Category: News

“Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die”
-Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
The Sundance Film Festival began showing short films in 1991. Among the selections that year was The Passion of Martin, a 49-minute “brilliantly-paced black comedy” (according to then shorts programmer John Cooper’s catalog note) directed by a recent UCLA graduate named Alexander Payne.

What is film without discussion and debate? Or more to the point: What is the purpose of a film festival if the narrative ends when the reel runs out? Off Screen was created to keep the story alive, to ignite conversation, and to extend film beyond the movie theatre. This robust and engaging array of events and panels was expressly designed to complement the 181 films selected for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.“The whole point is to try and give some visibility to the films and the filmmakers,” says Sundance Institute Senior Programmer John Nein, who curates the Off Screen lineup.

The Feature Film Program ended last year on a high note, producing installments of our Screenplay Reading Series of Works in Progress on both coasts. In November in Los Angeles, we featured Carson Mell’s Ajax, an existential comedy set in outer space, with a cast including Mark Duplass, Gil Bellows, Vinessa Shaw, and Brandon Maggart. In December in New York, it was Keith Davis’s The American People, with a cast including Tonya Pinkins, Curtis McClarin, Charles Turner, Venida Evans, Dante Clark, JaQwan Kelly, Brandon Gill, Yvette Ganier, Adepero Oduye, Marisol Sacramento, and Bruce Faulk.

At Sundance Institute, artists are at the center of our mission and represent an integral part of our community. It’s important for us to keep the voices and perspectives of our alumni as a central part of all that we do, and our Alumni Advisory Board is one of the ways we do just that. This year, we’ve assembled 15 amazing alumni to advise us on Institute programs and to share their stories with you.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published after the 2012 Festival in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Arab Spring. We’re republishing it this week as we witness the power of protests and activism to combat the systemic racism that has long plagued our country and its criminal justice system. There is still much work to be done.

With every installment of the Sundance Film Festival comes the same challenge of capturing the scope of such a huge event. There’s so many things happening at any one time, and being able to document it as well share all these unique experiences is a tall order. Thankfully, this year it’s gotten a lot easier with the help of four things: a hashtag, an iPhone, an app, and you.

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute announced today the 23 members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the host of the Awards Ceremony on January 28. The Festival takes place January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Actress and writer Parker Posey will serve as the host of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony, set to take place January 28 at 7:00 p.

On January 26, Sundance Film Festival USA dispatches nine filmmakers from Park City to nine cities across the country to screen and discuss their direct-from-Festival films with audiences. In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce you to this year’s hosts by featuring them in our venue profile series.
Music Box Theatre Chicago, IL  
Patrons of the Music Box Theatre in Chicago frequently used to ask me about my Festival experience each year: What was it like? Did I meet any interesting filmmakers?  What will be the next Sundance film to make it big?  Was there a little gem that might get overlooked by the industry and never be seen again? During these conversations, it was very apparent that they would have loved nothing more than to experience firsthand the Festival they had heard so much about.

Documentary filmmaker Andrew Rossi is drawn to worlds that at first seem impenetrable. In his previous film, the riveting Page One: Inside the New York Times (which premiered at Sundance in 2011), Rossi obtained a “fly-on the-wall” look at the newspaper industry in a state of transition and turmoil. Now, with his latest documentary Ivory Tower, Rossi departs The Grey Lady’s sanctified headquarters for the hallowed halls of Harvard to find an explanation for the staggering cost faced by Americans in pursuit of higher education.

On Monday, January 20, with #FreeFail, the Sundance Film Festival will dedicate a day to exploring a vital aspect of the creative process: Failure. To kick off the festivities, filmmaker Jennie Livingston (Paris is Burning) reflects on the challenges she has faced as the self-proclaimed World’s Slowest Filmmaker.
While investigating links for a website for the film I’m making, Earth Camp One, I came across a blog that described me as someone who’d made an important film and then failed to follow it up with a career.

.

A bevy of 2011 Sundance Film Festival films and artists were nominated last month for the Film Independent Spirit Awards, held annually to honor the premier talent in independent film. Online voting opens January 27, and winners will be announced at a February 25 awards ceremony broadcast on IFC (10 p.m.