Category: News

From Iraqi role-players to a demolition derby driver to an Ivy League impostor—provocative, unique, and emotionally compelling characters have always been central to Jesse Moss’s storytelling. The latest film by this award-winning documentary filmmaker and cinematographer is no exception. The Overnighters, which recently premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Intuitive Filmmaking, follows a Lutheran pastor in the oil boomtown of Williston, North Dakota.

Seven million people live in Hong Kong, an area that’s just half the size of Rhode Island. The waterfront skyline is a mashup of skyscrapers and mountains. The humidity makes the air heavy and still.

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.
Last night at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History, Detroiters kept the moderator dancing the mic around the room, giving voices with something to say a chance with the talking stick.

Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation present:#ArtistServices Maimi Workshop
Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation invite you to enjoy exclusive access to the first annual #ArtistServices Miami Workshop free of charge.  Join these unique conversations with industry experts as they discuss the latest technology, tools, and tactics in Creative Financing, Digital Distribution, Guerilla Marketing and Independent Theatrical Distribution. Stay tuned for presenters and full schedule to be announced.

(September 19, 2014) Sundance Institute and The Metroplex officially unveiled the opening of Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects tonight on September 19, which is a screening series of new American independent films accompanied by a delegation of filmmakers and Festival organizers. The screenings run from today to 28 September, 2014, at the newly opened Cineplex, The Metroplex, in Kowloon Bay in Hong Kong. Drawing on the Sundance Film Festival’s 30-year history of discovery and innovation and The Metroplex’s commitment to supporting film culture, Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects offers eight new films direct from the 2014 Festival in Park City, Utah, U.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced the 10 writers selected for its inaugural Episodic Story Lab, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from September 27 through October 2. The Episodic Story Lab, established with founding support from Lyn and Norman Lear, is the Institute’s first program for emerging writers creating series for television and online platforms, adding to its existing support programs for film, theatre, music, and New Frontier artists.
Every applicant for the program was required to submit a spec pilot and series overview as the basis of their creative work at the Lab.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute will once again offer exclusive events and priority pass and ticket availability for the approximately 15,000 Utahns who attend the Sundance Film Festival® each year. Additionally, the Institute announced today the Grand Theatre at Salt Lake Community College’s Center for Arts & Media as its newest Salt Lake City screening venue and that it will offer a new Grand Pass for Utah residents. With the addition of the Grand Theatre, Salt Lake City will see an increase of 20,000 seats over the course of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, January 22 through February 1.

Maryam al-Khawaja, the notable Bahraini human rights defender and subject of We Are the Giant (2014 SFF), was arrested August 30 upon her arrival in Manama, Bahrain, on charges of assaulting a police officer – which she refutes – and other alleged crimes related to her work in human rights. Maryam was returning to see her ailing father and longtime activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is currently on a hunger strike while serving a lifetime sentence for charges stemming from human rights demonstrations in 2011.
Zainab and Maryam al-Khawaja are sisters and subjects of the film We Are the Giant.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced today that Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue will host free screenings of eight films with moderated discussions, panels and artist roundtables in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Dearborn, Michigan September 22-25.  For a full schedule of events and venues in Michigan visit sundance.org/filmforward.

We are profoundly shocked and saddened by the news about the death of freelance photojournalist James Foley who was killed on August 19 by the group known as ISIS. Foley’s work as one of three cinematographers on the film E-TEAM (directed by Ross Kauffman and Katy Chevigny) was recognized at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival with the Documentary Cinematography Award for its courageous handheld footage.
This moment reminds us to acknowledge and appreciate the filmmakers, documentarians, and journalists who take a stand for what matters to them by pursuing stories in dangerous situations often at great personal risk.

This interview was originally published following the world premiere of the film at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.George Takei is on a mission. With boundless energy, relentless good cheer and a hearty chuckle, he’s been omnipresent in Park City while promoting To Be Takei, Jennifer Kroot’s vibrant portrait of the energetic 76-year-old actor, worshipped around the globe as Star Trek’s helmsman, Sulu.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced that the organization is deepening its commitment to its New Frontier program for artists innovating the art and form of storytelling, including the appointment of Shari Frilot and Kamal Sinclair as Co-Directors of the program.
New Frontier at Sundance Institute is a cross-programmatic initiative created to identify and foster independent artists working at the convergence of film, art, media, live performance, music and technology. Since 2007, the New Frontier exhibition at the Sundance Film Festival has provided the highest level of curation in the field, incorporating fiction, non-fiction and hybrid storytelling to showcase multi-media installations, performances and films.