Category: News

(Almost) Every Week: Join the Sundance Institute on Clubhouse for Club Cinema

It’s here — your chance to get up close and personal with some of the visionary storytellers behind your favorite Sundance Film Festival releases!
Earlier this month, we launched the first edition of Club Cinema, our Clubhouse conversation series with our friends at TheFutureParty, a daily newsletter that brings you the most meaningful business and culture news. Join us every week (usually at 10 a.m.

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Sundance Institute Announces Inaugural Uprise Grant Fund Recipients Supporting BIPOC Artists

LOS ANGELES — As part of the nonprofit Sundance Institute’s continued commitment to supporting artists from historically excluded communities, the Institute announced today its latest grantees for both the Uprise Grant Fund and Arts Organization Grants. The Uprise Grant Fund supports BIPOC artists whose careers and creative development have been harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirty-eight U.

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Sundance Institute and Adobe Announce 2021 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellows

LOS ANGELES — The class of 2021 has arrived: The Sundance Institute and Adobe announced this year’s Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellows today, chosen from a global pool of more than 1,650 applicants from ages 18–25. Hailing from a broad geography, and rooted in a diverse array of creative disciplines from documentary to fiction, these 10 emerging artists will engage with a year of mentorship and support from the Sundance Institute and Sundance Ignite founding partner Adobe.
Fellows were selected from a one- to 15-minute short film submitted to the Sundance Ignite x Adobe Short Film Challenge, hosted on the Institute’s digital community platform, Sundance Collab.

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Sundance Institute Announces 10 Producers Lab Fellows, Summit Panelists and Conversations

Park City, Utah – Sundance Institute today announced the participants for its weeklong Producers Lab, taking place July 25 – 29, and the participants in the Producers Summit, August 2 – 5, both taking place digitally on Sundance Co//ab. Five fiction film and five nonfiction producers and their projects have been selected for the Producers Labs, and more than 50 industry leaders and 65 independent filmmakers will participate in the Producers Summit. Under the leadership of Creative Producing and Artist Support Director Shira Rockowitz and Documentary Film Program Deputy Director Kristin Feeley, the Institute’s Producers Program champions the current and next generation of producers across fiction and nonfiction film and encompasses a year-round series of Labs, Fellowships, granting and events.

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Please Welcome: Phaedra Marshall, Chief Product Technology Officer

Earlier this year, we saw firsthand the key role technology plays in advancing our mission-critical work of connecting artists with audiences. With the newest addition to the senior leadership team, we’re cementing technological sophistication as a priority
in our ongoing work.
We’re thrilled to welcome Phaedra Marshall to the Sundance Institute family as Chief Product and Technology Officer.

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Women’s Financing Intensive from WIF & Sundance Institute Elevates 12 Feature Projects with Tailored Support

LOS ANGELES – The Sundance Institute and WIF (Women In Film, Los Angeles) today announce the projects and creators selected for the annual WIF and Sundance Institute Financing Intensive. The Intensive is designed to help women producers—fiction and documentary—build
the skills and relationships necessary to advance a feature-length project to the next stage of financing success.
On July 14–15, producers and their attached directors participate in small group workshops focused on both pitching and financing strategy, and professional skills development.

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Laugh Out Loud and Sundance Institute Announce Women Write Now Screenwriting Fellowship

LOS ANGELES—Today, Laugh Out Loud, the multi-platform comedy brand founded by Kevin Hart, and the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit film organization behind the Sundance Film Festival and labs, announced the launch of Women Write Now, a screenwriting fellowship designed to champion the next generation of Black women in comedy. Through mentorship, advocacy, production, and exhibition, this immersive program will offer a selection of talented writers the opportunity to receive one-on-one mentorship and professional guidance from leading Black women in comedy and to see their original comedic screenplay produced by LOL Studios.
In an effort to bring visibility and opportunity to Black women both in front of and behind the camera, LOL has brought on Meagan Good (The Intruder, Think Like a Man), Bresha Webb (Run the World), and Gabrielle Dennis (A Black Lady Sketch Show), who will each step behind the camera as director of one of the short films.

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Perspectives: Artists Doane Avery and Jamie John on Pride, Visibility, and Living in the In-Between

On behalf of the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program, we would like to wish everyone a safe, affirming, and happy Pride — not just this month, but every day until our Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ community members have the space and opportunity to exist fully and authentically. We also encourage allies to support and center Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQIA+ stories and voices.
As Pride becomes increasingly commodified, we want to affirm the queer and gender-diverse Indigenous people who for the last five centuries have remained steadfast in challenging the imposition of this rigid binary system through their art, their activism, and their existence.

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Watch This: Nearly 30 Years Later, Filmmakers Reflect on the Birth of New Queer Cinema

During the 1992 Sundance Film Festival, scholar and critic B. Ruby Rich took the stage in Park City to host a panel discussion that delved into an important chapter in independent film history that was just then unfolding. Assembled for the conversation — titled “Barbed-Wire Kisses” by the Festival’s then-director, Alberto Garcia — were preeminent artists and writers like Gregg Araki, Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien, Tom Kalin, Jennie Livingston, Marlon Riggs, Sadie Benning, and Lisa Kennedy.

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Announcing the 2021 Sundance Institute Accessible Futures Intensive Fellows

The Sundance Institute is thrilled to resume the Accessible Futures Initiative in 2021 as a virtual intensive. Created in 2019, the intensive is part of the Sundance Institute’s ongoing commitment to deepening outreach to and support of artists with disabilities, including amplifying accessibility at the Sundance Film Festival with guidance and support of our partners at Easterseals Southern California and implementing all-staff accessibility inclusion trainings provided by RespectAbility. The 2021 Intensive will take the shape of a cross-genre project consultation and career strategy workshop for artists of color, with disabilities, in the development or early production of fiction and nonfiction projects.

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Don’t Miss These 16 Sundance-Supported Projects at This Year’s Tribeca Film Festival

The 20th annual Tribeca Film Festival kicks off in New York today, bringing back in-person screenings at venues around the city. We’re excited to see 16 Sundance Institute–supported projects in the lineup, and we can’t wait for the chance to see them on the big screen. (Not in NYC? Not a problem — the festival is also offering $15-per-title Tribeca at Home virtual screenings for select titles.

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