Category: News

As the national dialogue surrounding police violence continues unabated following two Grand Jury decisions to not indict officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, we turn to film to reflect on how we’ve arrived at the present climate. These three Sundance Institute alumni have already added their voices to the ever-growing conversation about the indelible connection between police brutality and race in America. We hope they will help illuminate the issues at hand in a time of grief and confusion.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the 2015 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Spotlight and Park City at Midnight, as well as the films and installations to be featured in the New Frontier program. The Festival, which takes place January 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah, is the centerpiece of the year-round public programs for the Institute, which also hosts 24 residency labs and grants more than $2.5 million to independent artists each year.

It may not nullify the cliché that quality beats quantity, but for the third consecutive year total submissions for the Sundance Film Festival reached 12,000. That conspicuous statistic, however, only tells a small part of the story that Festival Director John Cooper, Director of Programming Trevor Groth, and their team work exhaustively to shape. 
Today we revealed the official selections for the U.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition NEXT <=> section of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, January 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

As filmmakers, we are forever on the hunt for stories. We are greedy for these little delicious nuggets of human experience, placed in some kind of order, an order that elicits emotion. We crave that moment when someone, somewhere, sees something we’ve made, on a big or small screen, and gets a tear in their eye, or laughs out loud or slams their fist into the couch because it’s the only logical reaction.

Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age epic Boyhood, Ana Lily Amirpour’s genre-bending vampire drama A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and Damien Chazelle’s emotionally taut debut Whiplash led the way for Sundance-supported films at this morning’s announcement of the 2015 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations. Below, we highlight and congratulate all of the Sundance-supported films and filmmakers nominated for awards. The winners will be announced Feb.

New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the seven artists selected for its 2015 Playwrights & Composers Retreat at Ucross Foundation. The 16th annual writing colony at the 20,000-acre working cattle ranch outside of Sheridan, WY takes place February 2-20. Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the Playwrights Retreat is made possible through the generosity of Ucross Foundation.

Welcome to the new sundance.org!
We’ve refined and streamlined our design to allow you to more easily connect with the work, ideas, opportunities, and events at Sundance Institute year-round. We hope you will explore, see what we’re up to, and get involved – whether as an artist applying for a Lab or grant, a supporter looking to engage with the Institute, a film lover attending the Sundance Film Festival, or a culture hound looking to connect with great work and a vibrant community.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute’s Board of Trustees today announced that Pat Mitchell has been elected as new Board Chair effective immediately.  Mitchell succeeds Walter L. Weisman who has served on the Sundance Institute Board of Trustees since 1988 and has been designated by the Board as Chair Emeritus.

Los Angeles, CA —Sundance Institute and The Royal Film Commission – Jordan announced the six projects selected for the 10th anniversary of the Rawi Screenwriters Lab, which took place October 28 to November 1 in Amman, Jordan. Created as a cornerstone of the Institute’s deep commitment to artists in the Middle East, the Lab has supported over seventy artists from more than a dozen countries.
The two first features produced from the inaugural 2005 Lab premiered at the Sundance Film Festival: Pomegranates and Myrrh, written and directed by Najwa Najjar (Palestine) and Amreeka, written and directed by Cherien Dabis (Palestine/Jordan/US).

Miami, FL — Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation announced today the first Artist Services workshop in Miami will take place this Saturday, October 25 at O Cinema Wynwood. Miami-area filmmakers are invited to attend the free day-long workshop and join industry experts in a critical conversation around creative financing, digital distribution, guerilla marketing and independent theatrical distribution.
Featured speakers include: Dennis Scholl (Knight Foundation), Straith Schreder (BitTorrent Inc), Jeremy Schwartz (SquareSpace), Emily Eddey (Light Iron), Toby Halbrooks (Producer, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), Jessica Jalsevac (Gumroad), James M.

New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the projects and artists that will participate in its two Fall artist development programs: the inaugural Playwrights Studio at Flying Point in Water Mill, NY (October 19-26), as well as the two-week Theatre Lab (November 30 – December 14) for musical theatre, ensemble-generated projects and solo work at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the initiatives are among the Theatre Program’s five annual Labs and Residencies for theatre artists and part of the 24 artist residency labs across many creative disciplines Sundance Institute offers annually.
New this fall, the Playwrights Studio at Flying Point offers Theatre Program alumni an uninterrupted period of  time and the space to work on their projects in a studio setting.