Park City, UT Sundance Institute announced today the members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, January 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The Festival is the centerpiece of the year-round public programs for the Institute, which also hosts 24 residency labs and grants more than $2.5 million to independent artists each year.Comedian Tig Notaro will host the Festivals feature film awards ceremony on January 31 in Park City, which will be live streamed at sundance.org. Included on Business Insiders list of 50 Women Who Are Changing the World and Rolling Stones list of 50 Funniest People Now, Notaro was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2014 for her sophomore release LIVE. Still a favorite on Conan and This American Life, and host of her weekly podcast, Professor Blastoff, Notaro executive produced the documentary, Tig, about her life, which will have its world premiere in the Festivals Documentary Premieres section.
Short Film Awards will be announced at a separate ceremony on January 27 at Park Citys Jupiter Bowl.
U.S. DOCUMENTARY JURY
Eugene Hernandez
Eugene Hernandez is the deputy director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where he leads strategy and operations for the institution, and is also the co-publisher of the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the official publication of the organization. He previously served as the director of digital strategy, where he oversaw all digital platforms and content. Prior to the Film Society, Hernandez co-founded Indiewire in 1996 and as editor-in-chief built the company over 14 years to become the leading online community and editorial publication for independent and international films and filmmakers. Additionally, he has worked extensively as a consultant for several non-profits, written for major print and online publications, and annually participates in the international film festival circuit as a juror and panelist.
Kirsten Johnson
Kirsten Johnson is a cinematographer and director. Her most recent camera work appears in Citizen Four, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs Gravity, and The Wound and the Gift. Her credits include Academy Award-nominated The Invisible War, and Tribeca Film Festival documentary winner, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. She and Laura Poitras shared the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award for The Oath. Her shooting is featured in Fahrenheit 9/11, Academy Award-nominated Asylum, Emmy-winning Ladies First, and Sundance Film Festival premieres: A Place at the Table, This Film is Not Yet Rated, and Derrida. Deadline, co-directed with Katy Chevigny, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Thurgood Marshall Award. She is currently editing A Blind Eye, a documentary that investigates her relationship as a cinematographer to those she films.
Michele Norris
Michele Norris is a host and special correspondent at NPR. She produces in-depth profiles, interviews, and series, and guest hosts NPR News programs. Norris was a host on NPRs All Things Considered for a decade. She leads The Race Card Project, an initiative to foster a wider conversation about race in America that she created after publishing her family memoir, The Grace of Silence. Norris received a Peabody Award for her work on The Race Card Project. Prior to joining NPR, Norris was a correspondent for ABC News, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. She has received several national honors for her work and has interviewed world leaders, Nobel laureates, Academy Award winners, American presidents, military leaders, and even astronauts traveling in outer space.
Gordon Quinn
Gordon Quinn has been producing documentaries and mentoring filmmakers for five decades as co-founder and artistic director of Kartemquin Films. His credits include directing Golub, Prisoner of Her Past, and A Good Man, and executive producing Hoop Dreams, Stevie, The Interrupters, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, The Homestretch, and Life Itself. Currently, he is executive producer on the Al Jazeera America series Hard Earned, and directing 63 Boycott. A passionate advocate for independent public media, Gordon is an expert on fair use, ethics, and storytelling in documentary. He has received awards from the Emmys, Peabodys, PGA, DGA, and the Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, he received a Career Achievement award from Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and a Master of Cinema award from the RiverRun International Film Festival.
Roger Ross Williams
Roger Ross Williams directed God Loves Uganda, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and screened at more than 75 film festivals worldwide, winning over a dozen awards. Williams also directed and produced Music by Prudence, which won the 2010 Academy Award for documentary short subject. He is the first African-American to win an Oscar for directing and producing a film, short or feature. Williams has several projects in development, including a transmedia project called Traveling While Black; a feature documentary, Life, Animated, about the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind; and a narrative feature film. Williams serves on the alumni advisory board of the Sundance Institute. He splits his time between upstate New York and Amsterdam.
U.S. DRAMATIC JURY
Lance Acord
Lance Acord made his feature director of photography debut with Buffalo 66 at Sundance Film Festival in 1998. A highly sought-after cinematographer, his credits include Gods Pocket, Where the Wild Things Are, Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich. Acord seamlessly transitioned into commercial directing collecting three nominations from the Directors Guild of America, numerous Cannes Gold Lions, and an Emmy for such memorable work as The Force for Volkswagen, Jogger for Nike and Apples Misunde
