Warner Bros. Entertainment. Inc., originally founded in April of 1923, is a broad-based entertainment company, headquartered in Burbank, California on Warner Bros. Studios lot, a 142-acre parcel that houses one of the eminent production and post-productions facilities on the planet, selling its good and services in all major global marketplaces.
In addition, Warner Bros. Studios Facilities oversees the research and development, United Kingdom-based, Warner Bros. Studio Leavesden, a 160-acre production facility that has served as the site for many acclaimed Warner Bros. European productions including the eight Harry Potter films. It is also the home of the Warner Bros, Studio Tour – London, The Making of Harry Potter, a publicity, brand awareness generator. It is one of the most popular UK tourist attractions since opening in early 2012. Warner Bros. and is considered to have one of the most successful brands in the entertainment industry. Warner Bros. Entertainment. Inc. is a fully integrated Time-Warner Company, publicly traded with 89% of its shares held by institutional and mutual fund owners.
Initially, Warner Bros. consistently utilized a standardized approach to its production systems and marketing efforts with a production facility with specific job components made up of raw talent until the vertical disintegration (an impediment to coordination handed down by the US Supreme Court) of the Studio System had run its cycle by 1960. It was the end of the Golden Age of filmmaking and an organizational change was looming.
Warner Bros. shifted to a glocalization strategy with standard operating procedures and adaptation strategies when needed to meet objectives as the rise of television in the 1950’s and the cultural shifts of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s caused a paradigm in viewership. It wouldn’t be long before, Warner Bros adopted a divisional structure where functions were grouped together to meet the needs of their respective products, markets and geographical regions.
With its painstaking market research including social attitudes Warner Bros. produced programming for television and home entertainment with global market products in its international promotional mix. Television, radio, newspaper, billboards and magazine advertisements are used to promote and advertise. Sponsorships and product placements are additional revenue generators.
In addition, Warner Bros. produced feature films for new international viewer markets in international joint ventures. Warner Bros. utilizes distribution agents and subsidiaries throughout its global markets to distribute not only its television, home entertainment and feature films but also a myriad of DVD, Blu-ray, digital content, comic books, animation, video games and broadcasting.
Warner Bros. Consumer Product division oversees the licensing of the intellectual property rights of Warner Bros. Entertainment library of film and television, maintains a commitment to increase and strengthen the power of its core brand recognition using extensive marketing research and analytics through promotional marketing, retailing and creative merchandizing within a vibrant network of global offices in strategic, demographically analyzed locations in Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America. Warner Bros. Consumer Product division also monitors for product counterfeiting and content piracy.
Warner Bros. is primarily in the consumer markets and industrial markets. However, in 1941 the studio was brought into the government market in producing the geopolitical drama/thriller Casablanca at the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt long before the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility had taken center stage.
The Warner Bros. library consists of over 7000 feature films, 5000 television programs with tens of thousands of episodes and nearly 75,000 hours of programming. As new viewers are discovering classic films, the product life-cycle of classic films are being altered as new technologies enable restoration of damaged or improperly stored film archivals.
With a direct strategy, Warner Bros. Pictures produces and distributes approximately 18-22 films per year and is a global leader in marketing and distributing feature films in over 120 territories either directly or indirectly while maintaining offices in over thirty countries. Utilizing a business strategy that minimizes risk and maximizes capital and productivity, Warner Bros. finances or co-finances its films while keeping the global distribution rights. Furthermore, Warner Bros. takes advantage of its comparative advantages in marketing and distribution with films financed by third parties in what is often a highly capital intensive industry.
For example, New Line Cinema founded in 1967, is a well-established purveyor of quality, mainstream films as well as niche market films. In 2008, New Line Cinema became a subsidiary of Warner Bros, with all the practical benefits of a strategic alliance, maintaining its own separate business dealings in development, production, marketing and distribution.
New Line produced The Lord of the Rings, the Oscar Award-winning film trilogy, which generated a combined worldwide box office of nearly $3 billion with an additional $3 billion in consumer products and home entertainment revenue. As mentioned throughout the course, companies in a vertically integrated structure often coordinate and share certain responsibilities. While New Line and Warner Bros. are separate entities they do coordinate with Warner Bros. to maximize business efficiencies. New Line’s 2016 films are being distributed through Warner Bros.
As a sign of Warner Bros. Pictures success, 2015 marked the ninth year in a row it surpassed box office revenues of three billion dollars. In addition, 2015 marked the fifteenth consecutive year that its international and domestic gross receipts exceeded one billion dollars each. No other entertainment studio has ever achieved such a feat.
Another component of Warner Bros. success is its Home Entertainment. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment manages video games, home video and digital distribution to maximize current and next generation distribution scenarios including Blu-ray, DVD, streaming, transactional video-on-demand and delivery of theatrical content to online and wireless channels. Also, it is a substantial publisher of third party and internal video game titles.
Like its Pictures Division, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment led the industry with a nineteen percent market share through its subsidiaries Warner Horizon, Blue Ribbon, Warner Bros. Animation and WBTV.
Warner Bros. Television Group produced over seventy series for the 2015-16 season and oversees and grows the entire Warner Bros. portfolio of television businesses including production worldwide, broadcasting and traditional and digital distribution. Furthermore, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment worked across all platform including the digital, broadcast, pay-per-view and cable to remain the industry and category leader.
Warner Bros. Animation is yet another division of Warner Bros. and is one of the leading animation studios in the entertainment business with an organizational culture made up of a highly creative roster of animators, artists and storytellers working on global products under the scrutiny of long-standing business analysis to discern what products will yield the greatest revenues.
Warner Bros. Animation is home to the animated library containing the popular Looney Tunes, DC Comics, Hannah-Barbera characters and MGM animations. With concept testing, the animation studio is also at the leading edge of technology with its prolific use of computer generated imaging, 360 degree cinema and the exciting new virtual reality technologies as the studio attempts to create an affordable product design with cost-prohibitive technologies.
Introduction to Global Business by Gaspar, Arreola-Risa, Bierman, Hise, Kolari, & Smith, FIRST EDITION
POKORNY, MICHAEL, and JOHN SEDGWICK. “Profitability Trends in Hollywood, 1929 to 1999: Somebody Must Know Something.” The Economic History Review, vol. 63, no. 1, 2010, pp. 56–84. New Series, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27771570.
