Category: News

Checking In With the Directors of ‘Enemies of the People’

Enemies of the People was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Our lives have changed dramatically in the two years since our film Enemies of the People premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. What had been a very secret film in the making suddenly became very public, and its public life has been incredibly varied and intense.

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Celebrate the Sundance Institute Theatre Program at the New York Benefit Event

“Sundance has a Theatre Program?” As I travel around the country to our different venues to develop new work, this is the question I hear most often as I’m chatting up my seatmates on planes or introducing the Institute to potential collaborators. I have my elevator speech down pat at this point: “Yes, we do have a Theatre Program and we’ve been around since the founding of the Institute almost 30 years ago. In fact, our program has seeded some of the most interesting work that audiences have seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the country, including the runaway hit musical Spring Awakening, indie favorite Passing Strange, and the regional theatre darling Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.

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Kickstart American Promise

Can you imagine spending 12 years shooting one film about your own family? Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, a Brooklyn-based husband and wife filmmaking team, have been doing just that since 1999. Their film, American Promise, is about race, education, and achievement; it will air on POV in 2013. Michèle and Joe participated in the 2010 and Documentary Composers Lab and the Documentary Edit Lab.

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Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird on Stage Together to Perform Seminal Album Maxinquaye

London, Monday 27 February 2012, The O2 — Sundance Institute and The O2 today announced that musician, producer and actor Tricky will reunite on stage with vocalist/musician Martina Topley-Bird for the first time in 15 years to perform his award-winning debut album Maxinquaye in its entirety on Friday, 27th April, 2012 at the first-ever Sundance London as part of the four-day festival’s music programme. Tickets will go on general sale on Thursday 01 March 2012 at www.sundance-london.

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A Closer Look at This Year’s Sundance-Supported Oscar Nominees: ‘Monsieur Lazhar’

Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Click here for the full list of nominees.Monsieur Lazhar, directed by Philippe Falardeau (Canada)After an elementary school teacher in Montreal commits suicide, Algerian immigrant Bachir Lazhar becomes the unlikely replacement responsible for curtailing the heartbreak.

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Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother The Devil wins Best European Film at 2012 Berlin Film Festival

We want to offer our congratulations to Sally El Hosaini and the entire team behind My Brother the Devil for winning the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the Panorama Section of the 2012 Berlin Film Festival. This seems a fitting occasion to revisit this enlightening profile of El Hosaini — full of insights into her creative process and the socio-cultural realities that inspired the project — published here on the eve of My Brother the Devil’s debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
“Writing and directing are all about listening and watching,” says writer/director Sally El Hosaini, who brings her debut feature film, My Brother the Devil, to the Festival’s World Dramatic Competition section this year.

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Playwright’s Retreat at Ucross

Heidi Schreck was an actor alumna at the 2008 Theatre Lab and is currently in residence at the Sundance Institute Playwright’s Retreat at Ucross Foundation, Wyoming. The retreat is an 18-day writing colony where five playwrights and two theatre composers convene each year to put pen to paper.For months, Ucross was my Moscow.

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Community Outreach at the Festival

Each year, Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival make a concerted effort to emphasize the value of the Utah community. We’d like to thank them for welcoming us during the 10 days of the Festival and for being such wonderful hosts. Our appreciation is expressed through a variety of programs, including High School Screenings at the Festival, Filmmakers in the Classroom, Community Screenings, and distribution of complimentary tickets to non-profit organizations across the Wasatch Front.

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