Sundance Screenwriters Lab
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Sundance Institute Announces Fellows for the 2024 Directors, Screenwriters, and Native Labs
The Sundance Institute announced today the the fellows selected for its 2024 Directors, Screenwriters, and Native Labs. The Native Lab in New Mexico will support four fellows and two artists in residence, and the Directors Lab in Colorado will support the development of eight projects with nine fellows, with an additional three fellows also joining for the online Screenwriters Lab held immediately after. For the first time the Directors Lab will be held at the Stanley Hotel in Estes, Colorado — Stephen King’s inspiration for The Shining — while the Native Lab will be returning to Santa Fe, New Mexico, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 29, 2024 -
Sundance Institute Announces 2023 Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive Fellows
The nonprofit Sundance Institute has announced the 12 projects selected for the Screenwriters Lab and the 10 projects selected for the Screenwriters Intensive for 2023. The fellows come from both the U.S. and abroad, with participants hailing from the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Nepal. This year’s projects were chosen from over 2,000 submissions, and the selected fellows will work to develop their scripts with Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, and Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director of the Feature Film Program. Lab fellows will develop their projects in-person at the Sundance Mountain Resort from January […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 13, 2023 -
Sundance Institute Announces the 20 Fellows Selected for the 2021 Native, Directors and Screenwriters Labs
The Sundance Institute announced today the first 20 fellows participating in Sundance’s summer Labs. Beginning with the Native Lab (May 10 – 21) and running through the Directors Lab (June 1 – July 2) and Screenwriters Lab (July 6 – 9), the programs will offer selected filmmakers a variety of development and learning opportunities and will connect them with advisors and the larger creative community. Sundance’s online learning platform, Sundance Collab, will host some parts of the labs. From the press release: These Labs are organized under the aegis of Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter, FFP Deputy Director […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2021 -
“…It’s the Place Where Every Filmmaker Embraces Their Vulnerabilities”: Aristotle Torres at the Sundance Directors Lab
Aristotle Torres is at the 2019 Sundance Directors Lab with his feature Story Ave, a coming of age tale about “a young graffiti artist who runs away from his rough home life and holds up an unsuspecting old man in a robbery gone right that will change both of their lives forever.” Here, in a guest post for Filmmaker, he relays his experience there. When I returned from the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Lab, friends, family, and aspiring filmmakers hit me with variations of the same question: “So, what were the Sundance labs like?” I get it. These are highly […]
by Artistotle Torres on Jul 24, 2019 -
Sundance Institute Announces its 2019 Directors and Screenwriters Labs
One of the more hotly-awaited lists of the year has just dropped: the annual Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs. Providing support and mentorship to filmmakers since 1981, the Labs boast alumni ranging from Boots Riley to Chloe Zhao, Quentin Tarantino to Ritesh Batra. This year’s labs take place from May 27 – June 18 (Directors) and June 20 – 24 (Screenwriters). Advisors for the month include Robert Redford, Gyula Gazdag (Artistic Director for the Directors Lab), Sandra Adair, Scott Z. Burns, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Sebastian Cordero, Joan Darling, Suzy Elmiger, Rick Famuyiwa, Stephen Goldblatt, Keith Gordon, Randa Haines, Ed […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2019 -
This is Where We Blow Up: Writer/Director Boots Riley on Sorry to Bother You
“The papers on the boardroom table were stained from corpses.” Those lyrics, from The Coup’s 2012 album Sorry to Bother You, offer some idea of the ideological imperative propelling Boots Riley’s wildly inventive, Brazil-meets-Afrofuturism satire of the same name. Struggling to make ends meet in Oakland, Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) takes a job with telemarketing firm RegalView, where he finds himself rocketing to the top of the corporate ladder after he uses his “white voice” to drum up sales. His activist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) disapproves, especially after Cassius comes to the attention of deranged tech bro Steve Lift (Armie […]
by Nelson George on Jun 11, 2018 -
Sundance Labs Announce 25 Film and Theater Projects and New “Multi-Lab” Setting
The Sundance Institute today announced the anticipated rosters for its Screenwriters Lab, Documentary Edit and Story Lab and new Theatre-Makers Residency as well as a major now presentation change. For the first time, these labs will run concurrently in a “multi-Lab” format at the Sundance Resort in Utah. But the format is not just an alteration of the calendar. Individual Lab Fellows will participate in portions of the other labs, giving these Sundance programs an interdisciplinary flavor. Said Keri Putnam, Sundance Executive Director, in a statement, “The unique gathering of independent voices, for the first time in a multi-Lab setting, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 8, 2016 -
Human Highway: Daniels on Swiss Army Man
Some of the images and ideas that have turned up in the commercials, music videos, short films and feature films of Daniels are: A man gets his foot stuck inside another man’s ass; the more he tries to get it out, the deeper it goes. A grieving widow is relentlessly prank-called by a child. A man has bottomless pockets. A woman’s breasts begin to move and spin inside her shirt. A man dances so hard that he falls through the floor, where he meets a hard-dancing woman who crashes her ass into his face; together, they fall through the floor. […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Apr 21, 2016 -
Sundance Institute Announces 12 Projects for Screenwriters Lab
This afternoon the Sundance Institute unveiled the 12 projects that will be participating next month in its Screenwriters Lab. Among the filmmakers whose scripts were chosen are documentarian Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream), whose first narrative script We the Animals (based on a book by Justin Torres) was also in IFP’s Emerging Storytellers, while another alum of that program (from 2011) selected here is Ryan Koo, with his project Manchild. Other notable participants this year imclude Jordana Spiro, the former TV actress whose short Skin played at Sundance 2012; uber inventive and wacky pop promo directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 17, 2013 -
Rama Burshtein on Fill the Void
There are few more unlikely and inspiring filmmaking success stories than that of Rama Burshtein. The 46-year-old New York City-born, Israel-based writer/director of Fill the Void had previously made handful of films specifically aimed at Jewish Orthodox audiences, but had defined herself primarily as a mother and a wife. Now she has become the first Israeli Orthodox woman to direct a film intended for those outside the Orthodox community. After going through the Sundance Screenwriting Labs, Burshtein’s debut feature had a remarkable festival run last year, world premiering without much fanfare at the Jerusalem Film Festival but then going on to play at Venice (where […]
by Nick Dawson on May 23, 2013