Park City, UT — Now in its second decade of breaking new ground at the forefront of art and technology, Sundance Institute has curated an in-depth vision of storytelling’s future for the 2017 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival, January 19-29 in Park City. The full slate — including storyworlds in Augmented Reality headsets, projection-mapped acrobatics, a VR beauty salon producing neuroscience data via the internet of things and a host of socialized, interactive and immersively haptic VR story experiences — stands as a testament to New Frontier’s expertise in identifying, developing and amplifying the most relevant and high-impact modes of tech-enabled narrative.
Live performances, a feature film and augmented reality experiences will complement a total of 20 VR experiences and 11 installations, showcased between three venues in Park City. The historic Claim Jumper will host seven immersive installations focused on cross-disciplinary story construction and and two video works; the VR Palace will feature 15 VR experiences alongside additional installations; and the VR Bar will offer a lineup of mobile VR. Three projects are part of the Festival’s The New Climate program, which highlights the environment and climate change. More New Frontier projects will be announced in the coming weeks.
Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, said, “Every year, more artists are drawn to the vanguard of art and technology: independent, creative storytellers have more tools to break the mold than ever before. For the last decade-plus, New Frontier’s vision has evolved and grown with this expanding palette, to curate and showcase the most exciting new work made with the latest advances.”
Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer and Chief Curator, New Frontier, said, “In an era that has recalibrated economies, redefined social realms and rewired the connection between the individual and the world, we must also reimagine what it is to be human. Through Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and various crafted immersive experiences, New Frontier this year challenges the very nature of perception and what we consider to be ‘reality.’”
Through New Frontier’s history, Sundance Institute has been at the forefront of new media storytelling, recognized as a pioneer of story-based, tech-enabled experiences; New Frontier alumni include Doug Aitken, James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Milk, Nonny de la Peña, Pipilotti Rist and Jennifer Steinkamp. The Institute’s support extends well beyond its curated slate of Festival projects, and includes the annual New Frontier Story Lab, which offers mentorship and development opportunities for new media storytellers, New Frontier Day Labs in cities nationwide and the New Frontier Residency Program, which combines the might of partners such as MIT Media Lab’s Social Computing Group and Jaunt Studios to drive groundbreaking data-visualization and VR storytelling tools, training and resources to independent artists.
2016 marked New Frontier’s 10th Anniversary, with celebrations at MoMA in New York City, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
In addition to the New Frontier program announced today, films in U.S. and World Competitions and NEXT have been announced and are listed at sundance.org/festival.
FILMS AND PERFORMANCE
18 Black Girls / Boys Ages 1-18 Who Have Arrived at the Singularity and Are Thus Spiritual Machines: $X in an Edition of $97 Quadrillion / U.S.A. (Director and writer: Terence Nance) — In this pair of performances, the artist Googles the phrase “one-year-old black boy” and “one-year-old black girl,” ascending in age to 18, allowing Google’s “popular searches” algorithm to populate what words will follow.
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? / U.S.A. (Director: Travis Wilkerson) — This documentary murder mystery about the artist’s own family is a Southern Gothic torn apart and reassembled. Journeying straight into the black heart of a family and country, this multimedia performance explores a forgotten killing by the artist’s great-grandfather—a white Southern racist—of a black man in lower Alabama.
World Without End (No Reported Incidents) / U.S.A., United Kingdom (Director: Jem Cohen) — Close observations around Southend-on-Sea, a small English town along the Thames estuary, reveal not only everyday streets, everyday birds, unflagging tides, mud and sky, but also prize-winning Indian curries, an encyclopedic universe of hats and a nearly lost world of proto-punk music.
INSTALLATIONS
A selection of single-channel works by the collective A Normal Working Day / Switzerland — A Normal Working Day is an artist collective consisting of the installation artist Zimoun and the choreographers and dancers Delgado Fuchs (Marco Delgado, Nadine Fuchs). Formed from the bodies of the two performers, these splendidly hypnotic projections are visual rabbit holes that shimmer with a presence that is larger than the sum of their parts.
Full Turn / Switzerland (Lead Artist: Benjamin Muzzin) — This installation explores the notion of the third dimension with the desire to get out of the usual frame of a flat screen. The rotation of two tablets creates a three-dimensional, animated sequence that can be seen at 360 degrees, unlike any other type of display.
Heartcorps: Riders of the Storyboard / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: dandypunk, Key Collaborators: Darin Basile, Jo Cattell) — Follow the story of Particle, a two-dimensional light being, as you walk through the pages of a giant, immersive comic book. Hand-drawn illustrations come to life around you using projection-mapping technology, while high-level Cirque du Soleil performers interact with animated characters in this “digital light poem.” Cast: Ekenah Claudin, Elon Höglund, Youssef El Toufali, Jenni Gamas.
Heroes / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Melissa Painter, Key Collaborators: Tim Dillon, Thomas Wester, Jason Schugardt, Laura Gorenstein Miller) — The setting: An extravagant movie palace where silent films were shown. One dance—fiercely athletic and romantic—invites you inside. Through both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality headsets, the story comes off the screen, challenging you to move, navigate heroic shifts in perspective and scale and reach out to touch the experience. Cast: Helios Dance Theater, Stephanie Maxim, Chris Stanley, Melissa Sandvig.
Journey to the Center of the Natural Machine / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Daniella Segal, Daniel Lazo, Eran May-Raz, Charles Niu) — From stone axe to super-computer, our brain’s evolution has been guided by our tools, evolving it into the most complicated object in the known universe. Explore a holographic brain with a friend on the Meta 2 Augmented Reality Headset, and rebuild your relationship to the Natural Machine.
NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Ashley Baccus-Clark, Carmen Aguilar y Wedge, Ece Tankal, Nitzan Bartov) — A three-part exploration of black women and the roles they play in technology, society and culture—including speculative products, immersive experiences and neurocognitive impact research. Using fashion, cosmetics and the economy of beauty as entry points, the project illuminates issues of privacy, transparency, identity and perception.
Pleasant Places / United Kingdom (Lead Artist: Quayola) — A return to, and a modern elaboration upon, Vincent Van Gogh’s Provence landscapes, this series of digital paintings interrogates and reframes concepts of representation and perception through image manipulation and augmented reality. Using bucolic and contemplative images, juxtaposed with raw data visualization, this project suggests alternate modes of visual synthesis.
