Amazon Video Direct Announces Official Selections From The 2017 Sundance Film Festival Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Video Direct Announces Official Selections From The 2017 Sundance Film Festival Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

The 15 Sundance titles are the first feature-length festival films from the AVD's Film Festival Stars Program to stream on Prime Video

Amazon Video Direct to extend Film Festival Stars-the program that brings high quality independent film to Prime Video audiences-to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 1, 2017-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)-Amazon today announced the official selections from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival are now available on Amazon Prime Video. The collection of 15 films are made available through the Amazon Video Direct Film Festival Stars (FFS) program that is designed to establish an attractive distribution model for films screened at film festivals that either don't secure theatrical distribution deals or are looking for distribution options after a theatrical release. The official selections from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival currently streaming include Manifesto starring Cate Blanchett, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize winner Marjorie Prime, and Special Jury Award for Cinematic Vision, Free and Easy. These films enjoyed robust distribution strategies throughout the year, including award-winning festival and theatrical runs, and are now available in the U.S. with select titles available in additional territories.

Amazon Video Direct's Film Festival Stars program accelerates the career of deserving films, elevating cinematic curation into a galvanic connection with audiences who might never have discovered them, said Richard Lorber, President and CEO of Kino Lorber, Inc. It's an innovative strategy that allows specialty film distributors like us to amplify support for the worthiest films-not only with additional financial backing, but unparalleled outreach only an amazing entity like Amazon can provide. I don't know what genius dreamed this up, but we at Kino Lorber are enthusiastically participating-proud to be populating the Film Festival Stars roster with many of our most important releases.

We launched the Film Festival Stars Program at Sundance earlier this year because we heard from our customers they love watching independent films, said Eric Orme, Head of Amazon Video Direct. So far in 2017, FFS has secured the streaming rights to 76 feature films that we're confident will thrill and delight our customers. These films appear alongside other great festival films already available on the service, including Amazon Studios' The Big Sick. We'll be extending Film Festival Stars to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival with an emphasis on global distribution and enhanced bonuses for filmmakers, and look forward to seeing the great films we'll be able to bring exclusively to Prime members.

500 Years - available worldwide

From a historic genocide trial to the ousting of a president, director Pamela Yates tells the sweeping story of mounting resistance in Guatemala through the eyes of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.

Axolotl Overkill - available in the U.S. and Canada

In Axolotl Overkill, 16-year-old Mifti is a beautiful and reckless young girl. Her mother is dead, and her wealthy, eccentric father is too self-absorbed to be responsible for her. Mifti has no use for peers her own age, and being aware of the sexual power she wields with her looks and youth, she immerses herself in a world of adults of questionable character. Lovesick over an elusive older woman, she strikes up a friendship with Ophelia, an actress, and together they test the limits through Berlin nightlife and extreme partying.

Don't Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl! - available in the U.S. and Canada

The film follows Joca, a 13-year-old Brazilian boy, and Basano La Tatuada, a Paraguayan indigenous girl, living on the border between the two countries, marked by the waters of the Rio Apa. Joca is in love with Basano and wants to do everything to win her love.

Family Life - available in the U.S.

In Family Life, a young man spends a few weeks housekeeping for a relatively distant relative and enjoys taking over the comfort of their lives in Santiago. Soon, he meets a cute neighbor and starts pretending for his personal benefit.

Free And Easy - Special Jury Award for Cinematic Vision - available in the U.S. and Canada

When a traveling soap salesman arrives in a desolate Chinese town, a crime occurs, and sets the strange residents against each other with tragicomic results.

Machines - Sundance Jury Award for Excellence in Cinematography - available in the U.S. and Canada

Director Rahul Jain presents an intimate, observantly portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India. Moving through the corridors and bowels of the enormous and disorientating structure, the camera takes the viewer on a journey to a place of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship, provoking cause for thought about persistent pre-industrial working conditions and the huge divide between first world and developing countries.

Manifesto - available in the U.S. and Canada

In the film, Actress Cate Blanchett portrays 13 distinct characters in vignettes that incorporate timeless manifestos-among them a school teacher, a puppeteer, a newsreader, a factory worker and a homeless man. Director Julian Rosefeldt draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Supremacists, Situtationists, and other artist groups, and the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers to create Manifesto.

Marjorie Prime - Sundance Film Festival's Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize - available in the U.S.

Set in the near future, Michael Almereyda's sci-fi pic Marjorie Prime, is based on Jordan Harri

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