Category: News

When I was about ten years old I remember doing a project at school about Native Americans. I remember drawing a picture of the different tribes and being particularly proud of the illustration. Since then, I’ve always wanted to know more about Native American people.

It’s officially fall, and while the leaves don’t exactly change here in Los Angeles, it does mean the Feature Film Program is hard at work. We’re busy evaluating new submissions for our January Screenwriters Lab, reading new drafts of screenplays already supported in our Labs, and helping our filmmakers fine-tune their edits before submitting to our own Sundance Film Festival. All of which makes it even more exciting and rewarding to see so many of our FFP-supported films making it out into the world, hopefully to a theater near you.

Elgin James is the writer and director of ‘Little Birds,’ a 2009 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Lab project and an Official Selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Below, James details his personal transformation since participating at the Labs and chronicles the journey to completing his film, which opens in New York on August 29/ I’ve been out of prison for a few months now, and the first question people ask is “How scary was it?” Going to the Sundance Labs was scarier. Prison operated on a language I understood and had once been fluent in.

The sheer volume of projects that pass through the programs of Sundance Institute can leave even the most tested indie film buff or Sundance staffer botching artist names and film titles. As we touched on in our last alumni updates blog, the Sundance family tree is as convoluted as it is vast—like a cruel game of ‘six degrees of separation.’ What am I getting at? That while, in principle, both Sylvester Stallone (Death Race 2000) and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) are Sundance alumni, we’re slightly more disposed to touting the latter’s most recent work as opposed to the former’s (Expendables 2 ).

The Motor City and Indiewood are in no immediate danger of being awarded Sister City status. On paper, independent filmmakers and Detroiters are two populations whose fates seemingly couldn’t be less aligned and intertwined; and even the savviest student of American culture would be hard-pressed to name traits shared by the two.Or so it would seem.

Park City, Utah — Sundance Institute, in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Film Society, announced today that the FILM FORWARD: ADVANCING CULTURAL DIALOGUE initiative will host free film screenings, workshops and artist roundtables in Puerto Rico for the second consecutive year. These programs will take place September 19 through 22 in San Juan and Caguas.
FILM FORWARD, a touring program that offers film screenings, workshops and discussions designed to foster dialogue and cross-cultural understanding, is an initiative of Sundance Institute and The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Los Angeles, CA — The nonprofit Sundance Institute today announced that it has been awarded a $1,000,000 three-year grant from the Annenberg Foundation to provide general operating support for the Institute’s year-round creative and tactical programs for independent film and theatre artists. The contribution will further the Institute’s mission to discover and develop independent artists and audiences through labs, grants, the #ArtistServices initiative and public programs, including the Sundance Film Festival – the Institute’s largest annual community program.
The Annenberg Foundation’s previous support of Sundance Institute includes the Annenberg Film Fellows Program (2004-2011), which helped cultivate film projects by 102 artists including Sterlin Harjo (Four Sheets to the Wind, Barking Water), Dee Rees (Pariah), Sean Durkin and Josh Mond (Martha Marcy May Marlene), and Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild).

“My people will sleep for 100 years, but when they awaken it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.” — Louis Riel, Metis leader hanged by the Canadian Government in 1885For the Anishinabe people of the Great Lakes, the words, stories, and prophecies transmitted through time from the ancestors continue to guide many of our communities, families, and individuals. The 7th Prophecy, or 7th Fire, speaks of a time when the “New People” (young people) will awaken and proudly stand with conviction to courageously lead our Nations into the future.

For a blog named short order, it was only a matter of time before I served up some short films about food. I hope you came hungry, because now is that time.  
We’ll start the meal off with Dr Breakfast, a great animated film we screened at the 2012 Festival.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced that 11 additional films have been added to Hulu, Netflix and SnagFilms through its Artist Services access to distribution program, which launched in February 2012. The films that are immediately available to stream include Brother to Brother (starring Anthony Mackie), Children Underground (nominated for an Academy Award), Enemies of the People (current News and Documentary Emmy Award nominee) and Dirty Work (executive produced by Edward Norton).
Artist Services films are also available on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, VUDU and YouTube.

As we amble our way—willfully or not—toward fall, another summer season of family road trips are banked for memory. Thus, in an effort to squeeze the last remnants out of (arguably) the year’s most blissful season, we’re highlighting a few of our favorite Sundance-supported road films—which has essentially become a veritable film genre.The Go-GetterFollowing the tragic loss of his mother, a wistful teenager named Mercer embarks on a journey to reunite with his errant brother and share the somber news.

I felt like I was back in Montana, only cast in a burnt-sienna type of light and a lot drier and warmer and with delicious green chilies. Time moved in weird ways there—or at least my sense of time did. But I think there was an actual time warp that happened there and I think my fellow Fellows would agree.