Category: News

2021 Sundance Institute Film Music Intensive: Meet the Fellows

In spring of 2021, the Sundance Institute conducted an online Film Music Intensive, an all-too-infrequent chance to create and claim some free creative space and examine something that fascinates us all: What happens when you combine music and film to tell a story?
We welcomed extraordinary emerging composers Chanell Crichlow, Olivia Komahcheet, Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, Alexandra Kalinowski, Dana Lynn, and EmmoLei Sankofa as fellows. They worked with a stellar group of creative advisors from across the industry, including Kathryn Bostic, George S. Clinton, Mychael Danna, Laura Karpman, Heather McIntosh, Blake Neely, Jeff Rona, Adam Smalley, and Christopher Willis.

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Sundance Film Festival: Asia Is Set for 23–26 September; Program Announced, Will Take Place Virtually

JAKARTA — The Sundance Institute and XRM Media, with support from IDN Media, announced today the program of feature films and panel discussions for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival: Asia, taking place online 23–26 September 2021. The films will be available for viewing online in Indonesia, and digital screening passes for online screenings will be available beginning on Wednesday, 15 September; buy yours at sundancefilmfestivalasia.org.

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​16 Sundance Films to Watch Before Fall Movie Season, From ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ to ‘Thank You for Smoking’​

Just as nature brings out new and vivid colors in the fall, filmmakers step forward with their best and brightest as we head into the serious cinema season — not that some fun romps aren’t in store as well. In reviewing the fall movie season lineup, we started to notice some familiar faces from past labs and Festivals popping up behind the camera, from Daniel Deston Cretton to Chloé Zhao. Thus, we have another installment in our ongoing lesson: You find Sundance alums in some of the most exciting places.

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6 Sundance Institute–Supported Projects to Catch at Venice, Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF

The arrival of September means the start of fall festival season, beginning with the Venice International Film Festival, which hosts its opening night tonight. We’re excited at the prospect of getting to see Sundance Institute–supported projects in person at events around the world, beginning tomorrow, September 2, with the world premiere of Diana El Jeiroudi’s Republic of Silence, which was made with support from our Documentary Film Fund.
In addition to El Jeiroudi’s film, we’ve rounded up four additional Sundance Institute–supported projects that appear on the lineups of Venice (September 1–11), Telluride (September 2–6), Toronto (September 9–18), and the New York Film Festival (September 24–October 10).

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Restoring the Future: Building a More Abundant Media Arts System Through Restorative Values Practices

Eighteen months into this pandemic, we struggle still to regain our lives and livelihoods. Society seeks to “get back to normal” by any means necessary, and meanwhile, many opportunities for fieldwide reform that the pandemic presented to us one year ago still remain largely unaddressed. In the last year, the longstanding extractive practices of so many of our societal structures have been laid bare, and our media arts system is no exception.

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Meet the Sundance Institute Lab Fellows, Class of 2021

The Sundance Institute has been hosting its labs since the summer of 1981, when its inaugural class of fellows arrived at the Sundance Mountain Resort to workshop their independent features. This year, we celebrate our 40th anniversary with an all-new group of artists in our Directors and Screenwriters Labs, our Episodic Lab, our Native Lab, our Producers Lab, and our Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellowship. See each program’s list of fellows below, and click the links to learn more about them all.

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Sundance Institute Releases Independent Theater Study Conducted By Jesse Cameron Alick – Emerging From The Cave

Los Angeles, CA, August 4, 2021—In early 2021, nearly a year into a global pandemic, Sundance Institute commissioned Jesse Cameron Alick, the newly-appointed Associate Artistic Director for the Vineyard Theater in New York and past creator advisor to the Institute’s Theater Program, to launch an in-depth field study to hear directly from theater makers about the most urgent needs of artists and the field. The commission began as part of the Institute’s effort to re-imagine its own work in the field of theater and live performance. The report that resulted yielded the work published today: Emerging from the Cave: Reimagining Our Future in Theater and Live Performance, available at emergingfromthecave.

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