20 Feet From Stardom Supervising Editor Doug Blush shares about his experience of traveling through Indonesia with Film Forward.

A special 10 year anniversary screening of Napoleon Dynamite will be kicking off Sundance NEXT FEST with Cinespia at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. 

Get tickets: www.sundance.org/NEXT

Filmmaker Mike Cahill discusses his film I Origins on Live@Sundance during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, said, "As a leader in her field, Pat Mitchell has long championed the value of the storyteller, not just in entertainment, but in society at large. She clearly understands and is committed to the mission of Sundance. We are fortunate to have her leadership and we welcome her to her new role as Board chair."   Redford continued "we are grateful to Wally Weisman for his generosity and leadership, dedication to Sundance Institute and tireless support of independent artists over the past 25 years. Sundance Institute would not be the organization it is without his guidance."

Pat Mitchell, Sundance Institute Board of Trustees Chair, said,  "It has been my pleasure to serve on the Sundance Institute Board of Trustees under Wally and I am honored that the Board elected me as the new Chair of this dynamic organization.  I look forward to working with Keri and our Board and Institute leadership to execute on current strategy and imagine a productive, exciting and vibrant future."

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, "Sundance Institute has benefited greatly from Wally's exceptional leadership and it has been my distinct privilege to work with him. Pat is a revered nonprofit leader and visionary and veteran of our Board who brings genuine enthusiasm for the work of the Institute and a deep understanding of the organization.   She will do a wonderful job leading Sundance Institute in the years ahead in her new role and I look forward to working with her."

Pat Mitchell, who was president & CEO of the Paley Center from March 2006 to May 2014, now serves the organization as executive vice chair.  As president and chief executive officer of The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television & Radio), Mitchell guided the institution through an exciting rebranding effort and strengthened its public and industry programs by analyzing and interpreting the immense changes in the media landscape.

Mitchell came to The Paley Center for Media from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), where she was named president and chief executive officer in March 2000, the first woman and first producer and journalist to hold the position. Mitchell came to the world of media when she was recruited from college teaching by Look magazine. Not long after, she took her first story to WNBC New York, where she saw her work go from page to screen—and never looked back. Over the next three decades, Mitchell worked for three broadcast networks and several cable channels, winning national acclaim both in front of and behind the camera as a reporter, news anchor, talk show host, White House and special correspondent, producer, and executive.

In addition to her accomplishments both on and off the screen, Mitchell is also known for her humanitarian efforts and her work as a dedicated member of numerous nonprofit boards. Mitchell is a Trustee of the Mayo Foundation, a founding member of Mikhail Gorbachev's global environmental organization, Global Green USA, a board member of Acumen Fund, chair of the Jordan River Foundation US Board and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women's Forum Inc and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Mitchell also sits on the corporate board of AOL.

A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia, with a master's degree in English literature, Mitchell has also been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Emerson College, Hollins University, Bloomsburg University, and Converse College.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

This blog originally appeared as part of VHX's Success Stories series. Based on his bestselling memoir of the same name, Life Itself explores the legacy of film critic Roger Ebert's life. Directed by Steve James, the film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously screened online exclusively for the film's Indiegogo supporters. 

OBJECTIVE

Use crowdfunding to build community.

SOLUTION

Offer the ability for supporters to stream the film at the same time as the Sundance premiere.

In addition to raising funds, the Life Itself campaign was about building audience and community around the film. Steve James' Hoop Dreams premiered at Sundance 20 years before Life Itself, and the community that Sundance represented both for the film, the filmmakers, and for Roger Ebert and his family were so important. How can the Internet make the supporters of the film feel like they are part of the community?

The best way to achieve that was to give those 1,500 eligible supporters the chance to watch the film at the exact same time as the Sundance Film Festival premiere. They could stream it as many times as they liked for two weeks. After the premiere, fans were treated to a live video Q&A from the filmmakers, courtesy of YouTube. Fans rejoiced.

The screening showed that you can use the Internet to build off the intimate setting of a festival premiere, and provide a lift to your existing promotional and marketing efforts. Events like festivals are great at building awareness and interest. Offering your most passionate supporters the ability to participate wherever they are represents the true value of community on the Internet.

TIPS/BEST PRACTICES: Have a clear plan 

The producers of Life Itself knew they wanted to stream the film at the same time as the Sundance premiere, and were very clear with their supporters on Indiegogo how it was going to work. Be prepared for questions about how fans can access the film and for how long. Pairing with a live event means you need to be ready to respond to questions quickly so your supporters don't feel left out! 

Feedback On Twitter

.@Kartemquin and @vhxtv are combining movie magic and Internet magic in a way that honors @ebertchicago in a really authentic way.

— Alex Cox (@AlexCox) January 20, 2014

Excited for today's @EbertMovie livestream #Sundance2014. Huge thanks to Steve James @Kartemquin, @Indiegogo @vhxtv for making this possible

— Kim (@kim) January 19, 2014

Thousands of miles from Sundance, I enjoy the premiere of "Life Itself" on my Brooklyn widescreen, along with wife and cat #TheFutureIsHere

— Steven James Snyder (@TheSnydes) January 20, 2014

The two first features produced from the inaugural 2005 Lab premiered at the Sundance Film Festival: Pomegranates and Myrrh, written and directed by Najwa Najjar (Palestine) and Amreeka, written and directed by Cherien Dabis (Palestine/Jordan/US). Notable alums of the Lab also include Mohammed Al Daradji (Son of Babylon) and Sally El Hosaini (My Brother The Devil).

More recently, 2009 Rawi alumna Haifaa Al Mansour (Saudi Arabia) premiered her first feature Wadjda at the 2012 Venice Film Festival. It was soon acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and was distributed to critical and audience acclaim from around the world. Wadjda is the first feature film shot entirely in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the first ever by a Saudi female filmmaker.

The 10th anniversary events in Amman included a panel on the craft of screenwriting led by Al Mansour, a public screening of Zindeeq by Lab Advisor Michel Khleifi, and a reception designed to connect local artists with filmmakers from across the region.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, "Stories told by independent artists, whether working in the U.S. or internationally, provide remarkable windows into other cultures, and deepen understanding. Ten years into our work in the Middle East, we look forward to continuing to  give voice to artists in the region."

Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Feature Film Program, said, "We deeply value our collaboration with the Royal Film Commission as well as the artists we have supported in the Middle East over the past 10 years. The films that have emerged from the Lab have reflected upon many of the region's important cultural and political moments over the past decade. I am proud to see the work of these  artists enriching the broader culture with unique and impactful stories."

George David, General Manager of the Royal Film Commission, said, "We are proud of what this Lab has accomplished over the past ten years. It is safe to say that Rawi, with the support of the Sundance Institute has become a recognized contributor to the development of Arab feature films. Cinematic works, which were born in Rawi, have been featured in major films festivals and released in cinema screens globally, exposing our Arab culture and heritage to the world."

Modeled on the Institute's renowned US-based Screenwriters Labs, the Rawi Screenwriters Lab provides an opportunity for filmmakers from the Middle East region to develop their work under the guidance of accomplished screenwriters in an environment that encourages storytelling at its highest level. The Lab is led by the Royal Film Commission of Jordan and managed by Deema Azar, in consultation with Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program, under the direction of Founding Director Michelle Satter and International Director Paul Federbush.

The Creative Advisors this year included Pavel Jech (This Is Not An American Movie), Rawi Screenwriting Lab alum Najwa Najjar (Eyes Of A Thief, Pomegranates And Myrrh), Hanna Weg (Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet), Jon Raymond (Night Moves, Wendy and Lucy), and Michel Khleifi (Zindeeq).

The six artists selected for the 2014 Rawi Screenwriters Lab include:

Shake
Writer and Director: Deema Dabis (Jordan)
Free-spirited Kareemah decides to leave her home in Los Angeles to pursue her lifelong dream when she accepts an offer to tour Palestine with an international circus troop. As she struggles to manage her insecurities as a first-time performer, she is continuously shaken up by the complexities of life in Palestine.

Dabis received an MFA in Cinema from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts. From a young age she has always been in love with stories and believes fiercely that the power of creation and a new vision will not only bring healing and insight into our world but also has the potential to create alternative narratives and realities. She is working on a number of projects including her first short film The Sri Lankan, which received funding from the Jordan Film Fund.

Baghdad Perfume
Writer and Director: Roua Ahmad (Iraq)
The tale of a middle-class family and their struggles during the darkest period in Iraq between 2004 and 2006. As the occupation becomes more oppressive and water and electricity begin to run out, the family of three tries to stay together through kidnapping, illness, and the increasing danger of staying in Baghdad.

Ahmad was born on 1983 in Iraq. She received a certificate of participation from USC School of Cinematic Art and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Programming. She later got her MFA in Directing and Editing from The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts. Filmmaking has been her ambition since the age of 12. After graduation she worked as an editor and screenwriter for a television production company. Her short films include The Last Hour, and have been screened and nominated for awards in 12 film festivals around the world.

Killer of the Selawa
Writer and Director: Islam Azzazi (Egypt)
Co-Writer: Charles Akl (Egypt)
In the tense atmosphere following the revolution in Egypt, a man spends the night in a remote villa on the outskirts of Alexandria, trying to obtain a permit for his father's weapons. After news spreads of a vicious, mythical beast in the area, the man finds himself caught up in a murderous accident.

Since his Dostoyevski inspired thesis project, Al-Kharaz (Beads), Azzazi has directed and produced numerous Documentaries and short films. His documentaries include Wujouh Al-Fayoum (Fayoum Portraits) and Dominate Your Eyes. He has also produced and directed the short film Nahar we Leil (Day & Night), 2006. Azzazi has worked at El-Warsha Theatre Company where he coached actors and photographed theatrical productions. In 2007 he established a new production company WIKA with three other filmmakers.

Charles Akl works as a writer, director, editor, art critic and photographer. After graduating from the University of Alexandria's Faculty of Fine Arts in 2006, he has worked in several domains ranging from architecture design to writing and editing for several arts publications, including Magaz. Akl has also worked as the program coordinator at Al Mawred Al Thaqafy.

Tide
Writer and Director: Hussen Ibraheem (Lebanon)
A man and woman struggle in the aftermath of their son's death. As the tide approaches their coastal home and they make their way by car to a relative's house in the mountains, they must confront the tension the tragedy has created between them.

Ibraheem is an independent filmmaker, born in Beirut, Lebanon. After getting his BA in Architecture, Ibraheem followed his love for animation working as a freelance storyboard artist and character designer. Ibraheem was granted a scholarship from The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts where he studied directing and cinematography. His second short film produced at RSICA, Typo, is currently touring 13 film festivals in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, USA, UK, and Italy.

The Golden Cap Club
Writer and Director: Merva Faddoul (Lebanon)
A young girl comes of age as the organized world of the adults crumbles during the invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s. Determined to win a trip to Disneyland, she collects bottle caps in an attempt to find the 'golden cap,' as her family tries to distract her from the sudden challenges they face.

Faddoul is an award-winning writer and director. She recieved an MFA in Film Production from the University of Southern California and a BA in Communications from the Lebanese American University. Her short films have won grants from National Geographic and the Doha Film Institute and they have screened at dozens of festivals worldwide including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Human Rights Nights (Italy), Doha-Tribeca Film Festival, and Tricycle Cinema in London. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America and the International Academy of WebTV.

Snow
Writer and Director: Omaima Hamouri (Palestine)
Eight year-old Dina believes that an old family curse is behind the conflict that arises each summer between her parents, and becomes convinced that snow is the only way to solve their problems. With the help of her grandmother, she resolves to delay her parents' divorce until the first snowfall.

Hamouri was born in 1988 in Jerusalem. She received her bachelor degree in Mass Media from Al-Quds University, followed by an MFA in Editing and Screenwriting from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan. With a never-ending passion for telling human stories through film, Omaima is now working as an independent filmmaker.

The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program is supported by The Annenberg Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, RT Features, Time Warner Foundation,
The Lincoln Motor Company, Red Crown Productions,
the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, HP, Steve Bing, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Microsoft, The Rockefeller Foundation,
NHK Enterprises, Inc., National Endowment for the Arts, 3311 Productions,
The Ammon Foundation, Firestone / von Winterfeldt Family Fund, Ford Foundation,
Philip Fung-A3 Foundation, SAGIndie, Grazka Taylor,
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
and The Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund.

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program
Since its founding in 1981, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP) has supported an extensive list of ground-breaking independent films. FFP films making their premieres this year include Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival), Cutter Hodierne's Fishing Without Nets (winner of the Directing Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival), and Malik Vitthal's Imperial Dreams (winner of the Best of NEXT Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival). Additional notable films supported over the program's history include Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox, Haifaa Al Mansour's Wadjda, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild, Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, Dee Rees' Pariah, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, Andrea Arnold's Red Road, Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, Josh Marston's Maria Full of Grace, Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas, John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry, Walter Salles' Central Station, Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie's Smoke Signals, Allison Anders' Mi Vida Loca, Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight, and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. sundance.org/featurefilm

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Before we turn our collective attention to a new season of independent film, a handful of releases from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival round out the year. Director Mona Fastvold’s unsettling drama The Sleepwalker, recently picked up by IFC, meditates on several fractured relationships forced to run their course in a secluded Massachusetts mansion, while Amir Bar-Lev’s Happy Valley provokes a far more disturbing variety of distress in its scathing deconstruction of the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

Below, check out all of the Sundance-supported films hitting theaters and coming to DVD and Blu-Ray.

In Theaters

Wednesday, November 19

Happy Valley, directed by Amir Bar-Lev

Thursday, November 20

An Illiad, PBS (taped live performance), 10 p.m.

