Sundance Institute Selects Artists with VR and Emerging Media Storytelling Projects for New Frontier Story Lab

10/05/2017

Rosie Haber

Silas Howard

Charlotte Stoudt

Laura Wexler

Heather Dewey-Hagborg

Toshiaki Ozawa

Griffin Frazen

Poulomi Basu

Debra Anderson

Sutu

Charles Henden

Los Angeles, CA - Sundance Institute announced today the six projects selected for the annual New Frontier Story Lab, which supports independent artists working at the cutting-edge convergence of film, art, media, live performance and technology.

The New Frontier Story Lab is a week-long intensive that empowers creatives with individualized story sessions, conversations about key artistic, design and technology issues and case study presentations from experts in diverse related disciplines. Past participants include Roger Ross Williams, Yung Jake, Chris Milk, Hasan Minhaj, Tommy Pallotta, Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari, Karim Ben Khelifa, Tracy Fullerton and Yasmin Elayat. The Lab takes place May 17-22 at the Sundance Resort in Utah, under the guidance of Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Kamal Sinclair, Director of New Frontier Lab Programs.

Sinclair said, Our New Frontier Story Lab brings accomplished Fellows together to experiment with their projects as they continue to break new ground and challenge the ever-evolving medium. Interactions at the Lab empower these emerging new media creators, explore different styles of storytelling and new ways of engaging audiences through experiential art.

Creative Advisors and Industry Mentors for the Lab include: Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson, Citizenfour), Sarah Treem (House of Cards, The Affair), Mark Monroe (The Cove, Chasing Ice), Anthony Sparks (Queen Sugar, The Blacklist), Paul Rapha l (Felix & Paul Studios, Nomads, Wild), Scott Snibbe (Bjork's Biophila, Philip Glass' Rework and CEO of Eyegroove), Joan Tewkesbury (Nashville, Chicago Hope), Jessica Brillhart (Principal Filmmaker for VR, Google), Sharon Chang (Founder, Future Architects; The Eagle Huntress), Dana Dansereau (Interactive Producer, National Film Board of Canada, Bear 71, Circa 1948), Yasmin Elayat (Creative Director, Scatter NYC, Zero Days VR; 18 Days in Egypt), Jess Engel (Director of Original Content, Within; Happy), Torfi Frans lafsson (Creative Director, EVE Universe IP at CCP Games), Suzanne Anker (Chair, SVA's Fine Arts Department/Bio Art Laboratory), Navid Khonsari (Founder, Ink Stories, 1979 Revolution, Hero VR; Resident Evil), Lauren McCarthy (Follower, Social Turkers; creator of p5.js), Saschka Unseld (Creative Director, Oculus Story Studio: Henry, Dear Angelica; Through You), Diana Williams (Creative Producer, Lucasfilm Story Group; ILMxLabs).

Meet the creative teams and projects selected for the 2017 Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab:

Belle of the Ball

Rosie Haber and Silas Howard

Belle of the Ball is an interactive VR experience, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction. Collaboratively created with queer and trans houseless youth in New York City, take the journey they face every day as they turn to the streets for resources, survival, and friendship. As day turns into night, you fall into the arms of your chosen family at an underground drag ball. 3D glitter never looked so good.

Silas Howard is an award-winning director and writer for feature and documentary film, music video, web series and television. Howards career took off in 2001, when his first feature film, By Hook or By Crook premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, ultimately winning five Best Feature awards across the festival circuit. Recent television credits include Transparent, This Is Us, The Fosters, Faking It and Hudson Valley Ballers. This summer hell direct his third feature, A Kid Like Jake, starring Claire Danes, Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer. On June 21, 2017 Showtime will release his latest feature documentary on six trans and gender nonconforming activists, titled More Than T.

Rosie Haber is an aesthetically minded writer and director. They took home the audience award at LA Film Festival and the New Orleans Film Festival and were nominated for a 2017 GLAAD award for their digital doc series New Deep South-the third episode of which premiered at 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Haber has also been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a fellow at both Yaddo and MacDowell artist colonies. They are a writer on the upcoming film adaptation of the classic transgender novel Stone Butch Blues.

The Incident VR Series (Dinner Party, Eps 1)

Charlotte Stoudt and Laura Wexler

The Incident is a VR anthology series that immersively dramatizes true-life unexplained mysteries. Inspired by Rod Serlings Twilight Zone, each 10-15 minute episode provides a thrill ride into the supernatural; a gripping emotional story; and an exploration of the often unacknowledged social, psychological, or political tensions that inform the Incidents central mystery. Episode One, Dinner Party, is based on the true story of Betty and Barney Hill, an interracial couple who reported America's first nationally known UFO abduction incident in 1961.

Laura Wexler is a writer and producer whose writing credits include Pandora's Box, in development at Amazon Studios; the nonfiction book, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America (Scribner); and journalism pieces published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Producing credits include The Stoop Storytelling Series, a live show and podcast featuring ordinary people telling the extraordinary true tales of their lives.

Charlotte Stoudt is a writer-producer currently on Showtime's Homeland. She has worked extensively as a dramaturg, developing new plays at venues including The Kennedy Center, Baltimore's Center Stage, the Ojai Playwrights Festival and BAM. Holding a doctorate from Oxford University, she has written on the arts for the Village Voice, Variety

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