Synesthesia Suit: Rez Infinite and Crystal Vibes / Japan (Lead Artists: Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Ayahiko Sato, Kouta Minamizawa) — A full-body 26-sensor suit combines audiovisual and vibrotactile textures to push technology-mediated sensory frontiers. Experience a multisensory climax with pounding beats and stringed instruments in acclaimed PlayStation 4/PS VR game Rez Infinite, or feel vibrations of candy-colored psychedelic sound rippling through the Crystal Vibes universe.
VIRTUAL REALITY
ASTEROIDS! / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Eric Darnell) — From the director of Madagascar comes Baobab’s VR animation. Journey the cosmos aboard the spaceship of Mac and Cheez, an alien duo so mission-focused they forget what’s important in life. It’s up to you to show them what really matters. Cast: Eric Darnell.
Chasing Coral: The VR Experience / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Jeff Orlowski) — Zackary Rago, a passionate scuba diver and researcher, documented the unprecedented 2016 coral bleaching event at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef with this exclusive underwater VR experience. THE NEW CLIMATE
Chocolate / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Tyler Hurd) — This VR experience for the song “Chocolate” by Giraffage sets you in a cat-centric world of sparkling, colorful chrome with a tribe of people doing a ritualistic dance just for you, their robot god, to provide them with their precious resource, cute lil’ chrome kitties.
Dear Angelica / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Saschka Unseld, Key Collaborators: Angela Petrella, Wesley Allsbrook, Maxwell Planck, Ryan Thomas) — This project is a journey through the magical and dreamlike ways we remember lost ones and, even though they are gone, what remains of the ones we loved. Cast: Geena Davis, Mae Whitman.
Hue / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Nicole McDonald, Key Collaborators: KC Austin) — This is an immersive and visually driven interactive film about a man who has lost the ability to see color. Participants reawaken the protagonist’s sense of wonder and imagination through empathetic action as color and connection return to his world view. Cast: David Strathairn, Benedikt Negro.
If Not Love / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Rosemarie Troche, Key Collaborator: Bruce Allan) — A conflicted Christian man carries out a mass shooting. In his past: a same-sex hookup and self-loathing. What if events had unfolded differently? What if his partner had convinced him to face himself? Could that simple act change the course of history? Cast: Zachary Booth, Mitchell Winter.
Life of Us / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, Pharrell Williams, Key Collaborators: Megan Ellison, McKenzie Stubbert, Jona Dinges) — This shared VR journey tells the complete story of the evolution of life on Earth.
Melting Ice / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Danfung Dennis) — We take viewers on a transcendent exploration into the devastating consequences of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet. Stand under collapsing glaciers, next to raging rivers of ice melt and witness rising sea levels—all visceral warnings of our planet’s future. THE NEW CLIMATE
Mindshow / U.S.A.(Lead Artists: Gil Baron, Jonnie Ross, Adam Levin, Key Collaborators: Jonnie Ross, Gil Baron) — Make VR cartoons with your body and voice. Teleport into different characters and act out all the parts. Create with your friends by passing scenes back and forth, then share your shows in VR and on social media. Cast: Dana Gould.
Miyubi / Canada (Lead Artists: Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël, Key Collaborator: Owen Burke) — Experience love and obsolescence as a Japanese toy robot, gifted to a child in the home of a fractured family in 1982 suburban America. Cast: Jeff Goldblum, P.J. Byrne, Emily Bergl, Owen Vaccaro, Richard Riehle, Ted Sutherland, Tatum Kensington Bailey.
Orbital Vanitas / Australia (Lead Artist: Shaun Gladwell, Key Collaborator: Leo Faber, ) — This virtual reality experience presents a surreal sci-fi mystery and meditation on death. Initially placed in Earth’s orbit, participants soon notice an enigmatic form floating toward them. What takes place next makes perfect use of the VR format.
Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Nonny de la Peña) — In August 2014, Daniel Ashley Pierce’s family verbally and physically accosted him before kicking him out of the house because they disapproved of his sexuality. Built directly around audio Daniel recorded from that encounter, this project includes thoughts of hope and triumph from Daniel and three other LGBTQ youth. Cast: Daniel Ashley Pierce, Kyle Wills, Julene Renee, Cyntia Domenzain, Angel VanStark, Phoebe VanCleefe.
The Sky is a Gap / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Rachel Rossin) — The viewer is allowed to precisely move time with space by the use of a positionally tracked headset. Existing in the physical and virtual realms, the installation depicts a pyroclastic explosion inspired by Zabriskie Point, where the scene’s progress is physically mapped to the participant’s forward and backward movement.
Through You / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Saschka Unseld, Lily Baldwin) — Dance is used to inhabit a common mortal story of love born, lived, lost, burned and seemingly gone forever—only to be found again. Cast: Joanna Kotze, Amari Cheatom, Marni Thomas Wood.
Tree / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter, Key Collaborators: Aleksandar Protic, Jacob Kudsk Steensen) — This virtual experience transforms you into a rainforest tree. With your arms as the branches and body as the trunk, you experience the tree’s growth from a seedling to its fullest form and witness its fate firsthand. THE NEW CLIMATE
Zero Days VR / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Scatter, Yasmin Elayat, Elie Zananiri, Key Collaborators: Mei-Ling Wong, Alexander Porter, James George) — The story of a clandestine mission hatched by the U.S. and Israel to sabotage an underground Iranian nuclear facility told from the perspective of Stuxnet, a sophisticated cyber weapon, and a key NSA informant. Audiences experience the high stakes of cyber warfare placed inside the invisible world of computer viruses. Cast: Joanne Tucker, Eric Chien, Liam O’Murchu, Ralph Langner, Olli Heinonen, David Sanger.
The Sundance Institute New Frontier program is supported by Cindy Harrell Horn and Alan Horn, Lyn and Norman Lear, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Time Warner Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Oculus Story Studio, Nokia OZO, Comcast Ventures, The Fledgling Fund, and David E. Quinney III.
The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2017 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, SundanceTV, Chase Sapphire®, and Canada Goose; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, AT&T, DIRECTV, and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – American Airlines, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Francis Ford Coppola Winery, GEICO, Google VR, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb, Jaunt, Kickstarter, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and the University of Utah Health. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Look for the Official Sponsor seal at their venues at the Festival. sundance.org/festival
Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has announced its opening night film and the filmmakers selected for its retrospectives.
The festival, set for Feb. 17-26, features 150 nonfiction films from across the world at venues in Missoula, the Wilma Theater, the Roxy Theater, the Silver Theatre and the Missoula Hellgate Elks Lodge.
