Sundance Institute Hosts Week of Creative Film Initiatives, Now thru 8/5

Sundance Institute previously announced the participants for its annual Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit, both held in the same week at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah.

Eleven projects have been selected to participate in the Labs (today, July 30 – August 3) and receive ongoing creative and strategic support throughout the year, as well as direct granting for further development and production. The Fellows represent five projects from the Feature Film Program and six from the Documentary Film Program and Fund.

Immediately following the Creative Producing Labs, the Creative Producing Summit (August 3-5) begins. The Summit is an invitation-only gathering that connects 40 producers and directors, including the Producing Fellows, with over 30 top independent film industry leaders for three days of case study sessions, panels, roundtable discussions, one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, "Sundance Institute is committed to supporting emerging independent film producers, and our Creative Producing Initiative is a rare opportunity for them to sharpen their creative instincts, evolve their problem-solving skills, and deepen their knowledge of the distribution landscape. In doing so, they are better equipped to successfully navigate an increasingly complex marketplace."

FEATURE FILM CREATIVE PRODUCING LAB

The Feature Film Creative Producing Lab is a five-day Lab where narrative feature film producers work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors to develop their creative instincts, communication and problem-solving skills in all stages of film production. This year’s Creative Advisors include producers Anne Carey (The American, Adventureland), Karin Chien (Circumstance, Exploding Girl), Lynette Howell (Terri, Blue Valentine) and Paul Mezey (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Sugar).

The Fellows and projects selected for the Feature Film Creative Producing Fellowship are:

Bright As Day
Mark Silverman Honorees & Producing Fellows: Lucas Joaquin & Tory Lenosky

Against the backdrop of the recent London riots, a disaffected teenager finds refuge from the adult world as she bonds with a run-down horse. (Writers/Directors: Eleanor Burke & Ron Eyal)

Tory Lenosky and Lucas Joaquin are New York-based producers who most recently worked together on Keep the Lights On with Lucas as Producer and Tory as Line Producer. Lucas served as the second unit Producer for Beasts of the Southern Wild and produced the acclaimed short film Last Address, which screened at the 2011 Venice Biennale and is now in the Permanent Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Tory began her career as an assistant to Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen at Parts and Labor and moved her way up the production ranks working on films such as Beginners, Here and Lovely Still.

Hellion
Producing Fellow: Kelly Williams

In small-town Texas, when thirteen-year old Jacob’s delinquent behavior gets his brother taken away, he’ll go to extreme, destructive lengths to bring him home. (Writer/Director: Kat Candler)

Kelly Williams is an Austin-based producer and the Director of Programming at the Lone Star International Film Festival in Fort Worth, Texas. Kelly served as the Program Director of the Austin Film Festival for eight years where he programmed features and shorts, as well as overseeing the full scope of the festival’s programming. Kelly produced the short film Perils in Nude Modeling, which screened at over 100 festivals and was a Student Academy Award nominee and in 2011, he produced two feature films, Pictures of Superheroes and Cinema Six, as well as the short film Hellion, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Joy of Living
Sheila C. Johnson Producing Fellow: Ashley Maynor

A lonely detective investigating a piano teacher?s murder forges an unlikely friendship with one of the victim's former students who has returned to the South to help solve the case. (Writer/Director: Paul Harrill)

Ashley Maynor is a Virginia based producer whose most recent credits include the ITVS co-production Quick Feet, Soft Hands and the upcoming feature Something, Anything. Ashley is the Co-Founder and Program Director of the Blue Ridge Stories Youth Video Workshop, has taught for Scribe Video Center, and has been a guest artist at the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge’s Artists in Schools program. She has taught Digital Cinema Production as a visiting Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech since 2008.