Friday, November 21

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, directed by Ana lily Amirpour

The Sleepwalker, directed by Mona Fastvold

Friday, November 28

The Babadook, directed by Jennifer Kent

DVD & Blu-Ray

Tuesday, November 4

A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn

Tuesday, November 11

This May Be The Last Time, directed by Sterlin Harjo

The Babadook, directed by Jennifer Kent

Happy Christmas, directed by Joe Swanberg 

There seems to be a faction of horror flick aficionados who loathe anything less than gratuitous violence in their films. A caveat for those fans: while this list may not be for you, our prior years’ Haunted Collections do pander to your macabre desires – check them out here and here.

For Halloween this year, we’ve culled our selections strictly from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which featured a dynamic group of what we’ll call “horror-adjacent” films across various program categories – Competition, Spotlight, and of course the Midnight Section. All of these films are currently available in theaters, On Demand, or for purchase on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Blue Ruin

We’ll kick off with a film from the Spotlight section, which highlights Sundance programmers’ favorite picks from other festivals, and in this case, Cannes. Jeremy Saulnier’s consuming thriller displays his acumen for constructing stark, convincing environments, which he first exhibited as the cinematographer on 2013’s I Used to Be Darker. Blue Ruin adopts a different world, but one equally enveloping and that follows an enigmatic man’s pursuit of vengeance after he learns that his parents’ murderer will son be released from prison. Watch it now.

What We Do In The Shadows

Longtime friends and collaborators Taika Waititi and actor Jermaine Clement – of Eagle vs. Shark and Flight of the Conchords, respectively – reconvene for this peculiar bit of droll humor. The pair has unabashedly christened the film a “vampire mockumentary,” and it delivers on that promise and then some. What We Do In The Shadows chronicles the anything but quotidian lives of Viago (379 years old), Deacon (183 years old), Vladislav (862 years old), and Peter (8,000 years old), a group of vampires who have chosen to share a flat in Wellington, New Zealand. Waititi and Clement share writing, directing, and acting duties in this hilarious corrective to the ubiquitous vampire romances of our day. Watch it now.

Life After Beth

Jeff Baena, writer of 2004 hit I Heart Huckabees, made his directorial debut with Life After Beth, a film that walks a fine line between zombie thriller, madcap comedy, and poignant romance. Naturally, any narrative attempting to fuse those disparate components would need to solicit a cast that could deftly walk those genre lines. For their lead roles, Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan offer a pair of revelatory performances. Beth (Plaza) dies unexpectedly and leaves her boyfriend Zach (DeHaan) miserable and despondent, until she stumbles back into Zach’s life as a mercurial zombie. Watch it now.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night can feel hypnotic in its in ability to lure audiences. The 2014 NEXT section film transports viewers to the film’s fictitious Bad City, a home to debauched drug users and other degenerates where a subdued vampire stalks the denizens. However improbable, our vampire “Girl,” stunningly portrayed by Sheila Vand, only changes her ways upon being seduced by a debonair romantic named Arash. At the Festival in January, director Ana Lily Amirpour’s indelible choice of words about the film’s anamorphic and black-and-white qualities still ring true: it provokes a “separation from reality.” Indeed, the spacious, shadowy confines of A Girl are among the film’s greatest offerings. In theaters November 21st.

The Babadook

For a film out of the sometimes-overlooked Midnight section, murmurs about The Babadook swept through Park City with surprising energy last January. Perhaps it’s because the film – digesting the trailer alone takes some mental fortitude – is a multilayered and terrifying experience. The narrative is one so unsettling that it surely engenders questions of where the creator’s mind travels to gather such material. That’s a topic for another time, as director Jennifer Kent is brilliant in conveying this hybrid horror/mindbender that sees a mother and son fending off a bogeyman incarnate named Mister Babadook. Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman are a convincing mother-and-son duo in this cerebral effort that will have you questioning what’s real and what’s imagined. In theaters and On-Demand November 28th.

Over the last six days the New Frontier Story Lab at the Sundance Resort has facilitated new conversations between an inspiring group of creative professionals about how to innovate the art and form of story.One of the biggest takeaways was the value of spending deep reflective time on story with artists coming from incredibly diverse disciplines. Many of the conversations focused on ways to evoke empathy in these new forms, how to give the audience presence or a feeling of being embodied, and how to co-create experiences within a community. Epiphanies abounded and I’m eagerly anticipating the ways these new ideas will manifest in both the Fellows’ projects and the Advisors’ creative practices.  

I couldn’t begin to give the full scope of these conversations within the limitations of this post. In fact, I think the full meaning of what we experienced will take time to land in my own understanding. But I’d love you to imagine what conversations took place between our Fellows and these masters of story, moving image and story-enabling technology:

Kathleen Forde (Artistic Director at Large, Borusan Contemporary)

Anselm Hook (Programmer and Artist)

Featured speakers include: Dennis Scholl (Knight Foundation), Straith Schreder (BitTorrent Inc), Jeremy Schwartz (SquareSpace), Emily Eddey (Light Iron), Toby Halbrooks (Producer, Ain't Them Bodies Saints), Jessica Jalsevac (Gumroad), James M. Johnston (Producer, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Listen Up Philip), and Yvonne Welbon (Producer, The New Black) as well as Sundance Institute staff. The event will be followed by a reception on site.

Since launching in 2011, Artist Services has helped to launch 120+ new and encore Sundance films into the digital marketplace and guided 200+ alumni artists with successful Kickstarter projects totaling over $8 Million. Artists whose work has been cultivated through the program include Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady (Detropia), Shane Carruth (Primer and Upstream Color) and Tiffany Shlain (Connected).

Select breakout sessions for the workshop include:

Finance and Fans: Every Kickstarter is a Story
• Dan Schoenbrun / Kickstarter
• Missy Laney / Sundance Institute

• The Artist Services team has helped raise over $8 million-dollars on Kickstarter and empowered more than 250 artists since launching in 2010. Sundance Institute staffer Missy Laney will show you the collective objective patterns of over 200 campaigns and what you can learn from them.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Deliverables (But Were Afraid to Ask)
• Emily Eddey / Light Iron
• Holden Payne / Sundance Institute

• This asset delivery bootcamp will teach you how to get your digital master and assets in the necessary shape to satisfy the strict requirements of encoding houses and digital retailers. Not for the faint of technical heart, but priceless in its specificity of a one-of-a-kind educational opportunity.

What We Love Right Now: Gumroad
• Jessica Jalsevac / Gumroad

• Gumroad is for independent writers, designers, game developers, musicians, artists, filmmakers, and makers. Without the hassle and cost of selling within a marketplace, they can help you sell directly to your audience — just like you talk to them.

Designing Your Look and Feel
• Jeremy Schwartz / SquareSpace

• Based in New York City, Squarespace is a beautiful and intuitive website publishing platform that allows anyone to easily create professional blogs, pages, stores, and galleries without touching a line of code. Learn how to create a site that serves as a fitting representation of your project.

Strategy to Know: Screening for Audiences Without an All-Rights Deal
• Yvonne Welbon / Producer
• Chris Horton / Sundance Institute  

• Yvonne Welbon, producer and outreach director of the award-winning documentary The New Black, shows us how you can achieve top-tier distribution – screening your film on a big screen, with an audience, across the country – without the headaches of pursuing a traditional theatrical release.

Bittorrent and the Art of the Bundle
• Straith Schreder / BitTorrent Inc

• Explore the impact of Drafthouse Films' decision to use BitTorrent Content Bundles to circumvent Phillipine censorship and deliver the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Act of Killing for free across the Internet: 3.5 million visits sent 45,000 visits to the iTunes Movies Store, where the film was available to buy or rent.

"The Producorialist"
• James M. Johnston / Filmmaker and Producer
• Toby Halbrooks / Filmmaker and Producer

• Second-Ever Edition! "The Producorialist" begins with the idea of creating a group keynote about the world of independent film and its strange and unexpected relationship to daily life.

For more information, please visit sundance.org/artistservices.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

New this fall, the Playwrights Studio at Flying Point offers Theatre Program alumni an uninterrupted period of  time and the space to work on their projects in a studio setting. The two one-week sessions each year are generously hosted by George and Joan Hornig.

Himberg said, "These fall labs provide unique and inspiring locations for these new and established artists to develop and explore their stories. MASS MoCA allows the creators of these innovative musical theatre and ensemble-generated projects the time and space for collaboration and rehearsal, while the Playwrights Studio offers a home to our alumni who continue to grow and experiment and can take advantage of the retreat setting to focus solely on their work."

The artists selected for the fall session of Playwrights Studio at Flying Point in Water Mill, NY are:

David Cale
David's solo shows include The History of Kisses, Palomino, A Likely Story, Lillian, Deep in a Dream of You, Smooch Music and The Redthroats. He wrote the book, lyrics, co-composed the music for, and played Floyd in the musical Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky, inspired by the character of Floyd "Studebaker" Duffner he portrayed in the film The Slaughter Rule. His plays include Betwixt and Nightwear. Cale has written lyrics for songs sung by artists including Elvis Costello, Deborah Harry and Jimmy Scott. Most recently he wrote the songs for 600 Highwaymen's Employee of the Year. As an actor he performed on stage in shows including John Jesurun's Chang in a Void Moon, Stew and Heidi Rodewald's The Total Bent and Kevin Elyot's Mouth to Mouth. His film credits include Winter in the Blood, Two Lovers and Pollock. David has been a participant in the Sundance Theatre Lab three times, twice as an actor working on new plays by Annie Baker, Paula Vogel and Doug Wright and as a writer, working on his solo Palomino.

Dan LeFranc
Dan is the playwright-in-residence of Playwrights Horizons. His new play Troublemaker was commissioned by and recently produced at Berkeley Repertory. His last play The Big Meal premiered at ATC (Chicago), received an extended off-Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons and made its UK premiere last summer. Other plays include Sixty Miles to Silver Lake (Soho Rep, P73, NYC), Origin Story, Bruise Easy and Night Surf. Dan received the 2011 Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the 2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, and the John C. Russell Fellowship, among others. He teaches at the Yale School of Drama and is currently on staff for the Showtime television drama The Affair.

Christopher Shinn
Christopher is the head of Playwriting at the New School for Drama, and author of many plays including Dying City (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Where Do We Live (Obie Award), and Four. His work has been produced internationally, with five world premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

José Rivera
José's The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2005. His film On the Road premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and Trade was the first film to premiere at the United Nations. In theatre, Rivera has won two Obie Awards in playwriting for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. Cloud Tectonics, Boleros for the Disenchanted, Sueño, Sonnets for an Old Century, School of the Americas, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), Brainpeople, and Adoration of the Old Woman have been produced in theatres across the country and around the world. New plays include Human Emotional Process, The Last Book of Homer, The Hours are Feminine, Another Word for Beauty (a musical), and a new translation/adaptation of The Kiss of the Spider Woman. For television he co-created and produced Eerie, Indiana for NBC as well as The House of Ramon Iglesia for PBS. In the works is an untitled HBO series with Tom Hanks, producer. Films in development or in production include Three Apples Fell from Heaven (about the Armenian genocide, Shekhar Kapur, director), The 33, John Brown (Giancarlo Esposito, director), Vincent,and an adaptation of Jack London's White Fang for Disney, among others. Celestina, based on his play Cloud Tectonics will mark his debut as a feature film director. Love Makes the City Crumble is his first novel. Rivera runs a writing workshop in New York and has been a mentor/advisor for the Sundance Screenwriting Labs in Utah, Jordan, and India.

Cori Thomas
When January Feels Like Summer (Ensemble Studio Theatre/Page 73/Women's Project Theater NYC, World Premiere- City Theatre Co., Pittsburgh); Pa's Hat (Pillsbury House Theatre, MN); My Secret Language of Wishes (Mixed Blood, MN); Akosua Means Sunday; The Princess, The Breast, and, The Lizard; The Unusual Love Life of Bedbugs and Other Creatures; Waking Up; His Daddy; our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Her plays have been developed and produced at Sundance Theatre Lab, Goodman Theatre, City Theatre Co., Page 73, Women's Project, Playwrights Horizons, Lark Play Development Center, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, Pillsbury House Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, and Playwrights Realm, among others , American Theatre Critics Association Osborn Award (When January Feels Like Summer) ; Theodore Ward Prize (My Secret Language of Wishes),  2nd Place Theodore Ward Prize (our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor….) Publications: Waking Up (Plays For Two-Vintage), His Daddy (Best Short Plays 2010 –Smith and Krauss). Representation: Ron Gwiazda and Amy Wagner Abrams Artists Agency.

The projects and artists selected for the 2014 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at MASS MoCA are:

Throw Me On the Burnpile and Light Me Up
Written & performed by Lucy Alibar

Tales of a man, his family, his animals, and his burn pile.

Lucy Alibar's work has been published in Zoetrope, the Oxford American, and the Wall Street Journal. Work seen at National Theatre Studio, Joe's Pub, Ojai, Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, Williamstown, HERE, EST, Dixon Place, New Georges, Avignon Festival, Women Center Stage/CSC, and the Cherry Lane. Her first movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild (an adaptation with Benh Zeitlin of her stage play, Juicy and Delicious) received the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Film Festival Camera D'Or. For her work on Beasts she was nominated for the Scripter, BAFTA, and Academy Award. Winner of the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award, the Humanitas Prize, and the Nantucket Film Festival New Voices in Screenwriting Award. Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellow, two time finalist for the Heideman Award at ATL, and finalist for the O'Neill Playwright's Conference. Member of the OBIE award-winning Youngblood, and co-­founder of the New Georges Writer/Director Lab.