The free Feb. 17 opener presented in partnership with HBO is Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.
According to a press release, the film is “an intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty, in all its eccentricity. At 83 years old, grand dame Reynolds (star of Singin’ in the Rain) still performs a Vegas act dressed in gold lamé at the risk of her health, and her daughter, Fisher (of Star Wars fame) is helpless to react in the face of her mother’s determination that ‘the show must go on.”
Bright Lights gives us a rare peek into the normal lives of two very different yet intertwined Hollywood starlets, a truly human story that will have you laughing in one moment and tug at your heartstrings in the next,” festival director Rachel Gregg said in a news release.
The Big Sky retrospectives, a regular festival feature, examine the careers of influential documentary filmmakers.
This year, they’ve picked Daniel Junge. He won an Academy Award for the 2012 short Saving Face. The film, co-directed with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, focuses on a plastic surgeon in Pakistan who helps women disfigured in acid attacks. He won the South by Southwest Grand Jury award in 2009 for They Killed Sister Dorothy, which examined the murder of an Ohio nun in the Amazon.
Closer to Montana, Junge directed 2015’s Being Evel, about the Butte-born daredevil legend Evel Knievel.
The other retrospective package is billed as the most expansive ever done at Big Sky. It examines the work of EyeSteel Films, a Montreal collective that has covered topics around the world.
Last year’s festival-goers may have caught Chameleon, by collective member Ryan Mullins. The film took viewers inside the world of Anas, a Ghanaian investigative journalist whose deep-cover techniques merge spycraft and advocacy.
The 2017 festival the Big Sky DocShop, a film forum with panels, workshops and the Big Sky Pitch for works in progress.
The forum this year will highlight aspects in the rapidly growing medium of short film, such as conceiving, funding, producing and distributing.
DocShop will include panels and workshops with Vice, ITVS, The Atlantic, ESPN, Film Collaborative, and Tribeca Film Institute among other film industry experts, as well as master classes with the 2017 BSDFF retrospective artists.
The official selections and the schedule will be announced mid-January. Sales for tickets and passes as well as DocShop registration open in late January. For more information, go to bigskyfilmfest.org.
The Dutch director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven will serve as jury president of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
“With Paul Verhoeven as jury president, we have a filmmaker who has worked in a variety of genres in Europe and Hollywood. His creative, multifaceted boldness and his willingness to experiment are reflected in the spectrum of his works,” says Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlinale.
The Berlinale welcomed the acclaimed filmmaker in 2013 at the Berlinale Talent Campus (today’s Berlinale Talents). At the panel “Follow Your Instincts: Filmmaking According to Paul Verhoeven” he gave insight into his work methods and his perspective on production landscapes in the US and Europe.
Following studies in mathematics and physics, Paul Verhoeven turned his attention towards film in the mid-1960s, and began his directing career in 1969 with the successful Dutch television series Floris. After his feature film debut Business is Business in 1971, about two prostitutes who dream of a conventional middle-class life, came the erotic thriller Turkish Delight in 1973, a big hit in the Netherlands that also garnered a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1974 Academy Awards. Following his international breakthrough Soldier of Orange (1977) – which was nominated for a Golden Globe – and The Fourth Man (1983), Paul Verhoeven moved to Hollywood to focus on an evolution of style in his work.
Large productions featuring lots of action and special effects, like RoboCop (1987), and especially Total Recall (1990), were big box-office hits that revolutionized the science fiction film genre while maintaining credibility as author’s films.
The provocative, erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992) saw Paul Verhoeven return to themes prevalent in his Dutch works. Basic Instinct shot Sharon Stone to stardom, and was nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1997 and 2000, he once again focused on science fiction with Starship Troopers and Hollow Man.
After nearly 20 years in Hollywood, Paul Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands in 2006 to film Black Book (2006), based on the story of a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II.
Starting in 2007, he moved his attention to writing. He returned to the cinema in 2016, celebrating his comeback with the French-German production Elle. In Elle, Paul Verhoeven continues his focus on familiar themes in a surprising new way. Isabelle Huppert plays a woman whose forays through the depths of sado-masochism help her transcend childhood trauma.
Elle, set to open in German cinemas on February 2, 2017, is nominated for the European Film Awards in three categories, as well as in two categories for the US Critics’ Choice Awards.
Press Office
December 9, 2016
I didn’t do film school. I was a dancer and started making raw stop-motion shorts when touring with David Byrne. After 150 shows, I came to realize that dance enabled people to understand the music. Unsure what the “strange moves” meant, dance gave them permission to feel something they couldn’t necessarily fit into words. Then is when I first felt the compulsion to turn the electricity of a live performance into an object that could transcend borders, language, and endure time. I turned my hard knock dancer-work-ethic into teaching myself how to edit with stills I’d shot (after a year I realized using a mouse made all the difference). ’Twas pure play – I wasn’t even sure what the “it” of it was supposed to be.
I’ve built this manifesto of sorts that guides my work: Everyone speaks body, it’s a universal alphabet. I define this “visceral cinema” with articulate bodies in space in relationship to a lens. Dance isn’t always a virtuosic “pow”; it’s about bodies that are aware of their edges and use their range. Bodies can’t lie. They are the subtext of us – it’s a subterranean language usually too shy to come out. Bodies speak nuance and contradiction that get lost when spoken. The clincher is fitting a body inside a lens – a practice that is significantly more crafted than grabbing footage of a crazy-cool body. I think it’s a balance of these: Proximity to lens, distinct performance focus, a breathing handheld camera, knowing when/not to crop a body and lock frame, editing as a rhythm tool (cutting on action, thank you Maya Deren), and sound/music as sub-protagonist and dialogue. The final convergence shouldn’t be possible in real life. “Gesamtkunstwerk,“ meaning “total work of art,“ is my favorite word, and a wink to The Ballet Russe.
Co-Directing: Where Differences Unite
A couple years ago my friend Saschka Unseld (Oculus Story Studio) asked me to make something with dance. I was trying to turn the “flattie” into a kinetic playground, so the prospect of having 360 degrees to mess around with was enticing. I could use my years of performing in unconventional spaces and get rid of the proscenium box that now seemed stuck on a wall. We’ve both always edited our own work and agree that nothing is ever completed. He’s a renowned director, cinematographer, and tech maven (the latter not being my forte). We embraced our differences, jumped off our respective cliffs, and trusted that our mutual rigor would spit us out somewhere. We applied and were accepted into the Sundance Institute Jaunt VR Residency.
