Category: News

LOS ANGELES, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the Vanguard Award, honoring Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Robert Redford, Sundance Institute Founder and President, announced the new award at a benefit for Sundance Institute held at Franklin Canyon Ranch in Los Angeles.
The Vanguard Award celebrates the innovation, originality, and independent spirit that the Feature Film Program, under the leadership of Michelle Satter, has fostered in artists over its 30-year history.

Filmmaker Kasi Lemmons is participating as a Creative Advisor for the first time at this year’s Directors Lab.  A seasoned Advisor at other Sundance Institute Labs, she describes her experience working with the eight directing Fellows in the mountains this June.
It’s challenging to put into words an almost magical experience, but I’ll try.

Writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis participated in our 2011 Directors Lab with his project The Storm King. Each fellow has the opportunity to rehearse, shoot and edit selected scenes from his or her screenplay in a workshop environment, where the focus is completely on creative exploration and discovery. Below, Carlo chronicles his experience at Sundance and discusses the magic of this storytellers community.

LOS ANGELES, CA — To further demonstrate the company’s commitment to the creative community, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced it is the Official Sponsor of the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, which runs January 19-29, 2012 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
As a sponsor, Yahoo! will premiere a select number of short films from the Festival on Yahoo! Movies, a leading online movie destination that reaches 27.5 million users per month.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the summer of 2011. It has since been updated.It’s been 30 years since Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford gathered his friends and colleagues in the idyllic mountains of Utah to escape the pressures of the film industry for a natural setting that encouraged artistic growth.

Nate von Zumwalt, editorial coordinator at Sundance Institute, recently visited the Directors Lab at Sundance Resort for the first time to capture the unique stories of this year’s fellows and participants.As I arrived at Sundance Resort last week for the 30th edition of the Directors Lab, I hauled with me a convoy of nearly unattainable expectations. It was the product of a year’s worth of incessant praise by my colleagues for this mountain retreat that one “just had to experience” to understand.

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue, an initiative of the nonprofit Sundance Institute created in partnership with U.S. federal cultural agencies, will present free screenings of 10 award-winning films at locations throughout Puerto Rico, it was announced today by Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute.

Sundance Institute is well-known for bringing indie film to the mountains of Utah. Last night, the Institute brought the spirit of Sundance back to its other home base in Los Angeles.On Wednesday, June 8, under the trees at Franklin Canyon Ranch in Beverly Hills, CA, Sundance Institute hosted its first-ever Los Angeles benefit.

Two and a half days is not a long time–certainly not enough time for me to get to know Tucson. What I did and who I saw, though, left a positive impression on me of Tucson as a small town with a strong and motivated arts community.
My first night in town with Film Forward kicked off with a meet-and-greet party at the Tucson Museum of Art followed by a screening of A Small Act, which I shot and produced, at The Loft.

LOS ANGELES, CA – The nonprofit Sundance Institute will return to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on July 9 to host ShortsLab: NYC, an all-day educational workshop offering filmmakers first-hand insight and access into the world of short film story development, production, and exhibition. From 2006 through 2008, Sundance Institute partnered with BAM for Sundance Institute at BAM, and for the past two years has brought films directly from the Sundance Film Festival to BAM audiences as part of its Sundance Film U.S.

The Feature Film Program’s Screenplay Reading Series of Works-in-Progress has had a burst of activity in the last month, with three readings in a span of three weeks! In each case, we were thrilled to give a Feature Film Program Fellow the opportunity to hear their screenplay brought to life by an ensemble of talented actors, and to bring the Sundance Institute community together to experience this unique process.
Actors at the screenplay reading of Stem in Los Angeles. Photo by Alex Wyman.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Sundance Institute and Cinereach today announced the 2011 projects awarded grants for development, production, or post-production as part of a $1.5 million, three-year initiative, The Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute. The initiative is designed to support documentary and narrative feature film projects with themes that evoke global cultural exchange and social impact, and projects representing emerging and innovative voices selected for their distinctive and personal storytelling.