Sundance Film Festival
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Director Diane Bell on What You Should Do if Your Film is in Sundance
Following this week’s Sundance announcements, I linked in my newsletter to two articles I wrote back in 2009: “So You Didn’t Get into Sundance” and “Letter from the Future.” This first is a consoling “what to do next” kind of piece, and the second is an only partly tongue-in-cheek riff on alternative ways to approach festival distribution. The latter owes a lot of Jon Reiss, who in articles written for Filmmaker and elsewhere has advocated for making your festival premiere your premiere and to make a DIY distribution your plan A, not some hastily considered fallback plan when a big […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 7, 2014 -
Kumiko, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Warpaint Highlight Sundance Next Festival
It’s rare that I can recommend nearly every program at a film festival, but that’s the case with this weekend’s Sundance Next Festival in Los Angeles. With events taking place tonight at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and then this weekend at the theater at the Ace Hotel, the Next Festival is intimate, very cool and with a strong multidisciplinary bent. Alongside several artistic feature highlights from this year’s Sundance Film Festival are shorts, panels and bands, making each program something of an event. Check out the complete line-up at the festival’s site, and here are a few picks of mine: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 7, 2014 -
Infographic of Sundance Sales from 2011 to 2013
The Sundance sale. The turning point of the festival for more than just the expected filmmakers and distributors can, at times, be an inscrutable transaction. Is X the best fit for Y? Is X really worth Z amount? Does X’s release in W mean Y’s jockeying for awards season? And so on and so forth. In honor of the inaugural issue of their magazine, Bright Ideas, Seed&Spark teamed with Accurat to present a data visualization of Sundance sales from 2011 to 2013. The exhaustive infographic demonstrates, above all, that there are no guarantees in translating Sundance buzz to the box […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 20, 2014 -
Sundance Day Two: Keep Going
Is anyone else already exhausted? Day Two was about keeping energy up. Despite a late Friday night, a less than peaceful rest over at the crew condo, and once again forgetting to drink enough water, on Saturday we had to keep moving. It’s pretty incredible how quickly the hours disappear. Waking up at 7A to realize it is quickly 6P and you have no idea how that could have happened. Where did the day go? Day Two went to supporting fellow filmmakers, an extremely successful radio show, pouring over press breaks, and a long drive back and forth to Salt […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 20, 2014 -
Watch the Michael Cera-Starring Sundance Short Gregory Go Boom Online
With the instant gratification and popularity that can accompany a YouTube upload, filmmakers are questioning whether the internet or the traditionally prestige festival circuit is the ideal forum to premiere a short. As Ryan Koo suggested back at the IFP/DCTV “Short Takes” panel last summer, why choose? Indeed, while some festivals rule out previously seen shorts, others welcome online buzz with open arms. One of those festivals, it so happens, is Sundance. Three shorts that will screen in Park City within the coming days were all originally available on YouTube, including Janicza Bravo’s Gregory Go Boom, a black comedy starring a […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 15, 2014 -
What’s Ego Got to Do With It? At Sundance’s Arthouse Convergence, Ira Deutchman Imagines the Future of Specialty Exhibition
Just delivered in Utah at Sundance’s pre-festival 2014 Arthouse Convergence — where specialty exhibitors gather to discuss and debate trends, developments and threats to their collective business model — Ira Deutchman’s keynote is a witty and forward-thinking speech that looks to the past to consider reshaping the future. In his opening, Deutchman cites two truths he learned early on in his career: First, I learned that Business is dominated by people who are driven, sometimes myopic, and willing to do almost anything to succeed. The second thing I learned is that the Film Business, specifically, is driven more by ego […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 14, 2014 -
The Sundance Queer Preview — 2014 Edition
The most exciting film festival in America gets underway next week. The prestigious Sundance Film Festival will unspool more than 120 new features, shorts, documentaries and innovative media projects in Park City, Utah from January 16th to 26th — showcasing, as always, a hefty slate of LGBT films for the edification of the citizens of Utah and the visiting masses. With the Sundance stamp of approval chances are good that you’ll be seeing many of these have some kind of release in 2014 (whether at your own local LGBT film fest, art house theater, digital platform or else on DVD). […]
by Jenni Olson on Jan 14, 2014 -
Sundance Offers 2014 Artist Merch, Including Miranda July Scarf
At Filmmaker we are lousy with merch. We used to have t-shirts and tote bags, and they sold okay. But supplies dwindled, they were discontinued, and a more ambitious array of Filmmaker-branded collectibles is just another item on our escalating to-do list. (Filmmaker, by the way, is not alone in our merchandizing malaise. Elsewhere on this site, Sarah Salovaara notes the scarcity of indie film consumer swag in general.) Perhaps when we do get our merch store together we’ll look to Sundance for inspiration. The Sundance Film Festival’s Artist Editions line includes Shirin Neshat t-shirts, Susan Sarandon dessert plates, and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2014 -
Win a Trip to the Sundance Film Festival
It’s officially January, which means it’s officially almost time for Sundance. General Assembly, purveyor of programs and workshops for the budding technophile, is doing their part by giving away an all expenses paid package for two to this year’s festival. Beyond airfare and accommodations, the prize includes complimentary membership to the Sundance Institute and access to exclusive Park City screenings, panels, parties and so forth. To enter to win, simply fill in your email address at the link. The contest is open till January 6.
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 2, 2014 -
Thoughts on Roger Ebert, 35mm and Peter Wintonick
Instant remembrances flower online when strangers die. Twitter turns into an instantaneous altar, as if the site where a hero fell. And some writers are very good at devising a rapid remembrance of a long friendship or acquaintance into a succinct, maybe even final summation. After years of aggregating news headlines at Movie City News, linking to keenly observed obituaries daily, my impulse runs the other direction when I knew the deceased. I’m not ready that soon to thread the nuance of all that time into a tidy dispatch; I want to grip the fragments of soon-fading memory. I didn’t […]
by Ray Pride on Dec 31, 2013