Lily directing Joanna Kotze and Amari Cheatom with Saschka and DP Dagmar Weaver-Madsen. Photo by Cameron Berton.
This collaboration has been striking. It has enabled me to indulge in imagination without needing to know how to practically realize the fantasy. I play with the parameters of performance and narrative expectation. Saschka is a poet with technology and uses it to capture a distinct human tenderness. He moves like a dancer, engaging his tools like I’ve trained my skeleton. We began collaborating by dancing together – him, as his camera, with me. It’s a unique banter, our unique perfectionisms moving through space. We cantilever off our perspectives, pick up where the other drops off, and take different paths to arrive at the same place. It’s an intuitive collision.
Carob is Not Chocolate and VR is Not Film
What’s disarming (and therefore exciting) about VR, is that we’re asking the viewer to silently enter and intimately witness a world they don’t have much control over (yet). This medium’s power is not about titillating the viewer with a rush of endorphins — we all know adapting film to VR is a mistake. The potency of VR is combining the intensity of immersion with all the tech limitations, and then using these as tools to articulate something that couldn’t exist in any other medium — and should absolutely not be possible in real life.
What is Story in VR?
We both wrestle with linearity. Real life happens in simultaneous layers, which is how we experience time and therefore story. Creating in 360 degrees space was a relief, and has left us thinking of story in terms of “slices of life”. Saschka strongly felt we should remove all filmmaking protocol from our process. He slowed down our script into a series of “peak moments of being” that were strung in a bold tableau. I think of it as walking through a museum and stepping inside a series of paintings (each one a complete world) on the wall. VR demands that users feel culpable, feel responsible, feel powerful, feel alone, and feel close. What is a story that uses this alphabet? These tenets dictate our story experience. Time plays differently because there’s so much to see! Because you’re intimate with the environment, little things become epic. Directing in VR is its own muscle, one we’re exploring and training.
Limitations Are Portals For Discovery
My uncle is hard of hearing and he has the most amazing sense of smell. There’s something about having less of one thing, that mandates solving in unexpected ways. I’m a sucker for detail and frustrated by the “fuzzy” picture in VR. After a test shoot, we decided we couldn’t lose the subtle intimacy of our breathing dancers, Joanna Kotze, Amari Cheatom, and Marni Wood, as they moved from the ‘70s through 2046. So we decided dance had to express emotion graphically. Specified fingers in space made all the difference. Colored light would imbue the emotional details lost in their faces. Inside the crafted costume and production design, reflective fabrics with bold patterns would define the character of a body, bold architectural shapes in the room and strong color shifts would best show time passing.
Amari Cheatom and Marni Wood in Through You. Photo by Cameron Berton.
Rigorous Mistakes Are Innovations
Authentic creativity and innovation come from not having rules and not knowing what things are called. Too much identification keeps us confined to knowing what things should be. When I fall onstage and fuck up, it presents a new choice. (First thing is to keep a straight face and never look like you didn’t mean it.) This impromptu problem-solving and rigorous commitment to follow-through is my background, and we’re finding it’s perfect for VR. On set my freshness to the space had me proposing wild “What if?” and “Can we…?!” questions. Saschka adamantly protected our creative discovery saying that anything that “wasn’t supposed to work,” we’d ignore. “There are no rules, anyone who says differently is jumping the gun,” he said. As our previous experiments had proved, we could move the camera and not make the viewer nauseous. It was more complex than tracking a “fixed focal point” — we found the key is creating a physical connection between the camera/viewer and the subject. I danced with Saschka, and there happened to be a camera between us. Fast cuts? Jump cuts? Frantic changes in pace? It’s all possible, it’s just a force that needs to be properly wielded. The conversation is too often between technology and art. We’re talking about technology and body. We want to use technology to move into uncharted areas that make us reckon with our mortality. Our motto: If we fail, if this ends up a disaster, let’s at least fail upwards.
We’ve thrown caution to the wind, and there’s nothing shy about Through You. We dive head on into a never-ending love story that will play cyclically, hitting the peak moments of intimacy, betrayal, loss, aging, the passing of time — only to be engulfed in flames and then reborn again under water. It’s a racy, bold, and undeniably human experience that pushes the power of immersion and dares us to have a body that loves, feels pleasure, and feels loss. We worked intensely with our DP and longtime collaborator Dagmar Weaver-Madsen – a fierce maker in her own right – and she held us to task, grounded our ideas in practicality, and proposed bold DIY ideas to solve curveballs. She pushed us hard and kept the production glued together with the expertise of Brooke Chapman, our camera supervisor who wielded Jaunt’s incredible camera. It was a dream team. None of Through You would exist without our team’s incredibly hard work.
It’s a hot moment, this VR thing. As a dancer first, it’s a space where I thrive and where I don’t have to be an expert – I just get to be rigorously curious. I feel like I’m a detective and we’re all on a wicked-good scavenger hunt.
Final Thoughts
With such polarizing fear shaping our climate, we’ve called our choices into question. It’s a privilege to do what we do. (“Artist” makes us cringe – we think of ourselves as “lookers,” “finders” and “makers.”) What can we do about what’s happening in our world now? We’ve landed here – how can 360 immersive degrees wake up a body? When we literally feel ourselves and all that VR can do (way more than we think), we remember our impact: we are responsible, we make a difference.
ON THE MAP tells the against-all- odds story of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 1977 European Championship, which took place at a time when the Middle East was still reeling from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1972 Olympic massacre at Munich, and the 1976 hijacking of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv. Through the of lens of sports, ON THE MAP presents a much broader story of how one team captured the heart of a nation amidst domestic turmoil and the global machinations of the Cold War.
ON THE MAP
Written and Directed by Dani Menkin
Starring Tal Brody, David Stern, Bill Walton
Country of Origin: USA
Running Time: 85 min
Screening: Sunday, December 11 @ 2:00pm Monday, December 12 @ 7:30pm Tuesday, December 13 @ 5:00pm Wednesday, December 14 @ 7:30pm
at the Riviera Theatre – 2044 Alameda Padre Serra
“There’s no surer ingredient for a feel-good documentary than an inspirational sports story, and filmmaker Dani Menkin delivers one in spades with his recounting of the 1979 European Cup victory by the national Israeli basketball team.”
