Nate von Zumwalt

What’s the purpose of a film festival if the narrative ends when the reel runs out? Offscreen at the Sundance Film Festival was created to extend the life of the stories on screen, to ignite conversation, and to encourage debate. This year, with an Offscreen program as robust as ever, we’re highlighting the panels and presentations that will be keeping the pilot flame lit on conversations throughout the Festival.

Ways of Seeing

Tuesday, January 23, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Lodge
Open to all credential holders, as space permits.

How we see science and its place in our world has a lot to do with who we see doing it and what’s being done. The images and representations we engage with through popular culture spark our imagination, inform our values, and shape our understanding of scientists, their work, technology, the natural world, and the cosmos. So it bodes well that as science reveals new visions and dimensions of nature, storytellers are exploring different ways of seeing, bending those perceptions through fresh stories and innovative approaches to narrative, style, and performance. Join Darren Aronofsky (SPHERES: Songs of Spacetime), Kevin Hand (Planetary Scientist/Astrobiology, Project Scientist for the Europa Lander Mission Concept), Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures, Shape of Water), Shonte Tucker (Systems Engineer at NASA/JPL), and moderator Kerry Bishé (Halt and Catch Fire).

Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

New Climate

Tuesday, January 23, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Egyptian Theatre
Ticket Required

The impact of climate change has been felt dramatically by Native communities in the U.S. and around the world. Despite poisoned resources, corporatism, and an existential threat to their homelands, these vulnerable communities rarely fall under the spotlight, and their stories go untold. This special New Climate discussion welcomes Anote Tong, former president of the disappearing island of Kiribati; Bartholomew Powaukee, Environmental and Water Quality Director for Utah’s Ute Tribe; Tashka Yawanawa, chief of the Yawanawa; and moderator Janaya Khan of Black Lives Matter, Canada; all at the forefront of the conservation fight to deconstruct histories and mythologies around climate change, discuss how story and technology can share a hidden point of view, and reveal creative initiatives to combat current trends and thinking around the climate change.

Cinema Cafe with Steve James & Lauren Greenfield

Thursday, January 25, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Lodge
Open to all credential holders, as space is available.

Revered doc filmmakers Steve James (Hoop Dreams; Life Itself) and Lauren Greenfield (Thin; The Queen of Versailles) sit down for a morning conversation without borders or boundaries.

Play: A World-Building Workshop

Thursday, January 25, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
The Box at The Ray
Open to all credential holders, as space permits

If you could design a city from scratch, what would you include? Writer/director Lance Weiler (Frankenstein AI: A Monster Made by Many), director John Hsu (Your Spiritual Temple Sucks), and experience designer Mk Haley (of Florida State University and Walt Disney Imagineering), and illustrator Wesley Allsbrook (The Sun Ladies VR, Dear Angelica) will collaborate with the audience to create a city. Afterward, panelists will discuss this feat of group stagecraft, plus share their own methods for inventing believable storyworlds.

Unearthing the Past

Saturday, January 27, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Lodge
Open to all credential holders, as space permits.

Nonfiction filmmakers are employing increasingly innovative approaches in order to visually and artfully engage with the past. Through creative uses of archival footage, personal- and biographical-storytelling filmmakers are excavating the past in order to re-contextualize the present and interrogate notions of truth. Join Alissa Wilkinson (Vox) in a conversation with Jonathan Bogarin and Elan Bogarin (306 Hollywood), Robert Greene (Bisbee ‘17), Sierra Pettengill (The Reagan Show), and Marina Zenovich (Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind).

Creative Tensions: IDENTITY

Friday, January 26, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
The Shop
Open to all credential holders, as space permits.

This is not your typical panel. Join us for Creative Tensions: IDENTITY as we explore what we may be afraid to talk about. In a world where polemics are the norm and binaries form our views of others, how do we talk about the shades of gray? From our politics to the stories we create (or are allowed to create), what do we lose or gain by becoming a tribe of tribes? An innovative event concept created by Sundance Institute’s Theatre Program, Creative Tensions is a collective conversation expressed in movement, wherein participants reveal where they stand on an issue by virtue of where they stand in the room.

A continental breakfast will be served at 11:00 a.m. This event is presented by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program and Sundance Ignite in partnership with IDEO, a global design company creating positive impact through design. Check Sundance.org for up-to-date information.