Sundance Institute
Encyclopedia
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...

 in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide. The Institute has offices in Park City
Park City, Utah
Park City is a town in Summit and Wasatch counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and from Salt Lake City's east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census...

, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and provides creative and financial support to emerging and aspiring filmmakers, directors, producers, film composers, screenwriters, playwrights, and theater artists through a series of Labs and Fellowships The programs of Sundance Institute include the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

, a premier platform for American and international independent film.

The Sundance Institute's founding staff, assembled in spring of 1980, included Executive Director Sterling Van Wagenen, Director of Film Development Programs Jenny Walz Selby, and Director of Development Jon Lear. Frank Daniel
Frank Daniel
Frank Daniel was a film director, producer and screenwriter born in Kolín, Czechoslovakia . He is known for developing the sequence paradigm of screenwriting.-Life:...

 was secured as Artistic Director. This staff produced the first Filmmakers Lab in June 1981, which fortuitously followed the Academy Awards at which Ordinary People
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton....

 (the directorial debut of Robert Redford) won numerous awards, including Best Picture. Michelle Satter joined the staff in June 1981 and subsequently opened up the Los Angeles office of the Institute.

The Sundance Institute's 1981 founding Board of Directors included Robert Redford, Frank Daniel, George White, Reg Gipson, Jon Lear, Ian Calderon, Jack Crosby, Moctesuma Esparza, Robert Geller, Alan Jacobs, Bill Wittliff, and Marjorie Benton. Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...

 was also instrumental in helping found the Institute.

In 1985, the Sundance Institute assumed management of the fledgling United States Film Festival, which had been experiencing financial problems. The Institute hired Tony Safford from the AFI Kennedy Center program as Program Director and renamed the festival.

Sundance Feature Film Program

Through year-round support and a series of Labs, the Feature Film Program supports emerging independent screenwriters and directors through the development of their feature film projects. For three weeks each June in Sundance, Utah, Directors Lab Fellows rehearse, shoot and edit 4-6 scenes from their screenplays under the mentorship of accomplished directors, editors, cinematographers, and actors who serve as Creative Advisors. Surrounded by seasoned professionals, yet removed from the typical pressures of production, Lab Fellows are offered a unique opportunity to see the script “on its feet,” develop skills, and take risks.

In addition to the creative support offered through Labs and workshops, Sundance Institute helps independent filmmakers complete their work through various grants and fellowships. Many of these opportunities are designated for filmmakers selected to participate in the Institute's Feature Film Program.

Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program

The Sundance Documentary Film Program assists nonfiction filmmakers from around the world with a series of workshops in editing, storytelling, and scoring for documentary films as well as providing grants to nonfiction film projects through the Sundance Documentary Fund. The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to nonfiction contemporary-issue filmmakers internationally. The program encourages the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to a broader audience. It supports independent artists both domestically and internationally through the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Documentary Composers Laboratory and Edit and Story Laboratory, panels at the Filmmakers Lodge at the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Independent Producers Conference, and a variety of collaborative international documentary initiatives.

The Sundance Documentary Fund is a key program of the Documentary Film Program, dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice, civil liberties, and exploring critical issues of our time. The Documentary Fund was established at Sundance Institute in 2002 with a gift from the Open Society Institute and is supported by a leadership grant from the Ford Foundation.

Documentary Fund grants are announced 2-3 times a year and between 2002–2006, the Fund has disbursed almost $5.2 million to over 175 projects in 52 countries. In supporting such work, the Sundance Documentary Fund encourages the diverse exchange of ideas crucial to developing an open society, raising public consciousness about human rights abuses and restrictions of civil liberties, and fostering an ongoing dialogue about these issues. For more information, visit sundance.org/documentary.

Sundance Film Music Program

Connecting filmmakers with musicians, the Film Music Program's Composers Lab allows accomplished musicians to explore composing for film. The Sundance Institute Composers Lab, held each summer at the Sundance Resort, provides a group of six talented composers with valuable first-hand experience composing for film. By pairing participating composers with emerging filmmakers supported by the Institute's Feature Film and Documentary Film Programs, the Lab aims to enhance the role of music in independent film. With leading film composers serving as Creative Advisors, Composers Lab Fellows work closely with both documentary and feature filmmakers in a supportive atmosphere designed to promote experimentation and collaboration.

Composers Lab Alumni include Tyler Bates, Billy White Acre, Kristopher Carter, Ryan Beveridge, Penka Kouneva, Nick Laird-Clowes, Ceiri Torjussen, Billy Childs, Mark De Gli Antoni, Raz Mesinai, Don Byron, Gyan Riley, and Marco d'Ambrosio.