Life Partners
Steve Bing Producing Fellow: Jordana Mollick

A straight girl drunkenly promises her lesbian best friend she won't get married until gay marriage is legal... a promise that gets awkward when her boyfriend proposes and her friend remains a slacker years away from even thinking about marriage. (Writers: Susanna Fogel & Joni Lefkowitz, Director: Susanna Fogel)

Jordana Mollick began her career in New York theater and then moved to Los Angeles where she spent two years at the Endeavor Agency honing her skills in development. Jordana then went on to serve as the development executive for writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders, Runaway Jury, Ocean’s 13) and then formed her own management company Black Sheep Entertainment, which aims to develop a diverse slate of films and manage a carefully curated array of writers and directors. Under Black Sheep, Jordana created the annual Unscreened play series, which is where Life Partners was seeded. Life Partners was also a participant in the 2012 January Screenwriters Lab.

Untitled Amazon Project
Bingham Ray Producing Fellow: Summer Shelton

When a lumber conglomerate evicts their family, two brothers attempt to smuggle exotic lumber in hopes of selling it on the black market for money to buy their family new land, but what begins as a hopeful act turns into a journey more dangerous than they imagined. (Writer/Director: Alex Moratto)

Summer Shelton is a freelance producer born and raised in North Carolina who often works with critically acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani, having been the Associate Producer of his upcoming feature At Any Price (2012) starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron, Goodbye Solo (2008), an official selection of the Venice Film Festival that won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize for Best Film, and Co-Producer of his short Plastic Bag (2009). She is the Co-Producer of Scott Coffey’s upcoming feature Adult World (2012) and has worked as a production manager and coordinator on various independent films.

DOCUMENTARY FILM CREATIVE PRODUCING LAB

The Documentary Film Creative Producing Lab is a five-day Lab where Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund grantees are invited to work intensively with award-winning Creative Advisors to hone the craft of producing documentaries. The Lab includes workshops on financing, production and creative distribution for documentary films. This year’s Creative Advisors include Bonni Cohen (Producer, The Island President), Jess Search (CEO, BritDoc Foundation), publicist Nancy Willen (Acme PR) and sales agent Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment).

The Fellows and projects selected for the Documentary Film Creative Producing Lab are:

Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield
Producing Fellows: Anthony Arnove and Brenda Coughlin

Reporting from the battlefields of the war on terror, journalist Jeremy Scahill investigates the wars waged by and against an empire, and constructs a global picture of asymmetric warfare today.

Anthony Arnove and Brenda Coughlin are co-founders of the non-profit media company Civic Bakery. They co-created and produced The People Speak with Howard Zinn, Chris Moore, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon, the documentary film companion to Howard Zinn’s bestselling book A People’s History of the United States.

Solarize This (Working Title)
Producing Fellow: Shalini Kantayya

In a city where oil spills, air quality red-alerts, and poverty are commonplace, Solarize This asks the hard questions of how a clean energy economy may actually be built, from the perspective of three unemployed American workers seeking to retool at a solar jobs training program in Richmond, California.

Brooklyn-based filmmaker and eco-activist Shalini Kantayya finished in the top 10 out of 12,000 filmmakers on Fox’s ON THE LOT, a show by Steven Spielberg in search of Hollywood’s next great director. Her work has screened at over forty festivals internationally. Shalini received an MFA in Film Direction from the City College of New York, and a BA in Media Studies and International Human Rights from Hampshire College.

These Birds Walk
Producing Fellows: Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq

A portrait of contemporary Pakistan is created through the eyes of a runaway boy and an ambulance driver who call a dying humanitarian and his struggling organization home.

Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq’s articles and photographs have been published widely in National Geographic. The New York Times, Time Magazine and Democracy Now! These Birds Walk is their feature documentary debut.

The New Black
Producing Fellow: Yoruba Richen

The New Black is a documentary that uncovers the complicated and often combative histories of the African-American and LGBT civil-rights movements.

Yoruba Richen is a Harlem-born, Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker. She has directed and produced films in the U.S. and abroad including Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. Her award–winning documentary Promised Land received a Diverse Voices Co-Production fund award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and premiered on the PBS program POV in July 2010.