Frank Scheck – Hollywood Reporter
“On the Map, a documentary about Maccabi Tel Aviv’s improbable success in the 1977 edition of the tourney, is a feel-good Cinderella story, the real-life details are at least apropo of this kind of athletic fairy tale.”
Michael Nordine – Village Voice/L.A.Weekly
“Menkin has been especially thorough in telling
this classic against-all-odds sports story.”
Kenneth Turan – LA Times
Park City, UT — Sixty-eight short films, announced today, will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29.
The Institute’s support for short films extends internationally and year-round. Select Festival short films are presented as a traveling program at over 50 theaters in the U.S. and Canada each year, and short films and filmmakers take part in regional Master Classes geared towards supporting emerging shorts-makers in several cities. Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and in partnership with The Guardian and The New York Times’ Op-Docs, provides grants to makers of documentary shorts around the world, including new filmmakers in Cuba featured in a Special Event program at this year’s Festival.
Mike Plante, Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, said, “Each year we see more short films from around the country and from more regions around the world, which is exciting as we want to discover new voices to support. This year’s crop captures the full spectrum of what short films can be: emotional, hilarious, horrifying and touching — sometimes all at once.”
Among the shorts the Festival has shown in recent years are World of Tomorrow, Thunder Road, Whiplash, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, Gregory Go Boom and Edmond.
The Short Film program is presented by YouTube.
U.S. NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS
American Paradise / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Joe Talbot) — A desperate man in Trump’s America tries to shift his luck with the perfect crime in this story inspired by true events.
Cecile on the Phone / U.S.A. (Director: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Screenwriters: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Ellen Greenberg) — Overwhelmed by doubt and confusion after her ex-boyfriend’s return to New York, Cecile embarks on a series of telephone conversations that serve only to distract her from the one conversation she really needs to have.
Come Swim / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kristen Stewart) — This is a diptych of one man’s day, half impressionist and half realist portraits.
GOOD CRAZY / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rosa Salazar) — A complex chick deals with a vanilla beau, a shitty brunch and a dead coyote all in a Los Angeles day. There’s batshit crazy and then there’s good crazy—she fits somewhere in between.
Hardware / U.S.A. (Director: Stephen Jacobson, Screenwriters: Ellen Stringer, Stephen Jacobson) — An amateur electronic-drum enthusiast travels to a housewares trade show looking to strike up the perfect business partnership. When things don’t go as planned, he finds himself at the mercy of the electronic drumbeat playing in his head.
Hold On / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Christine Turner) — Family bonds are tested when a young man is left to care for his grandmother one morning.
Hot Seat / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Anna Kerrigan) — Teenaged Andrea uses a male stripper to gain the respect and admiration of cool girl Daphne in this exploration of coming-of-age sexuality and teen girls’ complex relationships, based on a true story.
I Know You from Somewhere / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Fitzgerald) — A young woman incurs the wrath of the internet after she inadvertently becomes a viral sensation.
Kaiju Bunraku / U.S.A. (Directors: Lucas Leyva, Jillian Mayer, Screenwriter: Lucas Leyva) — Here’s a day in the life of a husband and wife living in a world of giant monsters.
Laps / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Charlotte Wells) — On a routine morning, a woman on a crowded New York City subway is sexually assaulted in plain sight.
LostFound / U.S.A. (Director: Shakti Bhagchandani, Screenwriters: Shakti Bhagchandani, Emre Gulcan) — This story portrays a day in the life of a woman in the Nation of Islam.
Lucia, Before and After / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Anu Valia) — After traveling 200 miles, a young woman waits out Texas’s state-mandated 24-hour waiting period before her abortion can proceed.
New Neighbors / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: E.G. Bailey) — How far will a mother go to protect her children?
Night Shift / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Marshall Tyler) — Get a glimpse into a day in the life of a bathroom attendant in a Los Angeles nightclub.
Rubber Heart / U.S.A. (Director: Lizzy Sanford, Screenwriters: Lizzy Sanford, Anna Cordell) — After a painful dry spell, a woman attempts to have a one-night stand.
Shinaab / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.) — A young Anishinaabe man struggles with his place in the inner city of Minneapolis.
Toru / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Jonathan Minard, Scott Rashap) — An infant’s life is transformed by a new technology.
INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS
5 Films About Technology / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Peter Huang) — Take a satirical look at the dumber side of technology.
And so we put goldfish in the pool. / Japan (Director and screenwriter: Makoto Nagahisa) — One summer day, 400 goldfish were found in the swimming pool of a secondary school. This is a story about the four 15-year-old girls who put them there.
And The Whole Sky Fit In The Dead Cow’s Eye / Chile, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Francisca Alegría) — Emeteria is visited by the ghost of her patrón, Teodoro. She believes he has come to take her to the afterlife—but he has more devastating news.
Dadyaa — The Woodpeckers of Rotha / Nepal, France (Directors and screenwriters: Pooja Gurung, Bibhusan Basnet) — Atimaley and Devi’s village is haunted by memories. When a dear friend leaves the village without saying goodbye, the old couple faces a dilemma: keep living with the memories or leave the village for good?
Dawn of the Deaf / United Kingdom (Director and screenwriter: Rob Savage) — When a strange sound wipes out the hearing population, a small group of deaf people must band together to survive.
Dear Mr. Shakespeare / United Kingdom (Director: Shola Amoo, Screenwriter: Phoebe Boswell) — An exploration of Shakespeare’s intentions when writing Othello explores the play’s racial themes in historical and contemporary settings, and draws wider parallels between immigration and blackness in the UK today.
The Geneva Convention / France (Director and screenwriter: Benoit Martin) — As Hakim is waiting for the bus after class, he is caught in a vendetta between teenagers. He’s not exactly keen to be involved, but can he avoid it?
HEAT / Poland (Directors and screenwriters: Agata Trzebuchowska, Mateusz Pacewicz) — A young boy does an unusual favor for a friend, assuming his identity to visit his senile grandmother. The woman takes him for a walk, and tells him about the biggest mystery of her life.
Kao Shi (A Test) / China (Director and screenwriter: Zuxiang Zhao) — In a small-town high school, days before the college entrance exam, teacher Chen Jun finds out that the father of his most promising student has died in a mining accident. Telling him—or not—bears heavy consequences.
MappaMundi / Luxembourg, Austria (Director and screenwriter: Bady Minck) — Through the eyes of cosmic cartographers, the viewer takes a voyage through 950 million years of Earth history and 15,000 years of cartography. This accelerated journey visualizes the change in our world—a change unnoticeable in a single lifetime.