Composers Lab Advisors include John Adams, Terence Blanchard, Carter Burwell, George S. Clinton, Stewart Copeland, Mychael Danna, Richard Gibbs, Osvaldo Golijov, Rolfe Kent, David Mansfield, Thomas Newman, Basil Poledouris, Graeme Revell, Edward Shearmur, Shirley Walker, and Christopher Young.

The Music Cafe is a night club venue for rock, singer-songwriters, folk, country, and hip hop on Main Street in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. Music Cafe daytime programming, produced by ASCAP, has featured such artists as India.Arie
India.Arie
India.Arie is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter and record producer . She has sold over 3.3 million records in the U.S. and 10 million worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards from her 21 nominations, including Best R&B Album.-Background:Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado...

, Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

, The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas are an American pop group , formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1995. The group includes rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo, and singer Fergie. Since the release of their third album Elephunk in 2003, the group has sold an estimated 56 million records worldwide...

, Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...

, Sweet Pea Atkinson, Was (Not Was)
Was (Not Was)
-Studio albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Contributions:* A Christmas Record - "Christmas Time In The Motor City"* That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk - "Ba-Lue-Bolivar-Ba-Lues-Are"...

 and many others.

Sundance Theatre Program

With a series of Labs and retreats that provide a creative environment for playwrights, directors, composers, and librettists, to develop new work with dramaturgs and full casts, the Theatre Program, under the direction of Philip Himberg, supports the development of independent theatre. Lab Alumni and projects include Tanya Barfield's BLUE DOOR, Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, Lisa Kron's WELL, Jessica Hagedorn's DOGEATERS, Stew's PASSING STRANGE, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's SPRING AWAKENING, Moisés Kaufman's THE LARAMIE PROJECT and Doug Wright's I AM MY OWN WIFE.

Held at the Sundance Resort in Utah, the physical resources for the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab include four rehearsal rooms, a writing room and a music room, set in the midst of thousands of acres of mountain scenery. Projects rehearse every other day to give playwrights adequate time for rewrites. There is no physically controllable space, such as a 'black box.' Although lighting and scenic production values are not available, designers have sometimes participated as part of the development of the projects text. When a project is accepted into the lab, it is assigned a Sundance dramaturg who, in collaboration with the Producing Artistic Director, will work with that project prior to the Theatre Lab residency period.

The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak, Florida is a two-week laboratory focusing on the development of musicals and ensemble-created projects. Plays at White Oak are cast individually and rehearse daily to afford the musical productions the luxury of ongoing time to learn new music without interruption. The Lab is held in collaboration with the Howard Gilman Foundation each fall at White Oak in Yulee, Florida. White Oak Director John Lukas and his staff are instrumental in providing this extraordinary opportunity for Sundance-supported artists.

The Sundance Playwright's Retreat at Ucross, Wyoming is an eighteen-day writing colony where five playwrights and a composer convene each year to put pen to paper, and where a Sundance dramaturg can respond to work at an early stage of the creative process. Like the other two Labs, the Ucross Retreat includes both emerging and established artists, creating an environment of peer mentorship, professional growth and unfettered, unpressured creativity.

Under the ongoing guidance of Creative Advisors and Ucross Foundation Executive Director Sharon Dynak, the Retreat takes place each February and provides a unique opportunity for Sundance-supported playwrights and composers. Artists are selected by invitation only.

The Sundance Institute Theatre Program is in the exploratory phase of a multi-year program supporting the work of theatre artists in East Africa, as well as an exchange program between Sundance Theatre Labs alumni and East African writers, director and performers. The goal is to create a program in East Africa which reflects Sundance’s primary values: accessibility, mentorship, professionalism, advancement of the individual artistic voice, and rigorous artistic standards. Sundance recognizes that the specific cultural, social, political and artistic realities of East African life (unique to each country as well as to the continent) be recognized and honored in both the design and the implementation of the Sundance East Africa programs. To that end, an esteemed group of East African artists, all alumni of the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah, have been brought on board as primary in-country consultants in the planning and implementation of the program, along with American theatre artists committed to intercultural exchange with the region.

Sundance East Africa acknowledges two primary goals for this exchange program: the growth of the American theatre artist and field through interactions in East Africa and with East African artists, and simultaneously the growth of the East African theatre artist and field through international exposure and exchange.

A May 2008 visit to East Africa was the first exploratory meeting between Philip Himberg, consultant Roberta Levitow, and two American guest artists with the theatre communities in the region, in anticipation of what we hope will be a series of annual subsequent Lab projects. It will always be the goal and practice of Sundance East Africa to explore and invest in the East African theatre community (as it does with the American theatre community) "wide and deep."