Untitled Gay Retiree Project
Producing Fellow: PJ Raval

Three LGBTQ seniors navigate the adventures, challenges and surprises of life and love in their golden years.

Named one of Out Magazine’s "Out 100 2010" and Filmmaker Magazine's "25 new faces of independent film 2006," PJ Raval is an award winning filmmaker whose credits include TRINIDAD (Showtime, LOGO), The CHRISTEENE video collection (SXSW), and his current in progress documentary about LGBT seniors and retirees.

Who is Dayani Cristal?
Producing Fellow: Lucas Ochoa

The story of the quest to identify an anonymous body found in the Arizona desert whose only identifying feature is a tattoo reading 'Dayani Cristal.'

UK-based producer Lucas Ochoa is Head of Film at Pulse. His first production at Pulse Films was 2010's No Distance Left To Run which was theatrically released internationally and went on to be nominated for a Grammy. His first documentary feature, Shut Up And Play the Hits, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

CREATIVE PRODUCING SUMMIT

The Creative Producing Summit is a three-day, invitation-only gathering that connects 40 independent filmmakers with over 30 top film industry professionals including producers, distributors, sales agents, financiers and exhibitors to build a dialogue on film producing and the state of the independent film industry. Programmed events include case study sessions, panels, roundtable discussions, one-on-one meetings and pitching sessions. Panelists include Michael Barker (Sony Classics), Christine Vachon (Killer Films), Tom Quinn (Radius), Diane Weyerman (Participant), Micah Green (Creative Artists Agency), Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment), Victoria Cook (Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz), Richard Klubeck (UTA), Ted Mundorff (Landmark Theaters), Lisa Nishimura (Netflix) and Mark Ankner (WME). For a full list of panelists visit www.sundance.org.

Sundance Institute receives major support for its Creative Producing Initiative from B.Co., Cinereach, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, The Ford Foundation, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Sheila C. Johnson, Open Society Foundations, SAGIndie/Screen Actors Guild, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Sundial Pictures, LLC, and Time Warner Foundation.

Over its 30-year history, The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program has supported an extensive list of award-winning and groundbreaking independent films. In the past year, FFP films having their premieres include Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival), as well as Ry Russo-Young and Lena Dunham’s Nobody Walks, Craig Zobel’s Compliance, Mike Birbiglia and Seth Barrish’s Sleepwalk With Me, and Todd Louiso and Sarah Koskoff’s Hello I Must Be Going, all of which will receive theatrical releases later this year. Recent international FFP films include Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother the Devil, Andrei Zyvagintsev’s Elena, Edwin’s Postcards from the Zoo, and Alejandro Landes’ Porfirio. Additional notable films supported over the program’s history include Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, Dee Rees’ Pariah, Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance, Cherien Dabis' Amreeka, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, Fernando Eimbcke's Lake Tahoe, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s Half Nelson, Andrea Arnold's Red Road, Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, Debra Granik’s Down to the Bone, Josh Marston’s Maria Full of Grace, Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon, 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, Lucrecia Martel’s La Cienaga, Walter Salles’ Central Station, Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals, Nicole Holofcener’s Walking and Talking, Allison Anders' Mi Vida Loca, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight, Tamara Jenkins’ Slums of Beverly Hills, and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. For more information, visit www.sundance.org/featurefilm.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund provides year-round support to nonfiction filmmakers worldwide. The program advances innovative nonfiction storytelling about a broad range of contemporary social issues, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to audiences. Through the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory, Composers + Documentary Laboratory, Creative Producing Lab, as well as the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and a variety of partnerships and international initiatives, the program provides a unique, global resource for contemporary independent documentary film. The DFP celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2012 and since its inception has awarded grants to more than 425 documentary filmmakers in 61 countries. For more, go to www.sundance.org/documentary.

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theatre, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born Into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America.

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