A Memory of Fire: Hatuey 
Written by Elise Thoron
Music by Frank London

Based on Asher Penn's 1931 epic Yiddish poem Hatuey, as well as the story of the poet's life – hisescape to Cuba from pogroms in the Ukraine –Elise Thoron and Frank London's musical work A Memory of Fire: Hatuey is set in pre-revolutionary Cuba of the 1930's, and tells the story of the legendary Taino chief Hatuey who led a valiant uprising against the Spanish conquistadors.

Frank London is a trumpeter and composer and a member of the Klezmatics, with whom he won a Grammy Award. He has performed with John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torme, They Might Be Giants and Ben Folds 5. London's projects include the folk-opera A Night In The Old Marketplace (with Glen Berger and Alex Aron, based on Y.L. Peretz's 1907 play), Davenen for Pilobolus and the Klezmatics; Green Violin (with Elise Thoron and Rebecca Taichman, winner Barrymore Award for Best New Musical); Great Small Works' The Memoirs Of Gluckel Of Hameln and Min Tanaka's Romance.

Elise Thoron's plays have been produced in the United States and Europe: Green Violin, music by Frank London of the Klezmatics (published Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays); Prozak and the Platypus, music by Jill Sobule (also album/graphic novella); and Charlotte: Life? or Theater? based on paintings of the young German Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon.She developed and directed Tony award winning poet Lemon Andersen's County of Kings first as a Literature to Life piece, then performing at The Public, Spoleto, and venues around the world. Elise is directing Lemon's new play ToasT at The Public Theater this season. elisethoron.com

The Fever
By 600 HIGHWAYMEN

600 HIGHWAYMEN will begin work on The Fever, the company's adaptation of Stravinsky's 101-year-old ritualistic and revolutionary work Rite of Spring. This first exploration for the company brings together New Yorkers and North Adams residents to reopen this classic work, alongside a brand new music composition created during the residency by Brandon Wolcott.

Under the name 600 HIGHWAYMEN (600HWM), Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone construct expansive performances that illuminate the inherent poignancy and theatricality of people together. They are exploring a radical approach to making live art, constructing events that create intimacy among a group of strangers. Developed using creative methods ranging from the mainstream to the peculiar, their Obie-award winning work is a rigorously tuned investigation of presence and humanity, not only in performance, but also in process and aftermath. Formed in 2009, past productions include: This Time Tomorrow, Empire City, This Great Country, The Record, Everyone Was Chanting Your Name, and Employee of the Year. Upcoming: The Record at Centre Pompidou and Parc de la Villette, Paris. 600HWM is the recipient of a 2014 ObieAward. 600highwaymen.org

The Sundance Institute Theatre Program is supported by an endowment from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with generous additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the John and Marcia Price Family Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Inc., LUMA Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Karen Lauder, and Joan and George Hornig.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

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In addition, over the course of three years, 12 filmmakers from these cities will be named Sundance | Knight Fellows, and participate in special screenings, panels and professional development opportunities at the annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Keri Putnam, Sundance Institute Executive Director, said, "Sundance Institute is committed to supporting diverse independent artists at an early stage in their career.  Building on the success of last year's Knight Fellows Pilot Project, we are now able to directly reach independent artists in regions across the country."

Workshops, panels and labs will take place in the following communities: Akron, Ohio; Charlotte, N.C.; Detroit; Miami; Macon, Ga.; Philadelphia; San Jose, Calif.; and St. Paul, Minn.  Sundance Institute will bring together its national pool of alumni artists as mentors and panelists, and work with local host arts organizations for programming partnerships in each community.  The new funding follows a successful pilot project in Miami and Philadelphia during the past year, where hundreds of filmmakers took part.

"Over the last few years, independent filmmakers in these communities have begun to use film to tell unique and compelling stories about their cities that resound with audiences around the globe," said Dennis Scholl, Vice President of Arts for Knight Foundation. "By bringing Sundance Institute to these eight cities, we hope that emerging filmmakers will have access to the training necessary to launch their films and, eventually, a connect with a wider audience."

An ArtistServices workshop on Saturday, Oct. 25, at O Cinema in Miami, will be the first event of the series.  Industry experts will lead discussions on the latest technology, tools and tactics in creative financing, digital distribution, guerilla marketing and independent theatrical distribution.  Participation is free and RSVP required at sundance.org/artistservices. Workshops will take place in the other communities beginning in 2015.

Knight Foundation's arts program has supported local filmmaking as a way to build community, including supporting film festivals in these eight cities, in addition to providing seed funding for independent cinemas and professional development for filmmakers.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit KnightFoundation.org.

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First-time filmmaker Peter Sattler got the inspiration for Camp X-Ray, a gritty drama about soldiers watching over suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, after he watched documentary footage of a guard and a detainee discussing the books on a library cart.

“It was the most surreal, absurd interchange I’ve ever seen in my life,” Sattler told the audience at the film’s Sundance Film Festival premiere last January. “I saw this vision of a two-hander, one room-type of movie where these two characters just talk. I wondered what they’d talk about. To me, it was a cool way to address Guantanamo Bay indirectly.”

The writer/director said he didn’t want to make a propaganda movie. Yet Camp X-Ray is often sympathetic to the plight of the prisoners, specifically Ali, an innocent detainee, played by Peyman Moaadi, in the film’s strongest performance. Ali is watched over by a female guard named Amy (Kristen Stewart), who begins to question the abusive treatment of detainees at the camp. After some Hannibal Lecter-Clarice Starling-style banter, the two form an unlikely friendship over, you guessed it, the selection of reading material at the controversial U.S. prison camp.

Moaadi, a gifted, charismatic actor known to movie audiences for his searing work in 2011’s A Separation, discussed the preparation he underwent to play Ali, saying he spent many hours alone in his prison cell. “They only let me out to come here today,” he joked.

Stewart’s pouty sullenness has often characterized previous performances, but it serves her well here. The actress, also on hand for the Q&A, told the audience it was important for her to figure out exactly who her sometimes inscrutable character was so she spent hours watching numerous documentaries about the subject matter, which depicted “both sides of the coin.” Stewart revealed that she also trained for several days with a “really awesome Marine named JB who…whipped me into shape.”

Stewart effectively de-glammed herself to play Amy and Sattler added that just getting Stewart into the uniform resulted in a huge transformation in his star. Sattler said he initially intended for Stewart’s character to be male, but he changed to a female protagonist to create more conflict between the two main characters.

Camp X-Ray opens in theaters and is available On Demand Friday, October 17. Click here to find a screening.

It takes some serious pluck to share your story with the world. When that story straddles disparate cultural lines – like life as both a Korean-American and homosexual – it can seem a lot like self-sabotage.

With Spa Night, Andrew Ahn will attempt to bring the recondite world of the Korean-American gay community to light through a story that he says is “not my life, but it could have been.” Ahn’s protagonist, a closeted Korean-American teen takes a job at a Korean spa where he discovers a simultaneously terrifying and titillating world of underground sex. From there, he’s forced to starkly confront his identity as a young gay man and what it means for his corresponding life as a Korean-American.

Andrew Ahn is a 2013 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Fellow and screened his short film Dol (First Birthday) at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Now, he is seeking funding through Kickstarter to produce his feature-length debut Spa Night. Check out more on Ahn and his project below, including some tempting Kickstarter incentives in the form of “selfies” and karaoke.

Spa Night doesn’t appear expressly autobiographical, but it is strongly informed by your own experiences. Is that a fair interpretation? 

Andrew Ahn: That is a very fair interpretation! Spa Night may not be autobiographical, but it’s still very personal. My main character David feels like he could be a cousin of mine, someone that lives in the same community, breathes the same air as me. David is an amalgamation of different people that I know, of different experiences I have had. David and I are very different people, but I feel like we’re emotionally linked.

I think it’s impossible to create a story, place, or character from scratch. It always comes from some personal experience or at least interest. Spa Night is not my life, but it could have been.

You’ve described Spa Night as a film that explores what it means to be gay and Korean-American. In regards to the duality of that existence, what does it mean to inhabit both of those worlds?

Ahn: As a second-generation Korean-American, my connection to my Korean identity is almost entirely defined by my family. If I lived in Korea, my Korean identity would be informed by many other things: my citizenship, my language, my pop culture, etc. But because I’m Korean-American, I mainly feel Korean because I have a Korean mother and a Korean father.

So what happens if I don’t have a Korean wife and don’t have a Korean child? Suddenly, my Korean identity is at stake because my homosexuality keeps me from duplicating that family structure. In this way, my two identities feel at odds with each other.

This is why I’m so thankful for the LGBTQ Korean-American community. We can define our Korean identities and our queer identities through each other. In Spa Night, David hasn’t quite figured this out, but he gets one step closer.

Because this is such a uniquely personal story, how do you envisage viewers outside of either the Korean-American or gay community connecting with the narrative?

Ahn: At its core, Spa Night is about growing up. It’s about becoming your own person. At the beginning of the film, David is attracted to men, he has these desires, but he isn’t ready to make it an identity, to make it a part of himself. By the end of the film, David gets it. He grows up. I think everyone understands that journey. We all grow up with different expectations of our futures that come from outside sources: family, community, society. But there’s always a moment when you can finally hear yourself above the noise, telling you what you really want. This is the moment that Spa Night explores.

I’m also excited to share a slice of Korean-American culture with people who many not be so familiar with it. A lot of people have done Korean BBQ, but have they gone to a Korean spa? A Korean church? An Asian-American frat party? This is a peak into a world that people know exist but haven’t ventured into. I think it should be really fun and eye-opening.

Which filmmakers do you count as having inspired or fueled your passion for film?

Ahn: I love filmmakers who can capture a sense of humanity in their work. The Dardenne brothers and John Cassavetes are huge, huge inspirations. There’s something about their filmmaking that feels so alive, so slippery. It’s so thrilling to watch. And then there’s Ozu. I love Yasujiro Ozu so much. I think Late Spring is the most beautiful film ever made. Each character, each place, each moment is given so much respect. Late Spring is so open-hearted. It doesn’t try and hide anything. There’s no crazy twist. It’s just honest.

That’s something I’m trying to do with Spa Night. I want to be an honest filmmaker. Earlier drafts of the screenplay actually took place entirely in the spa. It was cool, but a little gimmicky. I realized I was hiding a very compelling part of the story — David’s family. And I was hiding it because that’s the most difficult, the most emotional part. As soon as I started the next draft, the whole film clicked for me.

One of the greatest tools Kickstarter offers are the pledge rewards. Yours are as thoughtful and hilarious as any – how many personalized karaoke thank you songs do you have in you?

Ahn: I’ll sing every song in the karaoke books, if it that’s what it takes to reach my Kickstarter goal! Bohemian Rhapsody, Don’t Stop Believin’, Lisa Loeb Stay — whatever it is, I’ll do it. Also, I’m Korean. There’s no such thing as too much karaoke.

The 2014 New Frontier Story Lab will truly be a landmark moment in the evolution of the New Frontier program. This year’s projects are undoubtedly pushing the boundaries of story and story design from a variety of deeply thoughtful approaches: the conflict zone photojournalist, attempting to dissipate war by creating an embodied experience that humanizes the “enemy”; the virtuosic performer using projection- mapped light and audience immersion to explore the dimensions between the creator and created; the stand-up comedian looking to reinvent the one-hour comedy special by eliminating the distance between performer and audience in his the exploration of the “new brown experience;" the hybrid documentary/video game that throws its players into the fog of revolution, in which every decision leads to a historical truth; the algorithm-based film that gives a real-time experience of the earth struggling through climate change in the context of our own social-media sourced testimony; the deeply meditative game that affords players a rich aesthetic and philosophical year in the life of Thoreau at Walden Pond. Convening October 22nd-27th for a week-long immersive Lab at the Sundance Resort in Utah, these six creative teams will work with Creative Advisors to take their projects and their disciplines to new frontiers:

1979 Revolution
Vassiliki Khonsari and Navid Khonsari

1979 Revolution, the action/adventure game, immerses players in the gritty, euphoric streets of revolution – where the choices you make may betray you. Set in the actual events of 1979 Iran.

Walden, A Game
Tracy Fullerton and Lucas Peterson

Walden, A Game, simulates the experiment-in-living made by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47, allowing players to walk in his virtual footsteps, attend to the tasks of living a self-reliant existence, and discover in the beauty of a virtual landscape the ideas and writings of this unique philosopher.

Heart Corps
Dandypunk and Darin Basile

Ink illustrations are brought to life with projection mapping and live performance, in a fully immersive, "walk-through", graphic novel experience.

Sakoon/Paint The Town
Hasan Minhaj and Greg Walloch

A participatory multi-platform journey with comedian Hasan Minhaj that explores the complicated and nuanced struggles of the "new brown experience" as an immigrant in America and inspires an enlightened approach to intolerance. The project includes a live solo show, radio broadcasts, feature film and interactive digital media.

Weather
Braden King and Matthew Moore

Weather is a multi-platform, multi-channel interactive installation that seeks to create a deeper and more tangible connection to the impact of Global Climate Change through emotional experience.

The Enemy
Karim Ben Khelifa and Chloé Jarry

The enemy is always invisible, when he becomes visible, he ceases to be the enemy.

The selected creative teams and projects are: Karim Ben Khelifa and Chloé Jarry (The Enemy), Dandypunk and Darin Basile (Heart Corps), Tracy Fullerton and Lucas Peterson (Walden, A Game), Braden King and Matthew Moore (Weather), Hasan Minhaj and Greg Walloch (Sakoon/Paint The Town) and Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari (1979 Revolution).

Activities at the weeklong Lab include individualized story sessions, conversations about key artistic, design and technology issues, and case study presentations from experts in diverse related disciplines. The Lab is a key initiative of Sundance Institute's recently expanded New Frontier program.

Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, said, "Rooted in Sundance Institute's mission to support risk-taking artists is an encouragement of innovation in the independent space. The New Frontier Story Lab supports our mission by providing a safe place for artists to define and advance emerging styles of storytelling."

Kamal Sinclair, Co-Director, New Frontier Lab Programs, said, "Story is at the heart of the New Frontier Story Lab's dynamic process, which encourages artists to create interactive, immersive and experimental experiences for audiences that explore new media. We look forward to bringing these artists and expert Creative Advisors together for an experiment in the convergence of story disciplines."

Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, said, "During the New Frontier Story Lab, fellows will engage with a variety of industry leaders across multiple disciplines to both innovate and collaborate on new ways of storytelling through gaming, design and live performance.  This interactive space is exciting for artists who will create ground-breaking work and audiences who are hungry for an immersive art experience."

Creative Advisors for the New Frontier Story Lab include: Sarah Treem (Producer/Writer, House of Cards, In Treatment); Torfi Frans Olafsson (Creative Director, EVE Online Universe IP); Mark Monroe (Filmmaker, The Cove, Sound City); Dana Dansereau (Interactive Producer, NFB's Digital Studio, Bear 71); Nelson George (Filmmaker/Producer, Good Hair, Life Support, The Chris Rock Show); Kathleen Forde (Artistic Director at Large, Borusan Contemporary);  Susan O'Connor, (Video Game Writer, Tomb Raider, BioShock); Ricardo Rivera (Founder, Klip Collective); Scott Snibbe (Björk's Biophilia, Phillip Glass ReWork); Joan Tewkesbury (Writer/Director, Nashville, Chicago Hope); Lynette Wallworth (Artist, Evolution of Fearlessness, Coral: Rekindling Venus); Erin Cressida Wilson (Screenwriter, Secretary, Chloe); Ted Schilowitz (Futurist, 20th Century Fox; founding member, RED Digital Cinema); and Kevin Kuhlke (Playwright/Director, former Chair of the Drama Dept. at NYU's Tisch School of The Arts).

In addition to the New Frontier Story Lab, the Institute offers Labs throughout the year and around the world for independent directors, screenwriters, documentary editors, composers, playwrights and producers.

The creative teams and projects selected for the 2014 New Frontier Story Lab are:

1979 Revolution
Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari
1979 Revolution, the action/adventure game, immerses players into the gritty, euphoric streets of revolution – where the choices you make may betray you. Set in the actual events of 1979 Iran.

A founder of iNK Stories, Navid Khonsari is known for having developed the cinematic look and feel for groundbreaking video games such as Grand Theft Auto/Vice City/San Andreas, Max Payne, The Warriors, Midnight Club, Manhunt, Red Dead Revolver, Alan Wake, Homefront and more. His films include The Contract, Pindemonium and Pulling John. Khonsari recently completed his first graphic novel, Infidel. Khonsari can be found as a guest lecturer within the Game World focusing on the discourse surrounding the convergence of politics and gaming or the potential of games to incite empathy.

Vassiliki Khonsari arrived at filmmaking through Visual Anthropology, with a specialty in verite storytelling. In addition to her TV Producer/Director credits, Khonsari's Doc Feature Producer credits include Our House (20+ awards) and Pindemonium (Sundance Channel) and she directed the award winning Pulling John (premiered at SXSW). As co-founder of the innovative media studio iNK Stories Vassiliki is passionate about her current development projects that focus on immersive stories.

Weather
Braden King and Matthew Moore
Weather is a multi-platform, multi-channel interactive installation that seeks to create a deeper and more tangible connection to the impacts of Global Climate Change through emotional experience.

Braden King is a New York-based filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. His most recent feature film, HERE, starring Ben Foster and Lubna Azabal, premiered at the 2011 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals and was distributed theatrically by Strand Releasing in 2012. A three-screen installation version of the project, HERE [ THE STORY SLEEPS ], premiered at The Museum of Modern Art in 2010 with live soundtrack accompaniment by the Boxhead Ensemble; it toured internationally the following two years. King's previous work includes the feature film DUTCH HARBOR: WHERE THE SEA BREAKS ITS BACK (co-directed with photographer Laura Moya), the award-winning short HOME MOVIE and music videos for Sparklehorse, Sonic Youth, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (Will Oldham), Califone and Dirty Three.

Matthew Moore is a multi-media artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. His art practice explores the broad issue of placemaking, often by creating large-scale installations and environments with the goal of achieving a state of wonderment, contemplation, and invitation to change. Moore's work addresses issues of ecological, cultural, and economical sustainability often through the unique lens of his life as an active fourth generation farmer. His video and installation artwork are exhibited internationally, at the Sundance Film Festival, the Walker Art Center, Phoenix Art Museum, MassMoCA, the World Congress of Soil Science in Korea and Nuit Blanche in Canada among many other venues; and has been featured in Art Forum, Art in America, Art Lies, Metropolis Magazine, Dwell, and Architecture magazine, well as the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and numerous other publications.

Sakoon/Paint The Town
Hasan Minhaj and Greg Walloch
Paint the Town is the film adaptation of Sakoon, the autobiographical solo show based on the first generation experiences of Indian-American comedian Hasan Minhaj. This project seeks to reinvent the one-hour comedy special by eliminating the distance between performer and audience in a transformative exploration of the "new brown experience."

Hasan Minhaj is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor and writer.  A featured storyteller at The Moth, his storytelling has garnered acclaim in film, web and television. He recently hosted the documentary special Stand Up Planet, produced by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and his viral web series The Truth with Hasan Minhaj has been featured in countless publications including The Huffington Post, Gawker and the New York Times. He has been seen on a variety of other television programs including Arrested Development on Netflix, HBO's Getting On, @Midnight on Comedy Central, and E!'s Chelsea Lately. His parents would still like him to go to law school.

Greg Walloch is a writer, storyteller and comedian whose live solo shows have toured in Moscow, Toronto, Vancouver, London, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Poland, Scotland, Tel Aviv and in various festivals across the United States. As a regular guest appearing with The Moth, the acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling, he is currently featured in their Peabody Award winning series The Moth Radio Hour on National Public Radio. Walloch was also featured in USA Network's Characters Unite national live storytelling tour as well as appears in the network's Characters Unite, "I Won't Stand For…," PSA TV campaign to fight hate and discrimination. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles and is the host of the popular monthly live storytelling show, Eat Your Words at The Standard, Hollywood.

The Enemy
Karim Ben Khelifa and Chloé Jarry
The enemy is always invisible; When he becomes visible, he ceases to be the enemy. Two combatants from opposing sides observe each other. Each of them explains why they are fighting – what made them decide to take arms in order to defend their beliefs, their family, their country, their clan or their faith.

Karim Ben Khelifa is an award winning photojournalist and war correspondent who has freelanced regularly for TIME magazine, Vanity Fair, Le Monde, the New York Times Magazine, Stern and dozens of others.  He was the 2012 Carroll Binder Fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where he has also given talks and lectures. He is currently a Visiting Scholar and Artist-in-Residence at the Open Documentary Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Chloé Jarry joined Camera lucida as new media producer in charge of transmedia and cross-media development in January 2011. She produced a collection of iPad and iPhone apps mixing games, interactive animations and extracts from the films for children produced by Camera lucida, including Le Carnaval des animaux, Antoine's Four Seasons and Peter and the Wolf. She is also the author and producer of Missions Printemps – Die FruehlingsForscher, a French-German citizen sciences TV and web program. Since 2011, Chloé Jarry and Camera lucida have developed more than 10 transmedia projects.

Heart Corps
Dandypunk and Darin Basile
Ink illustrations are brought to life with projection mapping and live performance, in a fully immersive, "walk-through," graphic novel experience.

From a background in street art and acrobatics, Dandypunk discovered a way to combine the two using the "magical lantern" that is the projector. Mixing whimsical, hand drawn illustrations and stop motion animation with newer technology and physical movement, he attempts to evolve a style that has been described as "digital light poetry."

Darin Basile is a self-taught visual generalist, engineer, artist, developing story teller and introvert with an honest desire to understand himself and others. He hopes to imbue others with a sense of wonder for the worlds around us and empathy for those that inhabit them.

Walden, A Game
Tracy Fullerton and Lucas Peterson
Walden, A Game, simulates the experiment-in-living made by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47, allowing players to walk in his virtual footsteps, attend to the tasks of living a self-reliant existence, and discover in the beauty of a virtual landscape the ideas and writings of this unique philosopher.

Tracy Fullerton is the lead game designer and director of Walden, A Game. She is an experienced designer whose recent credits include The Night Journey, a collaboration with media artist Bill Viola. Currently, she serves as the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair of USC's Interactive Media & Games Division, and the Director of USC Games, ranked the #1 games program in North America by the Princeton Review. Prior to joining USC, she worked as a game designer creating innovative games for companies including Microsoft, Sony, MTV, among many others. Her long career in game design and influence on the independent games community was recently acknowledged by the IndieCade Trailblazer Award.

Lucas Peterson is the environment designer and character artist for Walden, A Game. He is a fine artist with an emphasis in drawing and design who has turned his talents to game design. Lucas has contributed to a number of projects at the USC Game Innovation lab including the FutureBound college access games and the Chrono Cards WWI history games. He holds a BFA from the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.

The Sundance Institute New Frontier Initiative is supported by Microsoft, Ford Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Five award winners from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival make their way to theaters this October, led by the Grand Jury Prize winner Whiplash, starring Miles Teller as a tenacious drum virtuoso training under the tutelage of a notoriously demanding mentor in J.K. Simmons. Things are similarly taut on the documentary side with the release of Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters, which intimately tracks the proceedings in an isolated North Dakota town where an oil boom has yielded droves of out-of-staters looking for work.  One local pastor shoulders the burden of the city’s new migrants by converting his church into a dorm and counseling center, until word gets out that sex offenders are among the church’s denizens.

Other highlights this month include William H. Macy’s directorial debut with Rudderless, and Kristen Stewart’s stint at Guantanamo Bay in Camp X-Ray. Check out all of this month’s Sundance-supported films below.

Friday, October 3

Fishing Without Nets, directed by Cutter Hodierne

Web Junkie, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia

Friday, October 10

The Overnighters, directed by Jesse Moss

Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle

Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, directed by Tommy Wirkola

Friday, October 17

Camp X-Ray, directed by Peter Sattler

Dear White People, directed by Justin Simien

Rudderless, directed by William H. Macy

Watchers of the Sky, directed by Edet Belzberg

Listen Up Philip, directed by Alex Ross Perry

Friday, October 24

Low Down, directed by Jeff Preiss

Laggies, directed by Lynn Shelton

White Bird in a Blizzard, directed by Gregg Araki

There is a discouraging paradox that exists in today’s climate of connectivity. While we are ostensibly more connected than ever, we are perhaps becoming more socially inept. Lilting, director Hong Khao’s wistful drama starring Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei, flips that contemporary notion on its head in a poignant study of communication and personal connection.

When a young London man named Kai dies unexpectedly, his boyfriend Richard (Whishaw) is compelled to establish a relationship with Kai’s only living family member, his Cambodian-Chinese mother Junn (Pei-pei), who speaks little English. Junn is overtly intractable and does little to veil her dislike for Richard, who hires a translator to facilitate dialogue in an attempt at healing. The pair slowly develops a rapport, fueled by their mutual yearning for the loss of a loved one.

Hong Khao’s direction is brilliantly stripped down and precise, allowing Whishaw’s and Pei-pei’s performances to shine. Below, he discusses creating an intimate environment on set and how his childhood in the UK informed the film’s narrative.

You’ve talked in the past about how your relationship with language informed the premise for Lilting. Are the communication challenges we see in the film a direct reflection of those you experienced living in the UK?

Language and communication are the main premises for Lilting and it reverberates onto other themes. Some of the events in the film are a version of what I’ve experienced, filtered through a dramatic device. Inevitably there will be certain ideas and details that are from personal experiences, but equally it needs to be shaped and re-worked for it to work. One hopes that in the filtering process the personal nuances can remain, as I think they tend to resonate deeper.

The film relies heavily on brilliant performances from Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei and this very ethereal relationship that they cultivate. It’s such an elusive chemistry to capture. What was their working relationship like?

The elusiveness you’re talking about is in the premise of the set up. Their characters don’t know one another and are unable to communicate. That in itself presents this dilemma and dramatic dynamic. Their performances are incredible, really vulnerable. And there is strength there too. I find them very mesmerizing to watch.

On a similar note, how much did you deviate from script?

During rehearsal, the script changed here and there. There weren’t any big changes. It was in the editing process that the bigger changes happened. We lost some scenes, shortened others and rearranged them.

There is also a subtle brand of humor that permeates the film. Did you foresee that element in Lilting?

The humor was always there. In a story like this it needs the humor to help give us space to breath. What you get is that one helps to magnify the other, and the emotion resonates a bit more.  

In making such a contemplative drama, how do you avoid overindulging in that intensity? Did you and the team find any respite from the heaviness?

It’s a difficult balance to get right. The shoot was tough for everybody because of the time and budget constraints. I don’t think the subject matter cast a dark shadows over us. If anything the nature of a low budget set made it difficult, in that we can’t get away for one another too easily. Everyone was a real professional and that also made it exciting - it galvanized us.

Seven million people live in Hong Kong, an area that’s just half the size of Rhode Island. The waterfront skyline is a mashup of skyscrapers and mountains. The humidity makes the air heavy and still. Neon lights - whether running along the sides of gigantic buildings or shining in shop windows - are everywhere you look. And so are the people - Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Sri Lankan, Indian, expat bankers from the Western Hemisphere, and too many others to list. So, when our flight landed with a handful of staff and filmmakers to present the Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects to “Asia’s World City,” we didn’t know what to expect.