Native American Initiative

Other special initiatives of the Institute include the Native American Initiative which facilitates the participation of Native and Indigenous artists in the Institute's artistic development programs and the Sundance Film Festival. Rooted in the recognition of a rich tradition of story telling and artistic expression by Native Americans, Sundance Institute's Native American Initiative is designed to support the development of Native and Indigenous artists and the exhibition of their work by identifying Native artists for the Institute's core programs. To date the Initiative has facilitated the participation of many Native artists into the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Producers Conference, and the Institute's Feature Film Program. In 2008 the Initiative expanded its focus to include outreach to documentarians, theatre artists, and musicians seeking financial and creative support through the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, the Theatre Program, and the Film Music Program. As part of Sundance Institute's long tradition of supporting Native cinema, the Sundance Film Festivalprovides a world stage for compelling and innovative films by Native American and Indigenous filmmakers. The Festival also hosts the annual Native Forum, a program of panel discussions, filmmaker workshops, and networking events that provide opportunities for indigenous filmmakers to share their expertise and knowledge with each other and the larger independent film community. The Ford Foundation Fellowships bring Native filmmakers to the Festival each year.

From 1994-2004, the Film Festival presented Native films as part a dedicated screening category. In recognition of the evolution of Native filmmaking and as a way of introducing a broader audience to Native cinema, the Festival began incorporating Native and Indigenous films into its official film program in 2005.

Over the course of its history, the Sundance Film Festival has showcased a range of work by Native and Indigenous filmmakers including dramatic films like Sterlin Harjo's FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, Sherman Alexie's THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING, Chris Eyre's SMOKE SIGNALS, and Rachel Perkins' ONE NIGHT THE MOON, documentaries such as Heather Rae's TRUDELL, Tom Murray and Allan Collins' DHAKIYARR VS. THE KING, Aand Merata Mita's HOTERE, and short films like Gabriel Lopez-Shaw and Sherwin Bitsui's CHRYSALIS, and Taika Waititi's TWO CARS ONE NIGHT.

Sundance Collection at UCLA

The Institute maintains the Sundance Collection at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 (University of California, Los Angeles) to conserve and archive the history of independent film. Film preservation is an especially pressing need in independent cinema. Despite their historical, artistic and cultural value, good prints of far too many indie films – even some made within the past decade – no longer exist. Chemical decomposition, neglect, and the changing ownership of film libraries have caused these prints to disappear.

To create a living record of the history of independent film, Sundance Institute and UCLA Film and Television Archive initiated the Sundance Collection at UCLA in 1997, and with contributions from studios and distributors as well as hundreds of individual filmmakers, the Collection’s holdings have grown to include over 300 film prints. The archive represents a diversity of work from the Sundance Film Festival as well as projects developed through the Sundance Labs. From features to documentaries to shorts, prints in the Collection include Sex, Lies and Videotape, Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs is an American crime film marking debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist, but not the heist itself. Reservoir Dogs stars an ensemble cast: Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and...

, The Living End
The Living End
The Living End are an Australian rock band from Melbourne, Victoria, formed in 1994. The current lineup consists of Chris Cheney , Scott Owen and Andy Strachan...

, Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals (film)
Smoke Signals is an independent film directed and co-produced by Chris Eyre and with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on the short story "This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona" from his book Lone Ranger and Tonto: Fistfight in Heaven. It won several awards and accolades, and was...

, Amores Perros
Amores perros
Amores perros is a 2000 neorealist Mexican film, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Amores Perros is the first movie in Iñárritu's trilogy of death, and was followed by 21 Grams and Babel. It is a triptych; an anthology film, sometimes referred to as the "Mexican Pulp Fiction," containing...

, Harlan County, USA
Harlan County, USA
Harlan County, USA is an Oscar-winning 1976 documentary film covering the "Brookside Strike" or "Bloody Harlan", an effort of 180 coal miners and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973...

, Love & Basketball, and Welcome to the Dollhouse
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Welcome to the Dollhouse is a 1995 American independent coming of age dark comedy. An independent film, it launched the careers of Todd Solondz and Heather Matarazzo.-Plot:...

, among many other works that might otherwise no longer exist.

The first significant archive of its kind, the Collection also provides a central resource for the study of independent film, containing a rare assemblage of material related to the history of independent cinema, including press kits and filmmaker interviews.

To further its preservation work, the Collection continues to actively seek donations from filmmakers and studios alike. By donating prints to the Sundance Collection at UCLA, filmmakers can join us in ensuring that your own work and the heritage of independent cinema endures for future generations to experience and to study. Company Donors: Artisan Entertainment, Gramercy Pictures, Lions Gate Films, Miramax Films, New Line Cinema, October Films, OTM, Sony Pictures Classics, Strand Releasing and Trimark Pictures.
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