Category: News

Over the next few months we’ll be chronicling memorable moments in Festival history as we reveal the mystery behind the 2011 snowflake icon. This week we break down the milk jug.

Harvey Milk on a poster for Rob Epstein’s 1985 film.

As a movie lover, the thought crossed my mind that during the 14-hour flight from New York to Abu Dhabi, I could watch at least seven films (I’ve done it before). But as I was headed to the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the first-ever meetings of documentary grantees of AFAC, aka the Arab Art and Culture Fund, I figured I’d better pace myself. Delighted to find Fatih Akin’s latest movie, Soul Kitchen, I watched just that and then slept the rest of the way.

Over the next few months we’ll be chronicling memorable moments in Festival history as we reveal the mystery behind the 2011 snowflake icon. This week we deconstruct the shovel.
Joel and Ethan Coen at the 1985 Festival
Joel and Ethan Coen arrived in relative anonymity at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival with their directorial debut Blood Simple.

Los Angeles, CA – Artists from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories and Saudi Arabia participated in the sixth annual Rawi Screenwriters Lab run by the Royal Film Commission in consultation with Sundance Institute. An initiative of the Royal Film Commission of Jordan, the Rawi Screenwriters Lab was held from October 28 to November 1, 2010, as part of Sundance Institute Feature Film Program’s International work in support of emerging filmmakers around the world.
Launched in 2005, the Rawi Screenwriters Lab provides an opportunity for filmmakers from the region to develop their work under the guidance of accomplished Creative Advisors in an environment that encourages storytelling at the highest level.

The 2011 edition of New Frontier has just been announced for the Sundance Film Festival, and it’s evident that Park City will be transformed. New Frontier, a quasi festival within the Festival, highlights work where film and art intersect, and offers a pilgrimage into a third dimension of cinema. One of the 2011 artists, Blast Theory, a Brighton-based group, have spent the last decade working in the field of mobile experiences.

Stanley Tucci has been a vital part of the indie film community and Sundance Institute family for more than 20 years, and this month he takes on an even bigger role: Sundance Institute Board of Trustees member. Before he begins his tenure as a leader in the future of the Institute, executive director Keri Putnam sat down with Tucci to discuss his work, and to welcome him into the fold with lively questions submitted by our own community of film lovers. Thanks to all who submitted questions!Questions from Keri Putnam:You’ve been an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer on films that have premiered at the Festival, and you’ve also been a creative advisor at the labs.

NEW YORK, NY- Sundance Institute today announced the seven artists selected for The 2011 Sundance Institute’s Playwrights’ Retreat at Ucross to take place February 7 through February 25, 2011 in Ucross, Wyoming. This unique residency program offers playwrights and theatre composers — both emerging and established artists — peer mentorship, professional growth, and a chance to explore unpressured creativity at an idyllic 20,000 acre cattle ranch in northeastern Wyoming. The Playwrights Retreat, supported by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, is made possible through the generosity of Ucross Foundation.

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute today announced Chase SapphireSM, a premium rewards credit card, as a Presenting Level Sponsor of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Chase SapphireSM joins Entertainment Weekly, HP, Acura and Sundance Channel as Presenting Level Sponsors of the Festival, which runs from January 20-30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. As a program of the nonprofit Sundance Institute, the Sundance Film Festival operates with the support of corporate sponsors as well as that of private foundations, nonprofit associations and guilds, government agencies, and individual donors.

PARK CITY, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the line up of artists selected for the 2011 edition of New Frontier at Sundance Film Festival. The program, celebrating its fifth year, brings together established and emerging artists from film, art, performance, gaming, and new media technology, to provide for them a film festival environment to share their work, and for festival audiences to explore the latest in cinematic innovation and transmedia storytelling. Curated by Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer, these works can be experienced at New Frontier, located at the Historic Miners Hospital, 1354 Park Avenue across from the Library Theatre in Park City, and, new for 2011, at Salt Lake Art Center, located at 20 South West Temple, in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City.

All Hallows Eve is fast approaching, and the 1993 Festival film Dead Alive is quite appropriate for the occasion. Peter Jackson’s gore fest screened as part of the Park City at Midnight category and has since become a cult classic among all things severed limbs, blood, and guts. Dead Alive is especially appropriate for this time of year, as Jackson’s birthday falls on October 31.

Katie Metcalfe is the newest addition to the Sundance Film Festival Shorts Programming Team. We wanted to introduce you to one of the six people who are currently deciding on the fate of thousands of submissions.
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As beneficiaries of this summer’s World Cup basked in its euphoric glow, a much dimmer reality played out in the slums of South Africa. Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza, codirectors and producers of Dear Mandela, took their project to Sundance Institute’s Film Composers and Documentary Lab and the Documentary Producing Lab this summer in search of music and structure capable of evoking the passion and emotion of the Shack Dwellers Movement. What they discovered was a tireless support group, a lifetime’s worth of lessons, and a renewed drive for completing their film.