Also unpredictable was the audience response to the program of films, filmmaker discussions, live music, and events. We presented films ranging from Skeleton Twins (with Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader as siblings who share both humor and pain) to Fishing Without Nets (an account of a Somali man who turns to piracy to survive) to The Case Against 8 (the documentary account of  two gay couples appealing California’s Proposition 8 to the Supreme Court). Infinitely Polar Bear, Life After Beth, Wish I Was Here, and God Help the Girl rounded out the eclectic program. And without exception, the theatres were full and the audiences were delighted.

The spirit of the series was evident during a panel discussion that brought Hong Kong filmmakers and film lovers together with the featured filmmakers, Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper, and series manager Bede Chang. What follows is a summary of questions from the audience and paraphrased answers from the filmmakers. And while the words of wisdom shared may have a familiar ring, The Case Against 8 co-director Ryan White acknowledged that friendly reminders are always a good thing. “We should all remind each other of this advice as we go on,” he said. “Even for established filmmakers, it’s too easy to forget!”

What is Your Advice for Getting Started?

Don’t talk yourself out of it. Keep your foot on the gas. Don’t get scared of what you don’t know. –Maya Forbes, Infinitely Polar Bear

The bad news is that it’s going to be harder than you think it’s going to be. The good news is that you can figure it out. –Ben Cotner, The Case Against 8

There is no one way to start. I made a lot of short films that were not very good, actually. Finding a community is really important – finding those people whom you like and respect and you want to work with is a big deal. Build your tag team and embrace the collaborative nature of it...you get to lead and inspire your gang. –Craig Johnson, The Skeleton Twins

Don’t rush too much to make the film – remember that you’re telling a story about people. So much of documentary filmmaking is about managing personal dynamics. Sometimes it’s about knowing when not to film in order to support your subjects through the experience. –Ryan White, The Case Against 8

How Does Casting Affect Your Film?

With a known actor, it’s easier to access financing and you can get your film made. And it’s your job to make other talented people fall in love with your project. Actors are looking for roles with depth and authenticity, and those roles are not as easily found in the studio world. All of this being true, the most important thing is to cast for the character – sometimes the most famous actor is not right for the role. –Maya Forbes, Infinitely Polar Bear

What is the most challenging thing about transitioning from short to feature-length?

Realizing that your job becomes more about inspiring and motivating a bigger group of people around your story. –Cutter Hodierne, Fishing Without Nets

Editing is a much bigger challenge with a feature. –Craig Johnson, Skeleton Twins

We shot for five years and amassed 600 hours of footage. So yes, editing was a challenge. –Ben Cotner, The Case Against 8 

In 2014, most every filmmaker knows that it’s important to build a website for your project. But how many of us know enough about programming or design to create a site that serves as a fitting representation of the project, let alone one that functions as a tool for both marketing and audience building? “As you add networks and outlets to your film’s identity, and as that footprint grows and grows, one of the first things that slips, because most of us can’t afford a full-time graphic designer, is the look and feel of your film,” said Joseph Beyer, director of digital initiatives for Sundance Institute. At IFP week in New York, the #ArtistServices panel entitled “Designing Your Look and Feel—What We Love Right Now” strove to address that very slippage.

Jeremy Schwartz of web publishing platform Squarespace advocated for very simple, straightforward, and aesthetically striking sites. “You have to be crystal clear about the goals of your website,” he said, while keeping in mind that “the goals are going to change over the life-cycle of your production.” He compared your site’s functionality over the course of a project’s life to a classic three-act story. First comes the set-up, when you develop an audience by encouraging visitors to sign up for email updates, follow posts on social media, or back the project via funding sites like Kickstarter. Next comes the confrontation, i.e. the “mobilizing of the audience,” via opportunities to buy tickets and spread the word. The third act brings resolution, when you deepen audience interaction beyond the experience of the film itself by selling DVDs and merchandize, or, in the case of documentaries, directing people to resources where they can learn or do more. Throughout this cycle, Schwartz said it’s crucial to not clutter the homepage with too much text or information. “A single really beautiful photo, a logo, and a tagline is kind of all you need for a really great website,” he said. 

Taking things a step further, Jamie Wilkinson talked of how filmmakers can reach viewers directly via the VHX self-distribution platform for digital video—an approach recently taken by films such as Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color. “The idea is really simple: websites are an under-utilized resource that filmmakers and distributors can use to reach fans directly,” he said. “You can actually have a relationship with your audience, you can get data about what’s happening, and you can deliver a high-quality watching experience without having to rely on somebody else.”

Wilkinson said the look and feel of VHX templates were inspired by the elegant and fluid approaches of Squarespace and Tumblr, and can be similarly direct. Above the fold, i.e. what appears upon the landing on a site, he advocates for “a really clear call to action,” such as buying, streaming, or funding the film, with supplemental information and offers viewable once you scroll down. One of the advantages of VHX over outlets such as iTunes or Netflix is their ability to offer bonus materials like deleted scenes or behind-the-scenes footage—“the digital equivalent of the deluxe BluRay,” Wilkinson said. It offers more opportunities for fans to engage with a film while also opening avenues for additional revenue, which can be crucial for making self-distribution a profitable enterprise. 

While this business can seem at best like a sideline concern, or at worst a distraction from the filmmaking itself, Beyer advocated for thinking of it as all part of the same artistic project. “If you look at it as a drag, that you have to come up with all of this stuff and upload it, yeah, it’s going to be a big pain in the ass,” he said. “But if you look at it as an extension of your narrative, then the world opens up to you and it becomes an amazing storytelling tool. Things gets better and better every year as artists are embracing the power that they have to extend storytelling into the marketing and distribution of their films.”

Few people go into the business of making films because of a passion for file conversions or frame rate quandaries. But the truth is that every filmmaker who wants his or her film to be seen, screened, distributed, or streamed needs to contend with these and other issues pertaining to the swiftly changing world of digital deliverables. Gone are the days when reels of 35mm film were all you needed to show your film; now you need to juggle between ProRes files, HDCAMs, and DCPs—and that’s just for starters. Yet solving for these matters can go a ways toward determining how easily and widely your film can make its way into the world.       

As part of the #ArtistServices Workshop at IFP Week in New York, attendees took a crash-course in post-production dissemination from four professionals who work at different stages of the process at a panel cheekily but accurately entitled, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Deliverables (But Were Afraid to Ask).” Jonathan Marlow, co-founder of online exhibitor Fandor, tried to soften the impact of what was in store, saying, “We won’t be dry or technical.” Which prompted Emily Eddey, Senior Producer at post-production house Light Iron, to level with the audience at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium. “This is going to be very dry and technical,” she said. It was certainly the latter, but the panelists also managed to be entertaining enough to help the medicine go down. 

Eddey started things off with a slideshow presentation of how to prepare films for a life outside of your home hard drive. She itemized the most requested deliverables (from sound files to BluRay masters) for both festivals and online streaming services like iTunes and Netflix, and estimated costs at reputable post-production houses such as her own. She also noted how festivals increasingly prefer DCP over ProRes and HDCAM, and advised against sending encrypted files. “The chances of your DCP not playing at a festival because it’s locked and the key doesn’t work are far greater than some guy taking a DCP hard drive and plugging it into a computer and stealing it,” she said. “The goal is to play in as many festivals as possible, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been woken up at 2 a.m. for a festival going on in Holland, and the key’s not working and they’re missing a screening, and there goes 500 viewers. It’s just not worth it.”

She also advised to budget for these post-production matters in the pre-production phase of your project, which was also echoed by Paul O’Neil of Premiere Digital, who helps disseminate films via the distribution portal Quiver. Beyond budgeting funds toward preparing deliverables, O’Neil said that you should set aside three months for the process. “It’s not a month-long process. Even though your movie is made and is sitting there, it’s going to make more money if you allot three months to the process,” he said. “If you’re trying to release your movie a month from today, I guarantee you’re going to have a headache and hate your distribution partner.” O’Neil walked attendees through a checklist of assets required for the major digital platforms, including a trailer, closed captioning, chapters, metadata, audio, subtitles and bonus content. As for what to submit to Quiver for getting things in order, “we want exactly what you shot in,” he said. “If your film was shot in 5.1, send us the 5.1. Let us do the conversion, so that if we mess it up we can go back and redo it without having to bug you about it.” He also talked about the need to submit art that’s clear of credits, pricing, and festival laurels, which are rejected by outlets such as iTunes who present films on smaller devices where legibility can be a challenge. “Do these minimal things for art, because if you want your feature to be promoted like every other studio feature, you need this stuff,” he said. “Make it look like the big boys.”   

At the other end of the spectrum, Marlow talked about how Fandor takes a very different approach to digital distribution, accepting whatever format is most readily available—including even VHS—and absorbing the costs of transferring and disseminating. “We work with everything,” he said. “We’ll put up films that every other service has rejected, and sometimes for good reason,” yet it creates a platform for hard-to-see films and financially challenged filmmakers. “If you can do all of the things that have been said you should do it. These folks are professionals, you should definitely talk to them,” Marlow said. “And then when you realize you have no money you should talk to me.”

The opening was officiated by Mr. John Cooper (Director of Sundance Film Festival), Ms. Sarah Pearce (Co-Managing Director, Sundance Institute) and Mr. Stuart Wang (Director, The Metroplex), together with visiting US directors including Ms. Maya Forbes (Director of the opening film Infinitely Polar Bear), Mr. Craig Johnson (Director of The Skeleton Twins), Mr. Cutter Hodierne and Mr. John Hibey (Director and Producer of Fishing Without Nets), and Mr. Ben Cotner and Ryan White (Directors of The Case Against 8).

Mr. Cooper explained their choice of Hong Kong for the screening series to take place: "In our effort to share the best of American independent film with audiences outside the U.S., Hong Kong seemed an excellent location with a rich cinematic history. In partnership with The Metroplex, we look forward to presenting this program of diverse and high quality independent films."

Mr. Stuart Wang commented on this collaboration: "We strongly believe that the collaboration with Sundance Institute will further stimulate the creativity of young local independent filmmakers and foster the interest of new upcoming talent."

The Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects features eight films from the Sundance Film Festival, including five award winners. The full lineup is: The Case Against 8, Fishing Without Nets, God Help the Girl, Infinitely Polar Bear, Life After Beth, Skeleton Twins, Whiplash and Wish I Was Here. The screening series has begun with the Hong Kong premiere of Infinitely Polar Bear, a bitter-sweet family tale of how life's storms can be weathered with creativity and love.

The visiting directors will also participate in a panel discussion on 20 September (4:00 – 5:30 p.m.), entitled Visions of Independence, sharing their stories of what it takes to make their films. Their experience in realizing their visions is often as intriguing as the films themselves. The panel discussion will be moderated by John Cooper with Bede Cheng, Festival Director and Senior Program Manager of The Metroplex.

The spirit of independence transcends art forms. As a complement to the Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects, The Metroplex has programmed a selection of independent artists who share the spirit of creativity and independence to perform at the Atrium, E-Max on two consecutive weekends during the screening series, 20-21 and 27-28 September. Besides, Musiczone @ E-Max will be transformed into a multi-media art museum showcasing two art pieces namely, Anádelta and Chance Cinematheque, which further echoes The Metroplex's and Sundance Institute's commitment in promoting creativity and cultural collaboration.

For more details and schedules of screenings and music performance, please visit hk.sundance.org  or  facebook.com/SundanceFilmFestivalHK

Press release sent by Cultural Connections on behalf of The Metroplex.
For enquiries:
Mr. Siu Heng (siuheng@culturalconnections.hk / 9668-5945)
Ms. Winnie Tam (momstudio.hk@gmail.com / 9199-2553)
Mr. Casey De La Rosa (casey_delarosa@sundance.org / 310-360-1981)

About Opening Film: Infinitely Polar Bear
Infinitely Polar Bear (Director and screenwriter: Maya Forbes) — A manic-depressive mess of a father tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier. Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide. OPENING FILM / HONG KONG PREMIERE

About Other Films in the Line-up
The Case Against 8 (Directors: Ben Cotner, Ryan White) — A behind-the-scenes look inside the case to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage. Shot over five years, the film follows the unlikely team that took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. Winner of the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. HONG KONG PREMIERE

Fishing Without Nets (Director: Cutter Hodierne, Screenwriters: Cutter Hodierne, John Hibey, David Burkman) — A story of pirates in Somalia told from the perspective of a struggling, young Somali fisherman. Cast: Abdikani Muktar, Abdi Siad, Abduwhali Faarah, Abdikhadir Hassan, Reda Kateb, Idil Ibrahim. Winner of the Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. HONG KONG PREMIERE

God Help the Girl (Director and screenwriter: Stuart Murdoch) — This musical from Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian is about some messed up boys and girls and the music they made. Cast: Emily Browning, Olly Alexander, Hannah Murray, Pierre Boulanger, Cora Bissett. Winner of a World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. CLOSING FILM / HONG KONG PREMIERE

Life After Beth (Director and screenwriter: Jeff Baena) — Zach is devastated by the unexpected death of his girlfriend, Beth. When she mysteriously returns, he gets a second chance at love. Soon his whole world turns upside down... Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser. HONG KONG PREMIERE

The Skeleton Twins (Director: Craig Johnson, Screenwriters: Craig Johnson, Mark Heyman) — When estranged twins Maggie and Milo feel that they're at the end of their ropes, an unexpected reunion forces them to confront why their lives went so wrong. As the twins reconnect, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship. Cast: Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell, Boyd Holbrook, Joanna Gleason. Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. HONG KONG PREMIERE

Whiplash (Director and screenwriter: Damien Chazelle) — Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity. Cast: Miles Teller, JK Simmons. Winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. SPECIAL PRESENTATION / HONG KONG PREMIERE

Wish I Was Here (Director: Zach Braff, Screenwriters: Zach Braff, Adam Braff) — Aidan Bloom, a 35-year-old struggling actor, father, and husband, is still trying to find purpose in his life. In coming to terms with the death of his father, Aidan and his family unite to discover how to turn the page onto the next chapter. Cast: Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad, Ashley Greene, Joey King. HONG KONG PREMIERE

About The Metroplex
In 2014 The Metroplex opened its doors to the public as a state-of-the-art 9 screen multiplex at the heart of Eastern Kowloon. The Metroplex is a self-operated independent cinema under Hopewell Holdings Limited, showing a wide range of films from Hollywood blockbusters, international award-winning pictures, film festivals, local, specialty and independent films in its 9 silver screens. Moreover, being located in one of the Group's investment properties Kowloonbay International Trade and Exhibition Centre (KITEC), Metroplex has the flexibility in cross platform entertainment such as film/music festivals, live streaming, concerts and shows, multimedia conferences, and many other events of similar genre. For more details, please visit www.metroplex.com.hk.

About Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Earlier this year, Sundance Institute announced the formation of the Episodic Story Lab dedicated to supporting writers and creators of series for television and online platforms, and just yesterday, we revealed the 10 writers selected for the inaugural Lab taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from September 27 through October 2. Every applicant for the program was required to submit a spec pilot and series overview as the basis of their creative work at the Lab. The selected writers are: Desiree Akhavan (Switch Hitter); Peter Biegen (Small Change); Nate Crocker (Scar Tissue); Katori Hall (The Dial); Barry Jenkins (Radical); Nick Keetch (Borderline); Lisa Kron (The Schaeffers); Crystal Liu (The White Sheep); Heather Marion (Bury Me); and Matt Young (Still). Learn more about their projects here.

The Episodic Story Lab marks the Instiute's inceptive venture into supporting episodic content, however, a lineage of alumni continue to find success in the medium. To that end, the new Lab flows with a growing trend of independent filmmakers taking their turns in episodic storytelling, where they’re discovering a lucrative alternative to film with no detriment to creativity. As we did back in March upon the Lab's original announcement, let's once again look at some of the Sundance-supported filmmakers who have successfully taken up the gauntlet outside of the theater. 

Cary Fukunaga

Fukunaga took home the Directing Award at the 2009 Festival for Sin Nombre, which was also supported by the Directors Lab, and was the director behind the hit HBO series True Detective, for which he won an Emmy.

Mike White

Mike White has honed his chops at the Festival as a writer, director, and actor (Chuck and Buck, Year of the Dog), but is also well-versed beyond the silver screen having written for Enlightened, Dawson’s Creek, and Freaks and Geeks, among other shows.

Jill Soloway

Between her short film Una Hora Por Favora and her subsequent feature directorial debut Afternoon Delight, Soloway has shown off her dexterity in any number of mediums. She’s written for, among others, television shows including How to Make it in America, United States of Tara, and Six Feet Under. Soloway most recently worked with Amazon Studios on the new Web show Transparent, and you can watch the pilot episode for free here.

Lisa Cholodenko

Beyond her work on High Art, Laurel Canyon, and The Kids Are All Right, each of which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Cholodenko has directed episodes for series including Hung, The L Word, and Six Feet Under.

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. has directed three Sundance Film Festival selections, but is perhaps most acclaimed for his comedy-drama series Louie, for which he writes and directs.

Jason Katims

Katims attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab exactly two decades ago with The Pallbearer and has since worked on television series including Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, and Roswell.

Azazel Jacobs

Jacobs most recently screened Terri at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has donated his time as a Creative Advisor at numerous Sundance Instiute Labs. His new show Doll & Em premiered earlier this year on HBO and stars Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells.

Alex O'Flinn is the recipient of the 2014 Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship. He most recently edited "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night," which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As part of his fellowship year, he will work with editor mentors Dylan Tichenor (co-editor, "Zero Dark Thirty"), Stephen Mirrione ("The Hunger Games"), and Douglas Crise ("Spring Breakers").

In April, I got a phone call from Michelle Satter and Ilyse McKimmie informing me that I was the 2014 recipient of the Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship. I had just edited a film for my friend and director, Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night), and during the editing process we were constantly referring to Menke and Tarantino – their style, rhythm, bold choices, and overall amazing collaboration on so many films. To be the recipient of an editing award with her name is beyond an honor and one that reminds me every day to challenge myself within my craft. But it’s hard to challenge oneself without the support of others. Do you work out as hard at the gym by yourself as you do with a trainer? For me, the answer is no. It’s hard to practice in a vacuum. You need a project to be creative on, and collaborators to exchange ideas with and challenge you (and you them). The project gives the work purpose, and I think purpose is one of the most important motivators. Luckily, as a recipient of the fellowship, I got the opportunity to attend the Sundance Institute June Directors Lab as an editor, which allowed me to really dive in deep with some amazing projects for a month.

If you take the competition element out of the equation, the Sundance Directors Lab is kind of like a film version of Project Runway. Each week, a director is given a short amount of time to rehearse, shoot, and edit a scene from their script in progress. The time is short to say the least, and the cut-off time is strictly enforced. There are “make it work” moments, moments of incredible inspiration, and, every couple of hours or so, Ed Harris, Catherine Hardwicke, or Robert Redford might stop by to watch you work and give some notes. There’s not a lot of time to second-guess anything, and that’s the point. Go with your gut, take a risk, and if you fall down, you get back up because you have to. It’s a one-of-a-kind environment where everyone present at the Labs is there to support, but also to challenge a director to dive deeper into their story and vision in order to make a film that not only entertains, but also says something. Challenge is the key part of the equation. You can’t stay in the safe zone if you want to make something interesting. You also can’t push yourself out of the comfort zone or make a film without collaborators and people pushing you hard to move closer towards a vision.

As an editor, I was paired with two directors, Johnny Ma and Jordana Spiro, who both came with scripts that were pretty killer. Before the Lab, I was reading the scripts over and over, watching reference films, practicing my AVID skills – I wanted to be prepared. When the day came to start cutting with both directors, I was really welcomed as a collaborator; as an editor, this is the thing you really hope for more than anything. When the director trusts you to help them elevate their vision, the process is addictive. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences to see a scene that really works up on the big screen after hours of work.

But the Lab is not a normal working environment, as you are working with two directors simultaneously. The biggest challenge with this is learning how to switch gears between two totally different projects in a matter of minutes. I would spend an entire day cutting with Johnny, and then I’d meet Jordana, watch dailies, and we’d start on her scene the next day. The luxury of being on a feature film is that you get to 100% live in the world of that film 24/7 and not have to shift gears. At the Labs there is not this luxury, but the benefit is that you get to learn from more than one director at once – about performance, blocking, tone – which are things you will retain forever.

As an editor, I’ve learned that you must always be expanding your vocabulary for how to shape a performance, tone or motivate edits through blocking. This is the language that you will use to communicate certain things to the director while working, and the more of it you have, the better the communication will be. It’s also important to bring the knowledge you have from outside of the cutting room into the cutting room. Jordana asked me to watch a film before attending the labs called Oslo, August 31st. I learned some incredible editing lessons from watching the film, and it helped me understand her vision for her film. Johnny turned me on to old Chinese parlor music from the mid-20th century, and that really served as a motivator to us in how to edit one of the big scenes we were working on. Anything that makes you feel something – film or not – is fair game.

My experience at the Labs was built from many small moments of inspiration and tough lessons, that when combined created something bigger than all of the individual pieces. But all of these lessons come while working hard. Really, really hard. There is no waiting around for inspiration to strike. Everything about the program is set up to make sure everyone involved gives it their all. The benefit is that in the process you find yourself reinvigorated in your journey as a storyteller.

Nothing worth doing is ever easy, and I feel that this is something that often gets lost in many interviews with artists and successful people in a particular craft. I am here to tell you that you are not alone in asking, “Is it really this tough?” The answer is yes, and it is for everybody. This stuff is hard, man! I made BAD movies on my own, I went to film school, I was an Assistant Editor on the night shift, I edited lots of shorts, lots of web content, got discouraged countless times, questioned my life decisions countless times, and it all led me to now, where I feel like I am just beginning to understand what being an editor truly is. The point is, the journey is long, and it’s important to remember that and not get discouraged by that. While the Lab is only a month long, it instills the idea and thematic importance of being willing to go on a journey, and that to make something that is meaningful requires time, effort, and the willingness to fail and start again when all the muscles in your body are begging you to stop.

It is now September, and I’m in the thick of editing a new feature. Every day while editing I do something that inevitably reminds me of something I learned at the Lab. It’s an experience that has forever implanted itself into my editing DNA.

Sarah Pearce, Sundance Institute Co-Managing Director said, “We are thrilled to add The Grand Theatre and increase ticket availability for independent film lovers in Salt Lake City. Plus, we are excited to work with Salt Lake Community College and engage with university audiences during the Sundance Film Festival.”

Locals-only Festival pass and ticket package registration begins tomorrow (September 17) and ends October 8, 2014. During that time, Festivalgoers must register at sundance.org/tickets to receive an email on October 10 with a randomly assigned timeslot to purchase Festival passes and ticket packages online in October. Early registration does not guarantee an early purchase time slot. Descriptions of locals-only pass and ticket package options including the new Grand Pass can be found at sundance.org/locals.

Additional Festival benefits for Utah residents include:

Free Best of Fest Screenings for Utah residents
Sundance Institute presents complimentary screenings of award-winning films to locals on Monday, February 2. Locals must bring a valid Utah Driver’s License or Utah State ID to pick up these free tickets in person at any main box office in Ogden, Park City, Salt Lake City and Sundance Resort on January 17.

Free Townie Tuesday Screenings for Summit County residents
Sundance Institute presents two complimentary screenings exclusively for Summit County residents on January 27. Summit County residents must bring a Utah ID to pick up these free tickets in person at the Park City Main Box Office on Saturday, January 17.

Sundance Institute | George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Student Screenings
Utah high school, middle and junior high students are invited to participate in a free interactive screening program including a Q&A with the filmmaker at select theaters in Salt Lake City, Ogden and Park City. 2015 Program dates are January 26 to January 30. Interested teachers and administrators should email studentprograms@sundance.org for additional program information.

Volunteer at the Sundance Film Festival
Every year, Sundance Institute selects more than 1,800 volunteers – more than half of whom live in Utah – to help create a global platform for independent film. Volunteers assist in all areas of the Festival, from theatre entrances to shuttle stops. Local, insider knowledge is always helpful, and of course, there are exciting benefits such as being among the first to see the best new independent films. With the addition of the Grand Theater, Sundance Institute is seeking more volunteers from the Salt Lake City area. Applications are now being accepted at sundance.org/volunteer.

Sundance Institute Community Programs
Sundance Institute brings Utah residents year-round events that best represent the Institute’s spectrum of artist programs. Free community events include screenings, musical performances and discussions with recent and past Institute Alumni in conjunction with local community collaborators. Sundance Institute gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Principal Sponsor Zions Bank, Major Sponsor the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development and Community Supporters, Salt Lake City Arts Council, Salt Lake County Economic Development Department, Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Park (ZAP) Program and Summit County RAP Tax.

The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Whiplash, Boyhood, Rich Hill, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative has showcased groundbreaking media works by artists and creative technologists including Chris Milk, Doug Aitken, Palmer Luckey, Klip Collective and Nonny de la Pena. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2015 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – HP, Acura, SundanceTV and Chase Sapphire Preferred®; Leadership Sponsors – DIRECTV and Southwest Airlines; Sustaining Sponsors – Canada Goose, Omnicom, and Stella Artois®. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute's year-round programs for independent artists. sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

The Grand Theatre
The Grand Theatre is a 1,100-seat venue located at Salt Lake Community College’s historic South City Campus, home of the innovative and state-of-the-industry Center for Arts and Media at 1575 South State Street in Salt Lake City. The Grand dates to the 1930s when it was part of South High School, which SLCC purchased in 1989. The theatre, with great care and expense, has retained its Depression-era charm and attraction while also incorporating the latest technology in lighting and sound. Every season the Grand is host to award-winning theatre and dance productions and concerts that attract arts enthusiasts from all along the Wasatch Front. Students and faculty in the arts at SLCC’s South City Campus now enjoy and, as a result, excel from having access to the Grand’s classic look and feel and the Center for Arts and Media all in one place.

Every applicant for the program was required to submit a spec pilot and series overview as the basis of their creative work at the Lab. The selected writers are: Desiree Akhavan (Switch Hitter); Peter Biegen (Small Change); Nate Crocker (Scar Tissue); Katori Hall (The Dial); Barry Jenkins (Radical); Nick Keetch (Borderline); Lisa Kron (The Schaeffers); Crystal Liu (The White Sheep); Heather Marion (Bury Me) and Matt Young (Still).

Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, the writers will work with an accomplished group of showrunners, television executives, and producers. They will participate in one on one creative story meetings, a Writers' Room to break story, pitch sessions, and group conversations about the creative and business environment of television writing and producing.

