Park City, UT – Sundance Institute presents a Feature Film Showcase with a screening of Don’t Let Me Drown, a film developed at the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs and screened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, followed by an intimate conversation about the filmmaking process with director Cruz Angeles and Salt Lake Tribune film critic Sean P. Means. The screening and discussion is free to the public and will be held on Wednesday, November 4 at 7 p.m. at the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City.

The screening of Don’t Let Me Drown is made possible by support from Principal Sponsor Zions Bank, Major Sponsors Summit County Recreation, Arts, and Parks Program, Salt Lake County and the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, with in-kind support from City Weekly, KRCL 90.9 FM Community Radio, KXRK “X96” 96.3 FM, Park City Film Series, Park City Marriott, ParkCityWeek.com and UtahFM.

Called “one of the best film portraits yet of New York City in the aftermath of 9/11” by Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter, Don’t Let Me Drown is the love story of two teenagers struggling with the grief and shock following the terrorist attacks. Both of them are closely connected to the events — Lalo, is a Brooklyn-born Mexican whose father works cleaning up the toxic dust at the World Trade Center, while Stefanie is a sharp-tongued Dominican struggling to overcome the sorrow of losing her older sister, who worked at the World Trade Center. As their burgeoning relationship becomes known, the reaction from their parents is one of alarm and distrust, demonstrating the cultural differences between Latino communities in Brooklyn and between second and first generation immigrants.

First-time director and co-screenwriter Cruz Angeles was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Central, LA, and attended film school at New York University. Cruz attended the 2005 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Lab and won the 2006 Sundance/NHK Filmmaker Award. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and has gone on to screen at several film festivals including BAMcinemfest, Woodstock Film Festival and San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. Earlier this month, Angles was nominated for a Gotham Independent Award for Best Breakthrough Director. To learn more about Cruz Angeles, check out this Meet the Artist vide on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hieJbZOWSg

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. The final installment of the 2009 Sundance Institute Film Series will take place on December 2:

Inside the Festival: We Live in Public Wednesday, December 2, 2009 | 7:00 p.m.

Park City Library

(Directed by Ondi Timoner)

Winner of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary

Learn about the Festival from staffers before a screening from a filmmaker who has had three films screen at the Sundance Film Festival. In her third film at the Festival, Timoner offers a fascinating ten-year chronicle of internet pioneer Josh Harris as he launched an art experiment involving more than 100 artists living in a New York City bunker under 24-hour surveillance. Timoner couples Harris’s footage from his exhibitions with rousing vérité of her own for a sexy, yet cautionary tale where we all become Big Brother. Screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director.

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, Boys Don’t Cry, Sin Nombre and Born into Brothels.