Category: News

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—Sundance Institute announced today the projects chosen to participate in its annual Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak. The two projects selected for this season’s Lab are Like Water for Chocolate, a musical adaptation of the best-selling 1989 novel by Mexican author Laura Esquivel composed by Lila Downs and Paul R. Cohen with book by Quiara Alegria Hudes; and Little Miss Sunshine, a musical adaptation of the popular 2006 film by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris with music and lyrics by William Finn, and book and direction by James Lapine.

Los Angeles – Sundance Institute announced today the expansion of its Theatre Program with two new labs: the first to be held at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) from March 28-April 11, 2010, and the second to be held on New York’s Governors Island from May 23-June 6, 2010. The labs are two-week developmental retreats designed to provide private, creative environments for playwrights, directors, composers and librettists to devise new work with the support of dramaturgs and full casts. Participants will be chosen from an open submission process.

PARK CITY – The 2010 Sundance Film Festival will feature NEXT, a new section featuring six to eight films selected for their innovative and original work in low- and no-budget filmmaking. Festival Director John Cooper made the announcement today, citing the desire to discover and promote filmmakers forging new ways to tell their stories, limited by resources but uninhibited by creativity. Presented by the non-profit Sundance Institute, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 21 – 31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Park City, UT – On Sept. 10, Sundance Institute will explore issues of human rights and asylum with a free screening of Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter, a film about one Malian woman’s journey to protect her daughter.

Los Angeles, CA – Today, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program announced documentary film projects to receive grant awards and creative support from the Sundance Documentary Fund. A record number of proposal submissions were received and considered for this round, totaling close to 900 applicants working in 61 countries. 15 feature documentary films in either development or in production/post-production will receive awards.

NEW YORK – The Sundance Institute will receive a $5 million grant for its Documentary Film Program to help raise awareness on human rights, the Open Society Institute announced today.
“Films can play a powerful role in inspiring action on human rights, justice, accountability, and other open society issues,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Institute. “The Sundance Institute’s work helps filmmakers shed light on the most pressing challenges of our time.

Los Angeles, CA — Today, Sundance Institute announced the six musicians selected for the 2009 Sundance Institute Composers Lab, which runs from July 15 – July 29 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. This year’s Composers Lab Fellows are Kim Carroll, Chanda Dancy, Magda Giannikou, Lili Haydn, Christopher Lord, and David Poe. The selected composers bring an eclectic range of talent to the two-week lab, which focuses on the process of writing music for film with the support and guidance of the industry’s leading film composers and film music professionals.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Sundance Institute announced today the expansion of its Creative Producing Initiative designed to nurture emerging independent producers in both narrative and documentary fields. For 2009-2010, the Initiative will include the re-conceived Creative Producing Summit (formerly the Independent Producers Conference), the Creative Producing Lab supporting six Fellows from the Feature Film Program and, new for this year, four from the Documentary Film Program, as well as Sundance Industry Meetings to connect filmmakers with industry members at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
The Creative Producing Initiative is designed to support producers with project-specific support through Labs, grants, and long-term advisor relationships and to also reinvigorate dialogue within the independent producing community.

BANFF, CANADA — The Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre, ZER01: The Art and Technology Network, and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier initiative today announced the formation of The Locative Cinema Commission, a joint venture to stimulate and showcase the creation of a locative cinema project. The Commission is presently soliciting proposals. The chosen artist or artists will realize their proposed project during a residency at The Banff Centre, to be completed by July 2010.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Sundance Institute and Cinereach announced today a $1.5 million three-year grant to form the Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute. The program, underwritten by Cinereach, will support a unique and flexible resource pool for documentary and feature film projects with themes that evoke global cultural exchange and social impact.

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute announced today the acting company for its 2009 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab to be held July 7 to July 22 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. The 2009 ensemble company includes: Oni Monifa Renee Brown, Baraka de Soleil, Colman Domingo (The Wiz, Passing Strange, Well ), Giancarlo Esposito (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Peter Friedman (Ragtime, Body Awareness), Tracy Gilbert, Meredith Hinckley (Kennedy Center Irene Ryan Acting Award Winner), Laura Innes (ER), Lisa Joyce (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, That Pretty Pretty), Francis Jue (Coraline, Yellow Face, Thoroughly Modern Millie), Ellen Maddow, Sahr Ngaujah (FELA!), Denis O’Hare (Racing Demon, Take Me Out), Adesola A. Osakalumi (FELA!), Maximillian Osinski, Adriana Sevan (Taking Flight) and Maria Thayer.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced a trio of screenings for local Utah audiences bringing the best summer has to offer — timeless southern storytelling, the search for the “perfect wave,” and the warm twang of Appalachian mountain music. Always free of charge, the screenings are highlights from previous Sundance Film Festivals and are part of the Sundance Institute Film Series, a year-round community event program that offers works that best represent the Institute’s spectrum of programs. The films in this summer’s screenings showcase some of the memorable artists and talent to emerge from Film Festival — Amy Adams’s role in Junebug led to her Hollywood fame, while Riding Giants director Stacy Peralta first came to the Festival with ­Dogtown and Z-boys in 2001 and became a three-time Festival alum in 2008 with Made in America.