Creative Advisors for the Episodic Story Lab include: Michelle Ashford (Creator, Masters of Sex); Jenny Bicks (Executive Producer, Sex and the City); Greg Daniels (Co-Creator, Parks and Recreation); Chic Eglee (Executive Producer, Dexter); Kerry Ehrin (Co-Creator and Executive Producer, Bates Motel); Howard Gordon (Co-Creator, Homeland); Noah Hawley (Creator, Fargo); Felicia D. Henderson (Creator, Soul Food); Warren Leight (Executive Producer, Law & Order: SVU); Amy Lippman (Executive Producer, Masters of Sex); Murray Miller (Executive Producer, Girls) and Elwood Reid (Executive Producer, The Bridge).

Industry Mentors include: Peter Friedlander (Vice President, Netflix Original Series), Tana Nugent Jamieson (Senior Vice President, A&E Studios), Laura Michalchyshyn (President, Sundance Productions), Erica Motley (Acquisition Consultant, Sonar Entertainment), Francesca Orsi (Senior Vice President, Drama Programming, HBO), Nena Rodrigue (Senior Vice President, Original Programming & Production, SundanceTV),Rodrigo Teixera (Founder and CEO, RT Features), Betsy Beers (Partner, Shondaland), Dante Di Loreto (President, Ryan Murphy Television), and Mark Johnson (Producer, Gran Via Productions).

Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford said "Independent thinking continues to drive our culture in new ways and nowhere is it more evident than within the changing landscape of storytelling. It is with this in mind that we created the Sundance Episodic Story Lab to provide a creative place for writers to explore new territory."

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, "Our Episodic Story Lab is a rare opportunity for independent artists to develop unique multi-part projects and learn how to navigate the changing landscape of this field. We are grateful to the community of established television writers and professionals for lending their support and expertise to this next generation of artists with unique and diverse voices."

Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Feature Film Program, said, "The selected writers are telling distinctive and dynamic stories in a range of genres and formats. It is exciting and humbling to support the creative journey of these talented writers who will work closely with accomplished showrunners to refine, challenge and advance their work and understanding of multi-episode storytelling."

Following the Lab, the writers will receive customized, year-round support including: ongoing creative and strategic advice, year-round mentors, and introductions to targeted showrunners, networks, agents and other creative and business professionals.

The Sundance Institute Episodic Story Lab is made possible by Founding Supporters Lyn and Norman Lear; Leadership Supporters A&E, Netflix, SundanceTV, and Time Warner Foundation/HBO; and Discovery Supporters Cindy and Alan Horn, RT Features and Sonar Entertainment.

In addition to the Episodic Story Lab, the Institute offers Labs throughout the year and around the world for independent directors, screenwriters, documentary editors, composers, playwrights, producers, and New Frontier artists.

Artists and projects selected for the Episodic Story Lab are:

Switch Hitter (half-hour comedy)
Writer: Desiree Akhavan
After Leila Shahi unexpectedly turns down a marriage proposal from her seemingly perfect lesbian partner, she is forced to confront a very basic fact about herself that she has been suppressing for years -- she's bisexual. Now, with a motley group of friends by her side, Leila must pick up the pieces of her life while trudging through the hell of dating—gay or straight.

Iranian-American filmmaker Desiree Akhavan is the writer/director/star of Appropriate Behavior, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. She is also the co-creator and star of the critically-acclaimed web series The Slope. Desiree was featured as one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film" and will appear on the next season of Girls. She has a BA from Smith College and an MFA from NYU's Grad Film Program.

Small Change (one hour drama)
Writer: Peter Biegen
As soon as Maxi, a brilliant but troubled 13-year-old, arrives at Fante Juvenile Detention Center, he strategically forms an unusual alliance with the dangerous and charismatic leader of the prison's criminal underworld. They operate under the watchful eye of Fante counselor Celia, an Afghanistan War veteran with demons of her own.

Peter Biegen is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His produced work includes writing and directing the short film Ceremonies of the Horsemen and co-writing The Last Lullaby with Max Allen. Peter's feature screenplay Fortunate Sons is being produced by Julie Lynn and Bonnie Curtis, with Eric Stoltz attached to direct.

Scar Tissue (one hour anthology series)
Writer: Nate Crocker
When Chew, a boxing cut man, is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he finally decides to pursue his long-deferred aspiration to become a trainer. He takes on a raw but talented budding prospect, but the young boxer's gang ties and the shady, sometimes dangerous politics of local professional boxing threaten to derail his dream.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Nate Crocker went to college in Colorado and did a year of service with AmeriCorps in inner city Baltimore before moving to Los Angeles. His short films have been screened at NBCUniversal's Short Film Showcase, The Las Vegas Film Festival, and other venues.

The Dial (one hour drama)
Writer: Katori Hall
The Dial is inspired by the true story of Nat D. Williams, America's first black radio DJ. His weekly show on WDIA-Memphis starts a music revolution when he introduces the public to blues and soul. While tensions arise as whites and blacks begin working together at the radio station, the conflict within mirrors what is happening outside as the civil rights movement gathers thunder.

Katori Hall is a playwright-performer from Memphis, Tennessee. Her drama The Mountaintop won London's Olivier award for Best New Play and is one of the most produced plays in America. Her play Hurt Village was adapted into a feature screenplay and developed through the 2011 Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

Radical (one hour limited series)
Writer: Barry Jenkins
In 1972, George Wright and four other civil rights activists hijacked Delta Flight 841 from the United States to Algeria, collecting the largest ransom in airline history. Inspired by a true story, Radical follows each member of this disenfranchised group from their humble beginnings to the moment they decide to take matters into their own hands.

Filmmaker Barry Jenkins was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and studied film at Florida State University. His first film, Medicine For Melancholy, was acquired and released by IFC Films and nominated for four Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards. A United States Artists Smith Fellow, he was recently named one of "20 Directors to Watch" in world cinema by The New York Times.

Borderline (one hour drama)
Writer: Nick Keetch
Borderline follows two estranged brothers—one a DEA agent, the other a cartel lieutenant—as they operate on opposite sides of the drug war and compete for control of the trafficking corridor that separates US from Mexico. As their professional lives begin to intersect, the brothers confront their shared past while trying to negotiate between the relationship they once had and the lives they have forged since they were separated.

Nick Keetch is a screenwriter from London. After receiving a degree in American Literature at the University of Sussex, Nick worked briefly in advertising in New York, before moving to Los Angeles to attend UCLA Extension's Television Writing Program. In 2012, he was named a semi-finalist in UCLA Extension's Teleplay Competition for his Justified spec, and a quarter-finalist in Scriptapalooza's Teleplay Competition for his Boardwalk Empire spec. Nick has also worked as a writers' assistant on Rogue for DirecTV and The Assets for ABC.

The Schaeffers (half-hour dramedy)
Writer: Lisa Kron
Wife and working mother Ginger Schaeffer has her world turned upside down when she must move back to her Midwestern hometown to look after her aging mother and father. As she's plunged into the role of caregiver, her own life begins to crumble and Ginger discovers that nothing brings out your inner child like elderly parents. Together the Schaeffers must grapple with the relentless adventure of growing up and growing old.

Lisa Kron has been writing and performing theater since moving to New York from Michigan in 1984. She was supported by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program in 2003 to develop her award-winning play Well. Her work has been widely produced in New York, regionally, and internationally, earning numerous awards including three Obies and a Tony nomination. This year she was named a Doris Duke Artist and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote the libretto for the acclaimed musical Fun Home (also supported by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program in 2012), set to open on Broadway in Spring 2015.

The White Sheep (half-hour comedy)
Writer: Crystal Liu
Adopted by an Asian American family at birth, blond-haired, blue-eyed Lori Lynn is pushing 30 and still working on finding herself. When a breakup and sudden unemployment force her to move back home, she struggles to get her life back on track while surrounded by a family of overachievers.

Crystal Liu graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Her award-winning short films have played at festivals across the world. She is currently a staff writer for American Horror Story: Freak Show.

Bury Me (half-hour comedy)
Writer: Heather Marion
When her family's funeral home threatens to go under, estranged eldest daughter and single mother Kim Diamond must return to Nebraska to confront her dysfunctional relatives—and her own insecurities—while trying to bring the family business back to life.

Heather Marion studied Biochemistry at Concordia University until she fell in love with improv and sketch comedy. She received an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA. Marion is currently the writers' assistant on Better Call Saul, the upcoming Vince Gilligan/Peter Gould Breaking Bad prequel series.

Still (one hour drama)
Writer: Matt Young
A down-on-his-luck farmer in Depression-era Virginia runs into trouble with a sinister family of moonshiners after he is hired to bust up their stills. He struggles to protect his family while navigating the dangerous world of bootlegging and the horrifying realm of Appalachian black magic.

Matt Young got his start in the industry as a commercial actor and improviser. While he continues to perform both on television and live at Hollywood's IO West Theater, he is also pursuing a Masters Degree in Screenwriting at California State University, Northridge.

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program
Since its founding in 1981, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP) has supported an extensive list of ground-breaking independent films. FFP films making their premieres this year include Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival), Cutter Hodierne's Fishing Without Nets (winner of the Directing Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival), and Malik Vitthal's Imperial Dreams (winner of the Best of NEXT Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival). Additional notable films supported over the program's history include Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox, Haifaa Al Mansour's Wadjda, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild, Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, Dee Rees' Pariah, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, Andrea Arnold's Red Road, Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, Josh Marston's Maria Full of Grace, Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas, John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry, Walter Salles' Central Station, Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie's Smoke Signals, Allison Anders' Mi Vida Loca, Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight, and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. sundance.org/featurefilm

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

A world bereft of compassion is an unnecessarily cruel one. For sufferers of Alzheimer’s, their families, and their caregivers, such a world is far too often the reality. When Banker White’s mother Pam began experiencing the initial symptoms of Alzheimer’s, rather than withdrawing, he committed to opening the doors to the merciless disease by documenting her struggle in what would become The Genius of Marian, an elegiac documentary that depicted Pam and her family’s new existence (and an extension of Pam's unfinished book about her own mother Marian Wlliams Steele, who passed from Alzheimer's years prior). But the point at which the influence of most documentaries typically ends – at the film’s denouement – was where Banker’s vision continued.

The Genius of Caring is Banker White’s new web-based project aimed at building a community of and for caregivers where dialogue flows freely about an otherwise isolating disease. The ultimate goal: compassion and understanding. The site is currently in beta and will need a successful Kickstarter campaign to continue to tell the stories of caregivers from across the country. Below, Banker took some time to chat about the impetus for the project and his own intensely personal experiences with Alzheimer’s.

The Genius of Marian is an incredibly poignant portrayal of Alzheimer’s, but The Genius of Caring looks to achieve something different. What is your hope for this web project?

Banker White: The process for caring for a loved one with a terminal illness is humbling and isolating – isolating at a time when you need the most support. The process of producing The Genius of Marian helped us communicate better as a family and sharing our experience publically has connected us with so many individuals and families who are going through the same thing. The response since the broadcast has been overwhelming – so many individuals and families reaching out, sending pictures and sharing both heartbreaking and beautiful stories. It has definitely confirmed why there is a real need for this kind of project. Many people who have reached out to us will be profiled on the site and have expressed a hope that what they learned might have value for others.

The goal with the site is to create a platform for people to feel safe sharing their experiences and to facilitate making connections and building community with others going through the same thing. This site, www.geniusofcaring.com, is now live and launched as a beta version of the site with a portrait of my father Ed White caring for my mother Pam. We are scheduled to release five more documentary portraits to the site profiling caregivers from all over the country. We are choosing stories that reflect a diversity of experience profiling spouses, adult children, siblings and paid care in a caregiving role and that are from diverse backgrounds in terms of geography, access to care, and available resources.

Reflecting on your intimate experiences with Alzheimer’s, what do you find to be the greatest misconception about the disease?

BW: People are so terrified by dementia that it creates so many misconceptions. It is even a part of colloquial speak to say I don’t want to go, ‘like that.’ When there is that much fear, we don’t looks closely and we don’t learn on so many levels. Many people still believe it is just loss of short term memory or senility and is a natural part of the aging process. Much in the same way heart disease and cancer were regarded 50 years ago. The medical community even admits it was not universally accepted as a disease until the mid-80s. So people seem also not to believe the numbers; that 50% of people over 85 are experiencing some form of dementia, that it is a terminal disease, that it is the number 6 leading cause of death, etc. What we do know is with the baby boomers aging this disease will become a reality for almost everyone in this country.

Despite these numbers I hope we can also learn to not run away from this and move towards educating ourselves to the reality of caring for someone with dementia, because the disease is much more complicated than memory loss. It comes with complex behavioral changes, severe physical impairment in the later stages, and it is care intensive and an incredible burden on the caregiving team – physically, financially and emotionally. It was our experience, and I have heard from so many others, that there is also humor and lightness in dementia, that you are asked to be in the moment with your loved one and it teaches you patience and compassion.  

How much was the genesis of this project based of your own desire to have a community with which to share your challenges?

BW: What is absolutely true is that a strong community of friends and a network of support is what helped us through it as a family. We had a close group of friends who supported my parents and naturally transitioned into a kind of caregiving role, but it took time. Many people did not know how to react to my mother’s diagnosis. She was the first in their peer group to go through this because she was so young (officially diagnosed at 61, but was going through difficult changes for 5-6 years leading up to the diagnosis).

When it did ‘get out’ that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it was like they lost at least half of their friends. People just did not know what to do. And because my Mom was so traumatized by the stigma surrounding the disease, we did not ask for help or really communicate well at all with our network of friends. Eventually many of these people did come back into their life and still today are a big part of how we are supported. Some of that support is as simple as still including them in their life, coming by to have lunch with my mother and giving my father a couple hours off.