Mare Nostrum / France, Syrian Arab Republic (Directors: Rana Kazkaz, Anas Khalaf, Screenwriter: Rana Kazkaz) — On a Mediterranean shore, a Syrian father makes a decision that puts his daughter’s life at risk.
Pedro / Portugal (Directors and screenwriters: André Santos, Marco Leão) — Pedro gets home at dawn. Before the young boy falls asleep, his lonely mother drags him to the beach.
Slapper / Australia (Director: Luci Schroder, Screenwriters: Luci Schroder, Sam West) — A broke and rebellious teen navigates a suburban wasteland, hustling money for the morning-after pill—before it’s too late.
What Tears Us Apart / France (Director and screenwriter: Wei Hu) — A Chinese couple visits the daughter they gave up for adoption 30 years ago. While meeting the French adoptive parents, language barriers become apparent and the birth mother’s hidden emotions rise to the surface.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS
Alone / U.S.A. (Director: Garrett Bradley) — This investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern black American family is seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Bayard & Me / U.S.A. (Director: Matt Wolf) — Walter Naegle’s boyfriend, Bayard Rustin, was a famous civil rights activist 30 years Walter’s senior. In the 1980s, Bayard decided to adopt Walter for legal protection. This love story is about a time when gay marriage was inconceivable.
Close Ties / Poland (Director: Zofia Kowalewska) — Barbara and Zdzislaw will soon celebrate their 45th anniversary—despite their constant bickering, and the fact that Zdzislaw spent eight of those years living with another woman. This is a portrait of a relationship that, somewhat inexplicably, perseveres.
Deer Squad: The Movie / U.S.A. (Directors: Pipus Larsen, Kenneth Gug, Scott J. Ross) — Kelvin Peña, a charismatic 17-year-old from rural Pennsylvania, shares his story of going viral after befriending a group of wild deer in his backyard.
The Diver / Mexico (Director: Esteban Arrangoiz) — Julio César Cu Cámara is the chief diver in the Mexico City sewer system. His job is to repair pumps and dislodge garbage that flows into the gutters to maintain the circulation of sewage waters. THE NEW CLIMATE
Fish Story / United Kingdom (Director: Charlie Lyne) — Behind a fishy tale lies this search for the truth.
Hairat / Ethiopia (Director: Jessica Beshir) — One man’s nightly ritual brings solace to the lovelorn of Harar.
Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy / U.S.A. (Director: Lewie Kloster) — Academy Award–nominated documentary filmmaker Christine Choy undergoes an adventure of wild proportions when she accidentally smuggles cigarettes.
My Father’s Tools / Canada (Director: Heather Condo) — Stephen continues producing traditional baskets to honor his father and thus finds peace in his studio as he connects with the man who taught him the craft.
Project X / U.S.A. (Directors: Laura Poitras, Henrik Moltke) — A top secret handbook takes viewers on an undercover journey to the site of a hidden partnership. Based on NSA documents, this film reveals the inner workings of a windowless skyscraper in Manhattan.
The Rabbit Hunt / U.S.A. (Director: Patrick Bresnan) — On the weekends during the harvest season, 17-year-old Chris and his family hunt rabbits in the sugarcane fields of the Florida Everglades.
Ten Meter Tower / Sweden (Directors: Maximilien Van Aertryck, Axel Danielson) — People who have never been up a 10-meter diving tower must choose whether to jump or climb down in this entertaining study of people in a vulnerable position.
Tough / United Kingdom (Director: Jennifer Zheng) — New light is shed on childhood cultural misunderstandings when a Chinese mother and her British-born daughter speak as adults for the first time. Some things can only be understood with maturity.
Visions of an Island / U.S.A. (Director: Sky Hopinka) — Indigenous and foreign presences coexist on an Alaskan island in the center of the Bering Sea. THE NEW CLIMATE
Waiting for Hassana / Nigeria (Director: Ifunanya Maduka) — In 2014, 276 teenage girls came together for exams in Chibok, Nigeria—by dawn, nearly all had disappeared, and their school was burned to the ground. Jessica, an escapee, shares her haunting account of a friendship violently interrupted by Boko Haram.
White Riot: London / United Kingdom (Director: Rubika Shah) — In 1977, immigration divides Britain. What happens when a punk fanzine challenges the status quo?
MIDNIGHT SHORT FILMS
Do No Harm / New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: Roseanne Liang) — 3:00 a.m., 1980s Hongjing: In an aging private hospital, a single-minded surgeon is forced to break her physician’s oath when violent gangsters storm in to stop a crucial operation.
Fucking Bunnies / Finland (Director: Teemu Niukkanen, Screenwriters: Antti Toivonen, Teemu Niukkanen) — Raimo’s comfortable, middle-class bubble is burst when a Satan-worshipping sex cult moves in next door.
Hot Winter: A film by Dick Pierre / U.S.A. (Director: Jack Henry Robbins, Screenwriters: Jack Henry Robbins, Nunzio Randazzo) — One of the first films in American cinema to address climate change, Hot Winter: A film by Dick Pierre, was also a hardcore porno. All sex scenes have been removed as to not distract from the conscious message. THE NEW CLIMATE
A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky (Un ciel bleu presque parfait) / France (Director and screenwriter: Quarxx) — You might think that Simon lives a monotonous life, but you would be wrong—contrary to appearances, he doesn’t live alone among the ruins of an old farm. Between kidnapper and guardian angel, he never takes his eyes off his roommate.
Pussy / Poland (Director and screenwriter: Renata Gasiorowska) — Alone at home one evening, a young girl decides to have a solo pleasure session—but not everything goes according to plan.
The Robbery / U.S.A. (Director: Jim Cummings, Screenwriters: Jim Cummings, Dustin Hahn) — Crystal robs a liquor store—it goes pretty OK.
Summer’s Puke Is Winter’s Delight / Japan (Director and screenwriter: Sawako Kabuki) — Painful events become memories over time. Still, we vomit and eat again. Life is eco.
ANIMATED SHORT FILMS
The Bald Future / France (Director and screenwriter: Paul Cabon) — Being a bald man sucks. Knowing you’ll become one is worse.
Black Holes / U.S.A., France (Directors and screenwriters: David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas) — Dave is about to lead the first mission to Mars when he’s teamed up with a sentient melon, who claims to be the reincarnation of a fashion designer, upstaging his big moment and driving him to the brink of madness.
