Category: News

LOS ANGELES, CA – Following up on last month’s announcement of the Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue initiative, Sundance Institute announced today the ten films selected to participate in the inaugural year of this cultural exchange program. The first Film Forward slate includes five American and five international films which will be presented in collaboration with public and private partners. These films and their filmmakers will kick off the ambitious project in New York and Tunisia in December.

While the release of Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi is celebrated all over the world, the struggle in Myanmar, Burma, continues. Despite the country’s first democratic elections in 20 years, the ruling military party continues to restrict press access within Burma. Burma Soldier tells the story of Myo Mint, a former soldier turned peace activist, and will premiere this week at IDFA in Amsterdam.

Based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Faiza Saleh Ambah is a Saudi filmmaker with a background in journalism. She left her job as Gulf Correspondent for The Washington Post in 2009 to focus on filmmaking and recently completed a summer program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Faiza documented her experience at Sundance Institute’s RAWI Screenwriters Lab in Jordan this fall where, along with other Middle Eastern screenwriters, she honed her storytelling skills under the guidance of Creative Advisors.

This week the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation convened world leaders in Seattle for the first-ever Global Savings Forum. The two-day event focused on building global partnerships to enable the delivery of viable approaches to financial services for the world’s poor. Melinda Gates also announced $40 million in grants as part of an unprecedented $500 million pledge over five years.

On Wednesday, November 17 Robert Redford and Sundance Institute were honored with the National Award for Citizen Diplomacy. The award was presented at the U.S.

For most of us fall brings a chill in the air and the anticipation of the holidays. But for the team at Sundance Institute that pulls together our annual Film Festival, fall is all about sifting through thousands of films and readying the theatres of Utah for the guests and screenings of the Festival in January.

I’m excited about the changes that John Cooper and I have discussed over the past several months.

PARK CITY, UT – Sundance Institute today announced the line-up at Salt Lake Art Center, which has been selected as an official venue of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, hosting artists and their works as part of the Festival’s innovative New Frontier program. Curated by Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer, New Frontier can be experienced at Salt Lake Art Center, located at 20 South West Temple, in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, and at Historic Miners Hospital, 1354 Park Avenue across from the Library Theatre in Park City. Both locations will be open free to the public Friday, January 21 through Saturday, January 29, 2011.

Last month, Sundance Institute creative advisor Greg Harrison attended the Middle East Screenwriters Lab in search of “another round of magic.” In the wake of the 10-day desert retreat, he shared his newfound insight on the screenwriting process and the curious absence of writing at the lab.In the dead of night, the in-flight Mecca compass rotated left as the plane banked south somewhere over the Netherlands.

Meet Emily Doe, one of our new hires on the 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.Tell us a bit about your background.

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.