My father talks about this very specifically in Chapter 2 of the portrait on the Genius of Caring site: http://geniusofcaring.com/portraits

I think one of the reasons for the change is that we became more vocal – actually moved from a place of secrecy to public advocacy. Through the film, interviews, and writing everyone in the family has done, people maybe understood what we were going through better and reached back out. So the site hopefully provides a space for people to share, but also for people to learn, so our understanding as families, communities, and as a country of what this experience is like becomes much deeper.

You attended last year’s New Frontier Story Lab with this project. Is there one particular resonant experience or lesson that you gleaned from that process that you could share?

BW: The Lab was such an amazing experience – so many talented artists and advisors from many different disciplines. The big take away for me was to strip away all the ideas and infinite potential that could be explored to the essence of the project: What is driving you to do this work? And then rebuild confidently from there.

That this project had real utility for people going through this was essential. We worked with caregivers, geriatricians, and social workers after the Lab to both develop the set of prompts and questions and to build a space that felt uniquely safe for families to share and connect with others.

Prior to its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, The Skeleton Twins had been billed as a non-comedy starring Saturday Night Live vets Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as estranged siblings. As it turns out, this description isn’t quite accurate. While the film is at times a very affecting and penetrating drama, it also contains as many genuine laughs as any “drama” in recent memory. Director Craig Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Black Swan’s Mark Heyman, effortlessly balances the film’s tricky tone.

Hader is a revelation as Milo, a gay, depressed struggling actor and Wiig delivers perhaps her most impressive work as Maggie, a dental hygienist dissatisfied with her marriage to her uncomplicated husband (Luke Wilson, in a fine comic performance). The siblings live on opposite coasts but reconnect after a decade when both contemplate suicide on the same day. The well-honed chemistry between Hader and Wiig comes to a head in what will likely become known as the film’s set piece — Hader’s epic lip-syncing performance set to Starship’s power ballad “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now” in an attempt to reaffirm the bond between the siblings.

Hader, however, wasn’t Johnson’s first choice to play Milo. “We were thinking about some people and I must say, Bill wasn’t on my initial radar,” the director revealed during the Q&A after the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January. Johnson said it was casting director Avy Kaufman who suggested the comic after she was impressed by a dramatic reading opposite Kate Winslet.

Johnson said he and Hader met at a bar for a drink and soon realized they were both big movie nerds. “We kind of geeked out a little talking about directors, and I kind of had this idea that Milo is a little bit more of a nerd,” he explained. “Then I thought, ‘We’ve found our nerd.’” The Skeleton Twins hits theaters this Friday, September 12. Click here for tickets and showtimes.

Maryam al-Khawaja, the notable Bahraini human rights defender and subject of We Are the Giant (2014 SFF), was arrested August 30 upon her arrival in Manama, Bahrain, on charges of assaulting a police officer – which she refutes – and other alleged crimes related to her work in human rights. Maryam was returning to see her ailing father and longtime activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is currently on a hunger strike while serving a lifetime sentence for charges stemming from human rights demonstrations in 2011.

Maryam is a dual Bahraini-Danish national, but her Bahraini citizenship has now been stripped, and she is being held in jail for seven days as the government builds a case against her. Now, the film team behind We Are the Giant is soliciting help in spreading awareness around Maryam’s arrest with the goal of pressuring the Bahraini government into her release.

The scene is not dissimilar from the one that played out during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where Maryam’s presence with We Are the Giant in Park City, Utah, provided impetus for the release of her sister Zainab, who served much of last year in Isa Town Detention – where Maryam is currently held ­– for peacefully standing her ground against riot police.

Please join us in standing behind Maryam by signing an online petition asking for her release.

“There are two kinds of heroes. There are heroes who preach, and there are heroes who do. They are the people who don’t ask you to go and stand in the front lines; they do it themselves.” –Maryam al-Khawaja

#FreeMaryam

As we collectively lament the closing days of summer, a handful of new releases help usher in a promising fall season for indie film. The ever-enigmatic singer-songwriter Willis Earl Beal offers a captivating portrayal of a musician caught in the trap of creative inertia in Memphis, and Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch officially makes his foray into filmmaking with the pensive musical drama God Help The Girl. Bringing some levity to the month's releases – though still sharp and thoughtful – is Craig Johnson's The Skeleton Twins, which tracks the reunion of estranged twins expertly played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Below, check out all of the Sundance-supported films hitting theaters this month.

Friday, September 5

Memphis, directed by Tim Sutton

God Help the Girl, directed by Stuart Murdoch

No No: A Dockumentary, directed by Jeffrey Radice

Wetlands, directed by David Wnendt and Guy Edoin

Friday, September 12

The Skeleton Twins, directed by Craig Johnson

The Green Prince, directed by Nadav Schirman

Friday, September 19

20,000 Days On Earth, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

Friday, September 26

Lilting, directed by Hong Khaou

DVD & Blu-Ray

Tuesday, September 2

They Came Together

Under the Electric Sky

American Promise

Tuesday, September 9

Fed Up

Ida

God’s Pocket

Tuesday, September 23

The Signal

Very Good Girls

Tuesday, September 30

Cold In July

Ivory Tower

Hellion

Something about the notion of Labor Day has always seemed archaic to me. Then again, the guy who questions a day off is no better than the 7^th grader who reminds the teacher that homework hasn’t been collected – exactly 10 seconds before the bell rings. Thank you, young comrade.

In reality, millions of hardworking Americans, whether toiling away at jobs they resent, tolerate, or unabashedly love, deserve a day of rest. And if you’re feeling especially bad about your current line of work, surely these wretched occupations from the films below will bring some levity to the situation. Because, if nothing else, misery loves company. Happy Labor Day.

American Job

Director Chris Smith’s deftness in depicting man’s idiosyncrasies and other inscrutable character blemishes arrived with 1996’s American Job, the narrative precursor to his better-recognized documentary accomplishments American Movie and The Yes Men. In American Job, we are subjected to the tedium of some of America’s most unappealing jobs through the lens of our aimless protagonist Randy Scott, whose helpless disposition is a wry bit of a humor in and of itself. Smith’s shrewd verite filmmaking further advances the film’s comically humdrum atmosphere, leaving us to intermittently pinch ourselves, just to be sure Randy’s reality is not in fact our own.

Roger and Me

Before he became the most recognizable and polarizing figure in documentary film – and before Detroit became the national punch line for America’s economic woes – Michael Moore was just a man meddling in the country’s innumerable issues, hoping to expose some truth. Ok, so nothing has really changed after all. But in Roger and Me, Moore’s first filmmaking effort, we are privy to the simplicity of the man and his camera. In this particular endeavor, Moore’s obligation is to the thousands of Americans out of their jobs thanks to General Motors. A Flint, Michigan, native himself, Moore returns home with a steadfast – and quite humorous – mission to sit down with the man behind the madness, and the head of GM, Roger Smith.

Dirty Work

There is “dirty work,” and then there is the repugnant, nausea-inducing work that the three singular subjects in Dirty Work manage to pursue as both their profession and passion. At times more probing than perhaps desired, this surprisingly accessible documentary explores the (mostly) unenviable worlds of Darrell, a septic tank pumper, Russ, a bull semen collector, and Bernard, an embalmer. Beneath its unpleasant surface lies not only the reality that “someone’s gotta’ do it,” but that someone may actually be happy to do it. Watch it via Sundance #ArtistServices.

Clerks

It would be criminally remiss to omit the most seminal indie film to explore the torment of menial work. Kevin Smith’s Clerks transcends the cult classic label, achieving something closer to the sacred embodiment of independent filmmaking. This lo-fi, indulgently cheesy trailer from ’94 beats any attempt at a film description.

C.O.G.

Kyle Alvarez’s 2013 Sundance Film Festival selection stars a self-effacing Jonathan Groff as a young man who takes up the obscure, and perhaps marginally idyllic, vocation of an apple picker. Based on a David Sedaris short story, Alvarez’s smartly adapted narrative is suffused with undertones of sexual discovery and religious confusion, set to the bucolic milieu of an apple orchard. At the end of its runtime, the idea of fleeing to farm life doesn’t sound bad at all…

Among the niche genres of filmmaking, documentary shorts’ unheralded treasure trove of filmmaking is as well stocked as any. It’s also fertile terrain for this year’s edition of Shorts Lab L.A., which offers filmmakers the opportunity to participate in an intensive one-day seminar of screenings and discussions with firsthand insight and access into the world of short-form documentary story development, production, and exhibition.

We’ve solicited the expertise of a seasoned roster of documentary filmmakers to speak on-stage about the art of storytelling and how to use style in a non-fiction format. Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel, Waste Land), Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles, THIN), Kirby Dick (The Invisible War, This Film Is Not Yet Rated), Rodney Ascher (Room 237), Aj Schnack (We Always Lie To Strangers), and Sundance Institute’s director of the Documentary Film Program Tabitha Jackson will each be on hand for the day of moderated discussions, during which each panel will devote half its time to Q&A sessions with attendees.

If you’ve somehow managed to miss the acclaimed work above, crafted by a veritable who’s who of the contemporary documentary film world, check out their work in the doc short realm below, and join us for Shorts Lab L.A. Saturday, September 13 at Cinefamily. Learn more and purchase tickets here.

kids + money
directed by Lauren Greenfield

The S from Hell
directed by Rodney Ascher

David Hockney In The Now
directed by Lucy Walker

Watch the film for free on Lucy Walker’s website. Also, check out Walker's most recent Oscar-nominated documentary short The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, available for rent on iTunes.

Film Forward, a partnership of Sundance Institute, the President's Committee and three U.S. federal cultural agencies, is a touring program that offers film screenings, workshops and discussions designed to foster dialogue and cross-cultural understanding. It uses the power of cinema to promote broader cultural understanding, inspire curiosity and enhance awareness of shared stories and values.

The program in Michigan will focus on communities and change, beating the odds, acceptance, and the human experience behind the headlines. Common themes explored in the films traveling with the program this year include acceptance, overcoming adversity and the transformative power of the arts to heal and bridge differences. In each location, Film Forward seeks to engage audiences that have limited access to independent film, and artists.

"Storytelling through film illuminates different ways of thinking and brings about understanding of new cultures," said Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute. "We look forward to showing these films in Michigan which we hope will inspire a dynamic exchange of ideas."

"The National Endowment for the Humanities is proud to support Film Forward and the civic engagement it promotes through film," said Malcom Richardson, Senior Partnership Officer. "Film Forward programs demonstrate how the humanities actively expand knowledge of other cultures, perspectives and history, while the films and participating filmmakers help us understand the issues we face as citizens."

"Dancing In Jaffa is about defying expectations and believing that change is possible," said filmmaker Hilla Medalia. "No matter where the film is shown audiences around the world will relate to the common themes and issues expressed by the students. I am excited to engage audiences in dialogue in Michigan and see if my film can challenge audiences to see their community in a new way."

The 2014 season of Film Forward will reach over 10,000 people through international (Mexico, Taiwan, China, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Indonesia) and domestic locations (California, Michigan, Mississippi and Pennsylvania).Sundance Institute staff members traveling with the program are: Film Forward Director Meredith Lavitt, Film Forward Manager Jacqueline Carlson and Sundance Institute Manager of Diversity Initiatives Moira Griffin.

FILM FORWARD Year Four Films:

	Circles – (Directed by: Srdan Golubovic ) Five people are affected by a tragic heroic act. Twenty years later, all of them will have to confront the past through their own crises. Will they overcome the guilt, frustration, and the urge for revenge? Will they do the right thing, at all costs? International Narrative
	Dancing in Jaffa – (Directed by: Hilla Medalia) Renowned ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulaine, takes his belief that dance can overcome political and cultural differences and applies it to 11 year old Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. What occurs is magical and transformative. International Documentary
	Fruitvale Station – (Directed by: Ryan Coogler) The true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008. US Narrative
	If You Build It – (Directed by: Patrick Creadon) If You Build It spends a year in the life of one of America’s most innovative classrooms. Designer/activists Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller, together with their high school students, unleash the power of humanitarian design to help their struggling community in rural North Carolina. US Documentary
	The Rocket – (Directed by: Kim Mordaunt) A boy who is believed to bring bad luck leads his family and a couple of ragged misfits through Laos to find a new home. After a calamity–filled journey through a land scarred by war, the boy sets off to prove he’s not cursed and builds a giant rocket to enter the most lucrative but dangerous competition of the year: the Rocket Festival. International Narrative
	The World Before Her – (Directed by: Nisha Pahuja) Moving between two extremes—the intimate verité drama of the Miss India pageant’s rigorous beauty “bootcamp” and the intense regime of a militant Hindu fundamentalist camp for young girls—The World Before Her delivers a provocative portrait of India and its current cultural conflicts during a key transitional era in the country's modern history. International Documentary
	Twenty Feet From Stardom – (Directed by: Morgan Neville) Millions know their voices, but no one knows their names. Twenty Feet From Stardom shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. US Documentary
	Valentine Road – (Directed by: Marta Cunningham) On February 12, 2008, eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney shot his classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head. With keen insight, the film connects the human wreckage of Larry’s and Brandon’s troubled lives—both bullied and both searching for a sense of belonging. US Documentary

Federal Partners
The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) bridges the interests of American federal agencies and the private sector, supports special projects that increase participation and excellence in the arts and humanities, and helps incorporate these disciplines into White House objectives. First Lady Michelle Obama is the Honorary Chairman of the PCAH.

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the NEA at arts.gov, follow us on Twitter @NEAarts or like us on Facebook.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency, provides support for documentary films, digital media and other educational programs in the humanities through competitive grant programs. The NEH is the nation's leading supporter of research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The mission of IMLS is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. The agency's grant making, policy development, and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow @US_IMLS on Twitter and on Facebook.

Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to connect audiences to their work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling as art and as a compelling and powerful way to inform, inspire and unite people. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.