shadow on Sunday, August 14, in the 4 p.m.

Big Freedia lets out a teasing chuckle while revisiting how she reminded the world of the real queen of Bounce, a New Orleans-bred musical style know for its frenetic bass beats, call-and-response lyrics, and twerking. “It felt really good once I took my crown back and I’m happy about how things are going in my life and in my career,” she says with a hint of mockery. There’s a sense that the crown is less proverbial than it is real, and the unapologetic confidence that Big Freedia possesses would suggest that she quite literally plucked it from the head of Miley Cyrus when the latter became the unofficial – and according to Freedia, unqualified – ambassador of twerking a few years back.

Creative Producing Summit 2015
Credit: Jonathan Hickerson

Creative Producing Summit 2015
Credit: Brandon Cruz

Creative Producing Summit 2015
Credit: Jonathan Hickerson

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the participants for its weeklong Creative Film Producing
Initiative
at the Sundance Resort in Utah, August 1-8, including eleven feature film and documentary projects for the
Creative Producing Labs, and more than 50 industry leaders for the Creative Producing Summit. The
Institute’s Creative Producing Initiative encompasses a year-round series of Labs, Fellowships, granting and events focusing on
nurturing the next generation of independent producers and renewing the community of veteran producers who sustain the vibrancy and
vitality of independent film.

The Creative Producing Labs for Feature Film and Documentary will take place concurrently this year (August 1-5), with an added tailored
track for two producers outside of the Lab Fellowship.

It’s a tall order to merely get past the title of White Girl, Elizabeth Wood’s tenacious directorial debut, without detecting hints of—or being smacked in the face by—the film’s controversy. White Girl. Is it a drug reference? A bold commentary on race and privilege? A reach for provocation? Perhaps all three, but not without leading viewers on an unflinching exploration of race, socio-economic class, and drug culture, filtered through the blurred lens of a part-sympathetic, part-maddening young woman played by the fresh-faced Morgan Saylor.