Well into its first frenzied weekend, one of the standout premieres at this year's Sundance Film Festival is the musical biopic THE RUNAWAYS, based on the girl punk rock group of the same name. The film is adapted from the band's lead-singer Cherie Currie's book 'Neon Angel' - a reflection of her experiences as a rock star.
The movie chronicles THE RUNAWAYS from 1975 - 1977 at the height of the punk rock revolution in the UK and the USA. Formed by teenage girl...
As further commitment to expanding audiences for independent films, Sundance Institute today announced a collaboration with YouTube to make available for rent three world-premiere films from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Beginning today, films will be spotlighted on the YouTube homepage, after which they will also be available until January 31 at YouTube Movies. Two audience favorites from the 2009 Festival will also be ...
Video on the Sundance Website
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Robert Redford, Sundance Founder
John Cooper, Sundance Festival Director
Brendan Hill, HESHER
Joseph Gordon Levitt, HESHER
Paris Hilton,...
More than 50 years after its initial publication, the tone poem HOWL is still a shocking bit of humanism, a cry for tolerance and a yell for individual self-expression. The poem's author, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, remained a controversial figure his entire life.
The impact of this envelope-pushing literary classic and the bohemian philosopher who was its inspiration make for an appropriate opening night for this year's Sundance Film Festival, the mecca of independent a...
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze premieres his latest work - I'm Here, a 30-minute short film - today at the Sundance Film Festival as part of the first-ever Opening Night's Shorts Program at the festival. The film is a collaboration with ABSOLUT VODKA, and the partnership acknowledges the brand's position as a pioneering and culture-shaping brand. ABSOLUT has always stood out in the marketplace as a groundbreaking company that has been supporting artists for decades. Previous collaborations incl...
Artist and scientist John Underkloffer brings us TAMPER, a spanking-new point-and-paint editing technology that transforms video with just a flick of the wrist.
When I visited the Oblong Industries laboratory in downtown Los Angeles recently to see TAMPER: Gestural Interface for Cinematic Design, I expected to see a newfangled movie editing system. I knew Oblong’s innovation wasn’t some new kind of mouse or keyboard, but that it involved working with gloves and giant screens to manipulate...
In our ever-evolving digital world, filmmakers push distribution farther by using the outlet that reaches the widest audience possible: the Internet.
In October, it wasn't uncommon that Sundance Film Festival Shorts Programmer Jon Korn added an extra hour of screening time to his routine 12-hour block. However, instead of picking up another title from the pile of literally thousands of unwatched films, he turned his focus to the online ether. Labeling it 'the only type of multitasking I c...
The 2010 lineup of short films is an adrenaline surge to one of today's hottest modes of storytelling.
If anyone has any doubt as to the 'health' of filmmaking, this year's abundance of short film submissions can certainly provide ample evidence to the contrary. With 6,092 short film submissions to the Sundance Film Festival this year, it's quite clear we're living in a video culture, and men, women, children, not to mention monkeys (see Fiddlestix by the Zellner Bros.), are all part of the v...
When you’ve made it to Park City, you’re ready to zip up your fleece, watch some films, sample some restaurants, and get the whole show going. Whether you’ve flown from across the country or are a Park City local, you want to hit the ground with all the info you need to quickly move from point A to point B. This guide will help you navigate the Festival, and make the most of your trip. This year, your favorite accessory will be the Sundance Film Festival iPhone application, which lets...
1982
* Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic - Circle of Power
1985
* Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic - Blood Simple
* Grand Jury Prize: Documentary - Seventeen
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - Almost You
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - The Killing Floor
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - Stranger Than Paradise
* Special Jury Prize: Documentary - America and Lewis Hine
* Special Jury Prize: Documentary - In Heaven There Is No Beer?
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Monday, January 28----------The 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival is now history and a few assessments are now in order. First of all, griping aside, the Festival's venue, a ski resort high in the Wasatch Mountains, is severly limited in many respects. Not only is traffic a nightmare, accomodations scarce and ridiculously overpriced, and transportation between screening theaters rickety at best, the Festival lacks any credible center (other than a hotel lobby). With more than 50,000 v...
Monday, January 28---------With filmmakers and professionals back at their home bases, a few last minute deals for this year's Sundance season were still announced on the Festival's final day. Sony Pictures Classics, who have been unusually active this year, has closed a deal for North American rights to Jonathan Levine's THE WACKNESS, which stars Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley as a New York City pscyhiatrist who trades therapy for marijuana. The film, which won the Feature Audience Award...
Sunday, January 27-----------FROZEN RIVER, a film about a struggling single mother in upstate New York who teams with a Mohawk woman to smuggle people across the Canadian border, has won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, a debut feature from writer/director Courtney Hunt, is adapted it from her own 2004 short of the same name. The film was one of a handful to actually be picked up by a major distributor during the Festival......having found a home with arthouse di...
Saturday, January 26---------Of all the parallel film events that have mushroomed (and withered) in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival three-ring circus, none has been more enduring and continually evolving as the Slamdance Film Festival. Founded by disgruntled filmmakers who had been closed out from the Sundance proceedings, the Festival has evolved into an important showcase of new indie talents that has continueD to maintain its considerable indie cred. In addition, Slamdance has r...
Saturday, January 26----------Let the Sundance awards begin.......After announcing the winners of the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Awards, the Festival disclosed yesterday that the futuristic film SLEEP DEALER, directed by Alex Rivera, has won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize. The honor, which carries a $20,000 cash award to the filmmaker provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, enginee...
Friday, January 25----------The Sundance Institute has a long history of support for Latin films. This year, they have launched Sundance en Español, a celebration of Latin films and filmmakers participating in the Sundance Film Festival. This year, the program features a collection of six Spanish Language films and four films in English by Hispanic and Latino directors. The films were selected to screen in Salt Lake City, which has a sizable Spanish-speaking community. Earlier this week, ...
Friday, January 25---------Although the Sundance Film Festival continues through this Sunday, with the culminating Awards Ceremony to be held on Saturday night, many film professionals have already skipped town, mulling the films they have seen (bid or passed on) and, frankly, warming up their external digits after 9 days of frigid weather. What began as a barren landscape for dealmaking has made a rebound, although Festival veterans have described this year's event as very lowkey compared to ...
Thursday, January 24---------The first Sundance awards were announced today, beginning a process that will culminate with the announcement of the major awards in the US Independent and World Cinema categories on Saturday evening. The Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards were created in 1996 to honor visionary film directors from four global regions (Europe, Latin America, the United States and Japan) in realizing their next projects. The prizes are a collaboration between the Sundan...
Thursday, January 24----------The explosion and recent box office clout of documentary features is very much a worldwide phenomenon. No longer tethered to television, many more non-fiction films are making a splash on the big screen. The poster boy for this movement is most probably Michael Moore, whose trifecta of BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, FAHRENHEIT 911 and this year’s nominated SICKO, were film phenomena in their own right, often outpacing Hollywood features and hyped indie dramatic gems. ...
Wednesday, January 23---------With temperatures going south and the wind chill severe enough to rattle the bones, Park City in January is an acquired taste (at least for this New Yorker-former-Floridian). But while the thermometer was dipping and a fresh blanket of snow has fallen (the skiers love it, I guess), talk around town has centered on two things: the shocking death of actor Heath Ledger in New York City yesterday and the sudden emergence of some very hot deals in frozen Park City.With...
