Category: News

Two-Day Workshop Supported by Universal Filmed Entertainment Group Launches Year-Round Support for Fellows

Los Angeles, CA — The fourth annual FilmTwo Initiative launches today in LA to support the career sustainability of thirteen artists developing their second features. FilmTwo encompasses two days of focused programming, including a writing workshop (led by Joan Tewkesbury), industry mentoring sessions, and one-on-one story meetings, kicking off a year of tailored creative and tactical support as part of the Institute’s continuum of support for artists at key inflection points in their careers. The FilmTwo Initiative is supported by Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

Sundance Institute Programmer Hussain Currimbhoy sat down with Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, to discuss the shifts in the industry and how they’re affecting everything from festivals and theaters to distribution and the Academy Awards. Rajendra Roy: It’s super timely we would have this chat. Everything is changing and everything is going to have to function in new ways.

Last week, Claudio Rojas, one of the main subjects in Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera’s documentary The Infiltrators, was detained by ICE. In the film, Claudio acted as the inside source about conditions in a for-profit detention center in Florida where he had been detained for overstaying his visa in 2012. The Infiltrators had just premiered to great acclaim at Sundance Film Festival, winning the NEXT Innovator and Audience Awards, and was about to be screened at the Miami Film Festival with Claudio in attendance.

LOS ANGELES — Eleven screenwriters have been selected to participate in Sundance Institute’s seventh annual Screenwriters Intensive in Los Angeles, to take place February 28 – March 1, 2019. Part of the Institute’s commitment to introducing the industry to an inclusive pipeline of exciting new storytellers, the Intensive is a two-day workshop for writers or writer/directors from underrepresented communities developing their first fiction feature. Fellows at the Intensive will advance the art and craft of their work under the guidance of experienced filmmakers and in collaboration with Institute’s Feature Film Program.

A 28-year-old YouTuber. A hip-hop vocalist. A kid and his amateur skate vids.

Los Angeles — Sundance Institute today announced Knock Down the House as the winner of the Festival Favorite Award, selected by audience votes from the 121 features screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, which took place in Park City, Salt Lake City and Sundance, Utah from January 24 through February 3. The Festival Favorite is the 29th and final recognition bestowed on this year’s Features, including juried prizes and category-specific Audience Awards; others were announced at a ceremony in Park City on February 2 and a full list is available here. Runners-up and other strong contenders for the Festival Favorite Award included Ask Dr.

Top Prizes Go To Clemency, One Child Nation, The Souvenir and Honeyland
Brittany Runs a Marathon, Knock Down the House, Queen of Hearts and Sea of Shadows Win Audience Awards
Park City, Utah — After 10 days and 121 feature films, the 2019 Sundance Film Festival’s Awards Ceremony took place tonight, with host Marianna Palka emceeing and jurors presenting 28 prizes for feature filmmaking. Honorees, named in total below, represent new achievements in global independent storytelling. Bold, intimate, and humanizing stories prevailed across categories, with Grand Jury Prizes awarded to Clemency (U.

Park City, Utah — Winners of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival jury prizes in short filmmaking were announced today by Sundance Institute at a ceremony in Park City, Utah. The Short Film Grand Jury Prize, awarded to one film in the program of 73 shorts selected from 9,443 submissions, went to Aziza, directed by Soudade Kaadan and co-written by Kaadan and May Hayek. Full video of the ceremony is at youtube.

Winners of Commissioning Grant, Episodic Storytelling Grant and Lab Fellowship Revealed
Director-Screenwriter-Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor Honored
Park City, Utah — At a reception at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival today, the beneficiaries of $70,000 in grants from Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation were revealed. Doron Weber, Sloan Vice President of Programs and Director of the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program, presented the Feature Film Prize to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and announced the new winners: Skye Emerson for Challenger and Gillian Weeks for The New Miracle (Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant); Anthony Onah for Goliath (Sundance Institute | Sloan Lab Fellowship); and Neilkanth Dave and Zachary Parris for DELTA-V (Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Storytelling Grant).

Photo credit: Courtesy Sundance Institute.
Park City, Utah — Co-Directors Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace-Smith are the 2019 recipients of the Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship, an annual fellowship named in honor of the late Māori filmmaker Merata Mita (1942-2010). The announcement was delivered today at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance Institute/USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study shows women are represented at Sundance in significantly greater numbers than ten years ago, but are still far below 50%.
PARK CITY, UT – January 25, 2019 — Sundance Institute and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (AI2) today released demographic data on submissions and acceptances to the annual Sundance Film Festival to reveal key insights on the talent pipeline in the film industry for women and people of color.
The report was issued in partnership with Professor Stacy L.

A banner year for documentaries at the box office has officially extended into awards season. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its Oscars nominations in all 24 categories this morning, with Sundance Institute-supported nonfiction films all but sweeping the Best Documentary Feature category. The nominated documentary features include RBG, which tells the inspiring story of America’s intrepid Supreme Court justice, and Minding the Gap, from young first-time director Bing Liu, who went from making skateboarding videos to creating a no-holds-barred exploration of the deeply entrenched effects of the cycle of abuse.