Category: News

Los Angeles — Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) today announced the winners of the 2009 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards. The four winners were selected from 12 finalists by members of an international jury which included: Ira Sachs, Yesim Ustaoglu, Katherine Dieckmann, Fernando Eimbcke, Sebastian Cordero, and Ronan Bennett; and a Japanese Jury that included Masato Harada, Bong-Ou Lee, and Hiroyuki Takazawa.These annual awards were created in 1996 by Sundance Institute in partnership with NHK to celebrate 100 years of cinema and to honor and support emerging independent filmmakers.

What, exactly, is a Sundance Lab movie? People sometimes talk about Lab films as if they constitute a genre — like they’re all romantic comedies or horror films — or share some stylistic agenda, narrative pattern, or set of themes. Insiders flatly reject that idea.
“I hope that there’s no such thing as a ‘Lab movie’ because, to me, that connotes a sense of sameness,” says Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute announced today the first five grant recipients of the STORIES OF CHANGE: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN FOCUS THROUGH DOCUMENTARY initiative, a $3 million, three-year partnership with the Skoll Foundation designed to explore the role of film in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship. This partnership creates new opportunities for leading social entrepreneurs and outstanding documentary filmmakers to collaborate and to create new projects about the innovative approaches found in both fields. The development and production grant awards announced today support the creation of feature-length independent documentary films that examine social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to the central challenges of our time.

Palestinian filmmakers Najwa Najjar and Cherien Dabis met at Sundance Institute’s 2005 Middle East Screenwriters Lab in Jordan. Najjar, who is based in Ramallah, was working on her first feature project Pomegranates and Myrrh, about Kamar, a dancer whose husband is imprisoned soon after they are married because he refuses to give up his land. Dabis, who is based in Brooklyn, was also at the Lab writing a first feature, Amreeka, the story of Muna Farah, a Palestinian single mom fighting to maintain hope amidst the daily grind of life in the West Bank.

One thing about Justin Nowell is clear: he’s not solely concerned with pleasing the crowd. Nowell, returning to Park City for the second time since a successful 2008 Festival run with Sick Sex, doesn’t have false expectations about how his newest film, Acting for the Camera, will go over.That’s primarily because of the way Sick Sex was received at last year’s Festival.

Park City, UT –The 2009 Sundance Film Festival announced today the jury prizes in shorts filmmaking based on outstanding achievement and merit. The Sundance Film Festival runs January 15-25, 2009 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. Full awards will be announced the evening of January 24th at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony at the Park City Racquet Club.

Even when he eventually ventures into longer format storytelling, director Patrik Eklund, director of the beguiling short Instead of Abracadabra, doesn’t plan to give up short form content. “I love the format and the freedom,” says the Sweden-based filmmaker, who heads to Park City with a film that sheds comedic light on and reveals the heart in the timeless practice of magic.
Instead of Abracadabra is the hilarious, endearing story of a 20-something slacker who lives at home with his disapproving parents and has only one goal: to be a great magician.