Los Angeles, CA Sundance Institute today announced the 14 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 25 through June 25. The Labs are the centerpiece of the Institute's year-round work with narrative feature filmmakers and are part of 24 residential labs the Institute hosts each year to discover and foster the talent of emerging independent artists in film, theatre, new media and episodic content.
Projects and participants selected for the 2015 June Directors and Screenwriters Labs are from the United States, Brazil, China, France, Georgia and the United Kingdom, and the Fellows bring experience from an unprecedented diversity of creative backgrounds, including documentary, theatre, music, new media, visual art and animation.
Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP), said, The projects selected for this year's Labs represent a diverse group of artists who are experimenting with different forms and mediums, demonstrating how, more than ever before, the boundaries between creative disciplines are blurring.
Ilyse McKimmie, Labs Director for the Sundance Institute FFP, said, The Lab experience will begin a year-round continuum of support focused on providing each Fellow with the tools and experiences to realize their unique voices and visions as they delve deeper into creative expression through narrative filmmaking.
At the Directors Lab and under the leadership of Satter and the artistic direction of Gyula Gazdag, the Fellows, all first-time feature filmmakers, will work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors, professional actors and production crews to shoot and edit key scenes from their screenplays. Through this concentrated, hands-on process, the Fellows workshop their scripts, collaborate with actors and find a visual storytelling language for their films. Directors Lab Fellows join five additional projects for the week-long Screenwriters Lab, where they participate in individualized story sessions under the guidance of established screenwriters.
Creative Advisors include Robert Redford, Karim Ainouz, Miguel Arteta, Joan Darling, DV DeVincentis, Caleb Deschanel, Stephen Goldblatt, Deena Goldstone, Affonso Goncalves, Randa Haines, Catherine Hardwicke, Ed Harris, Elizabeth King, Christine Lahti, Kasi Lemmons, Tobias Lindholm, James Mangold, Joshua Marston, Doug McGrath, Walter Mosley, Lee Percy, Howard Rodman, Jennifer Salt, Lynn Shelton, Peter Sollett, Oliver Stapleton, Dana Stevens, Wesley Strick, Robin Swicord, Joan Tewkesbury, Dylan Tichenor, Tyger Williams, Doug Wright and Rupert Wyatt.
Projects supported through the Directors and Screenwriters Labs receive continued, customized, year-round support from the Feature Film Program, which can include the following: creative and tactical advice, ongoing mentoring, significant production and postproduction resources, the Screenplay Reading Series, the Work in Progress Screening Initiative and direct financial support through project-specific grants and artist fellowships.
Three films supported by the FFP are among those screening at the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival: Songs My Brothers Taught Me, written and directed by Chloe Zhao, Mediterranea, written and directed by Jonas Carpignano, and Masaan (Fly Away Solo), co-written by Neeraj Ghaywan and Varun Grover and directed by Neeraj Ghaywan. FFP-supported films selected for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival include awards winners The Witch, written and directed by Robert Eggers, and Diary of a Teenage Girl, written and directed by Marielle Heller. Since 1981, the FFP has supported an extensive list of leading-edge independent films, including recent notable films such as Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, Malik Vitthal and Ismet Prcic's Imperial Dreams, Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox, Haifaa Al Mansour's Wadjda, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild and Dee Rees Pariah.
Artists and projects selected for the 2015 Directors Lab (May 25 June 18) are:
Bart Layton (writer/director) / American Animals (UK): Combining elements of documentary and drama, this existential heist movie is the improbable but entirely true story of a group of well-read university students who plot an escape from middle America by planning the perfect robbery. Along the way reality and fiction become blurred as they attempt to live deeper and deeper inside a movie version of their lives.
Bart Layton is a multi award-winning British director, producer and executive producer. He is the co-principal and creative director of leading British production company, RAW. His first feature documentary film, The Imposter, received great critical acclaim since its debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The film became one of the most successful documentaries of all time and picked up numerous prestigious awards including the Grand Jury Prize at Miami Film Festival, the Golden Eye in Zurich and the Filmmakers' Award at Hotdocs, before winning two British Independent Film Awards, the BAFTA for best debut director and being shortlisted for the 2013 Academy Awards.
Yung Chang (writer/director) / Eggplant (China/Canada): A neo-noir love story set in China, Eggplant follows a mysterious woman who cons countryside bachelors for their money and a wedding photographer escaping a troubled life in Taiwan. When they meet in a collision of fate, the past quickly confronts the present in an explosion of events as these two Chinese millenials struggle to find a meaningful existence in a society fixated on money, materialism and duty.
Yung Chang ( ), based between China and Canada, is known for his feature documentaries Up the Yangtze (2008), China Heavyweight (2012) and The Fruit Hunters (2013). Both Up
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Los Angeles, CA Sundance Institute today announced the 14 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 25 through June 25. The Labs are the centerpiece of the Institute's year-round work with narrative feature filmmakers and are part of 24 residential labs the Institute hosts each year to discover and foster the talent of emerging independent artists in film, theatre, new media and episodic content.
