Park City, UT – Sundance Institute announced today its summer screening schedule and unique collaborations with local cultural organizations, expanding the reach of the year-round Film Series and its showcasing of innovative works supported by the Sundance Institute. With a strong history of serving as a cultural catalyst by bringing films and artists to the area, the Sundance Institute is joining forces with organizations to create memorable Film Series screenings and events while strengthening community engagement.

“This season we wanted to recognize that the Sundance Institute shares similar objectives with our vibrant arts and culture neighbors in delivering an innovative and exciting summer film series. The Institute’s screening of 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection WASTE LAND at Live Green SLC! acknowledges the impact films from the Festival have played in the dialogue about the environment.  By showcasing the claymation film MARY AND MAX at the Park City Kimball Arts Festival’s Opening Night enables the two organizations to  share in the celebration of arts, culture, and film,” said Jill Miller, Managing Director, Sundance Institute and Chairperson, Utah Arts Council. “We are equally as thrilled to be partnering with Red Butte Garden in presenting the Academy Award nominated film ONCE and MOTORCYCLE DIARIES — this collaboration offered an incredible opportunity to build upon a strong, existing community that enjoys artistic events in a stunning setting.”

These screenings are made possible by support from Principal Sponsor Zions Bank, Major Sponsors Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks and Summit County Recreation, Arts, and Parks Program, with in-kind support from City Weekly, KRCL 90.9 FM Community Radio, Park City Film Series, Park City Marriott, and Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre.

Images of the upcoming films can be found at http://press.sundance.org

This season’s screenings include:

Waste Land
Saturday, May 8, 4:00 p.m.
Library Auditorium, 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City
Directed by Lucy Walker
2010 Sundance Film Festival Award Winner, World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary

Waste Land chronicles Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s journey to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, and photographs these inspiring characters as they recycle their lives and society’s garbage. Walker gains fantastic access to the entire process and, in doing so, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the dignity that can be found in personal determination. Visit http://www.redirectguide.com/LiveGreenSLC/ for more information.

Unzipped
Thursday, June 3, 7:00 p.m.                                                       
Tower Theatre, 876 East 900 South, Salt Lake City
Directed by Douglas Keeve
Official Selection, 1995 Sundance Film Festival

Winner of the Documentary Audience Award, Unzipped is part performance, part cinema vérité, and all delight as we follow world-famous fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi as he creates his 1994 New York fall fashion show. The world of high fashion has rarely been depicted in such intimate detail, complete with all the excitement and anxiety, exhilaration and terror that accompany any major artistic event. Featuring many of the world’s top models, including Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington, Unzipped is a treat that fulfills the promise of its title to entertain, provoke, and unveil.

Son of Rambow
Thursday, July 1, 9:00 p.m.
Outdoors at City Park, 1355 Park Ave, Park City
Written and directed by Garth Jennings
Official Selection 2007 Sundance Film Festival

Set during a long English summer in the early 1980’s, Son of Rambow is a touching comedy about the tough business of growing up. Will, a fatherless boy from a strict family that won’t let him watch television, finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and maker of bizarre home movies. Lee exposes Will to a pirated copy of the Rambo film, First Blood, which blows his mind wide open.

Once
Wednesday, July 21, 9:00 p.m.
Outdoors at Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre, 2280 East Red Butte Canyon Road, Salt Lake City
Written and directed by John Carney
Official Selection 2007 Sundance Film Festival

Overwhelming Festival audiences in Park City and garnering the World Cinema Audience Award, Once earned real Cinderella-indie film status by stealing the hearts of worldwide audiences and ultimately nabbing an Academy Award for Best Song (“Falling Slowly”). Though it may loosely be classified as a musical, John Carney’s no-budget love story achieves a refreshing naturalism with musicians rather than actors playing the leads. Once stars Glen Hansard of Irish rock group The Frames and Czech singer/songwriter Marketa Irglova, who shine together. Burdened and brokenhearted, their musical bond is the heart of the film and of their love.

Mary and Max
Friday, August 6, 9:00 p.m.
* Opening Night of the 41st Park City Kimball Arts Festival
Outdoors at City Park, 1355 Park Ave, Park City
Directed by Adam Elliot
Official Selection 2009 Sundance Film Festival

Mary & Max, a claymation feature by the Academy Award–winning team behind Harvie Krumpet , is a simple friendship story about two very different pen-pals: Mary Dinkle (voiced by Toni Collette), a lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Australia, and Max Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman), a 44-year-old obese, Jewish man with Asperger’s syndrome living in New York.

Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max’s friendship take us on a journey that explores autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, agoraphobia, and obesity, to name a few topics, each penned with love and whole-hearted compassion.

The Motorcycle Diaries
Wednesday, August 25, 9:00 p.m.
Outdoors at Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre, 2280 East Red Butte Canyon Road, Salt Lake City
Directed by Walter Salles
Official Selection 2004 Sundance Film Festival

The Motorcycle Diaries is a beautifully wrought account of the awakening of one of the 20th century’s most romanticized revolutionaries.  The film recounts the odyssey undertaken by a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado in 1952, when Guevara was a 23-year-old medical student. They embarked on a nine-month adventure through South America on the back of an unreliable Norton 500cc bike.  A summer road movie like no other, The Motorcycle Diaries transports you to a unique moment of time and place where myth is born. 

Sundance Institute invites you to step inside the world of independent filmmaking each month with the Sundance Institute Film Series. Part screening, part discussion, we’ll showcase work supported by Sundance Institute and give you an opportunity to meet the filmmakers and discuss the films.

About Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring Awakening, HOWL, Trouble the Water, Boys Don’t Cry and Sin Nombre.