Broken – The Women’s Prison at Hoheneck / Germany (Directors: Volker Schlecht, Alexander Lahl, Screenwriters: Alexander Lahl, Max Mönch) — This animated documentary about Hoheneck, the main women’s prison in former East Germany, is based on original interviews with former inmates. It’s a film about political imprisonment, forced labor and enormous profits on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Drawn & Recorded: Teen Spirit / U.S.A. (Director: Drew Christie, Screenwriters: Drew Christie, Bill Flanagan) — This is the story behind one of the most iconic songs ever written, animated in the style of a pop-up book.
How’s your prostate? / France (Directors: Jeanne Paturle, Cécile Rousset, Screenwriters: Jeanne Paturle, Cécile Rousset, Cécile Mille) — One friend tells the other about the very strange time when, beside a swimming pool, she learned about her father’s prostate, his erectile function and his nighttime fantasies.
It’s a Date / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Zachary Zezima) — This film explores miscommunication, perceptions and vulnerability in the modern world. Everyone is an alien at first.
Jonas and the Sea / Netherlands (Director: Marlies Van der Wel, Screenwriters: Ruben Picavet, Marlies Van der Wel) — Jonas has dreamed of living in the sea all his life, but it’s impossible. Or is it?
The Laughing Spider / Japan (Director: Keiichi Tanaami) — The early childhood memory of aerial attacks leaves a lasting impression, with strong stimulus and disquiet.
LOVE / France, Hungary (Director and screenwriter: Réka Bucsi)— Abstract haiku-like situations reveal the changing atmosphere on one planet caused by a meteoric impact in a distant solar system. Inhabitants on this pulsing planet become one with each other, in various ways, in this three-chapter exploration of affection.
Nighthawk / Slovenia, Croatia (Director: Špela Čadež, Screenwriters: Gregor Zorc, Špela Čadež) — Attempting to remove an unresponsive badger from a dark road, a police patrol soon realizes that the animal is not dead but rather dead drunk. Things take an even stranger turn when the creature wakes up.
Nutag — Homeland / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Alisi Telengut) — This hand-painted visual poem explores the ideas of diaspora, homeland and the mass deportations of the Kalmyk people during World War II.
Summer Camp Island / U.S.A., South Korea (Director and screenwriter: Julia Pott) — Oscar and his best friend, Hedgehog, just got dropped off at summer camp. Once the parents leave the island, the strangeness lurking beneath the surface is revealed—aliens exist, horses become unicorns and there are monsters under the bed.
Trumpet Man / Hong Kong (Director and screenwriter: Emily Wong) — A turntable springs out a woman named Avocado; her instinct creates a man called Soul. Passion swings both, and an uncertain madness strikes Soul heavily. Seeds of passion breed conflict among five men, eventually leading Soul to a deeper understanding of life.
Victor & Isolina / U.S.A. (Director: William Caballero) — Creatively visualized through 3D printing, two elderly Latinos embark on a resonating he said/she said account of the events that led them to live separately after more than 50 quirky and stressful years together.
One film announced today was funded through a Kickstarter campaign: Black Holes.
The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2017 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, SundanceTV, Chase Sapphire®, and Canada Goose; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, AT&T, DIRECTV, and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – American Airlines, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Francis Ford Coppola Winery, GEICO, Google VR, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb, Jaunt, Kickstarter, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and the University of Utah Health. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Look for the Official Sponsor seal at their venues at the Festival. sundance.org/festival
Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home.
Palm Springs, CA (December 9, 2016) – The 28th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Amy Adams with the Chairman’s Award for her performance in Arrival at its annual Film Awards Gala. The Film Awards Gala, hosted by Mary Hart, will be held Monday, January 2 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The Festival runs January 2-16.
“Throughout her career, Amy Adams has continuously challenged herself with complex roles,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “This is reaffirmed in her most recent project, Arrival, where she anchors the film with an award-winning performance as a prominent linguist,
Dr. Louise Banks, as she attempts to communicate with creatures in one of a dozen spacecrafts that visit Earth. It is our honor to present the Chairman’s Award to Amy Adams.”
Adams received the Spotlight Award in 2009 for her performance in Doubt, going on to receive an Academy Award® nomination. She also garnered the Ensemble Performance Award for American Hustle in 2014. Past recipients of the Chairman’s Award include Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Richard Gere, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon.
When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team – led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) – are brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. The film is directed by Denis Villenueve and stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Arrival received ten Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Adams. Adams won Best Actress from the National Board of Review, which also selected Arrival as one of the top ten films of the year.
Amy Adams is a five-time Academy Award®-nominated and two-time Golden Globe®-winning actress. In addition to Arrival, her other films in 2016 were Nocturnal Animals and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Her previous film credits include American Hustle, Her, The Master, The Fighter, Big Eyes, Julie and Julia, Doubt, Enchanted, Junebug, Trouble with the Curve, The Muppets, Charlie Wilson’s War, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Catch Me If You Can. Adams recently wrapped production on Justice League Part One and will start production on HBO’s drama series Sharp Objects.
Previously announced honorees attending the 2017 Film Awards Gala are Casey Affleck, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Ruth Negga, the cast of Hidden Figures including Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner and Jim Parsons, and the cast of La La Land, including Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, and director Damien Chazelle.
About The Palm Springs International Film Festival
The Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) is one of the largest film festivals in North America, welcoming 135,000 attendees last year for its lineup of new and celebrated international features and documentaries. The Festival is also known for its annual Film Awards Gala, an upscale black-tie event attended by 2,500, honoring the best achievements of the filmic year by a celebrated list of talents who, in recent years, have included Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Matthew McConaughey, Julianne Moore, Brad Pitt, Eddie Redmayne, Julia Roberts, David O. Russell, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon.
For more information, call 760-322-2930 or 800-898-7256 or visit www.psfilmfest.org.
Documentary Caps Festival’s First Slate of ‘The New Climate’ Films and Work About Environment and Conservation
The Honorable Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, Social Entrepreneur Jeff Skoll & Others Join ‘Power of Story’ Panel on January 22; Live Streamed at sundance.org
Park City, UT — The followup to watershed environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth will make its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival as a Day One screening, part of The New Climate, a program dedicated to conversations and films about environmental change and conservation.
A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting follow up that shows both the escalation of the crisis and how close we are to a real solution. Directed by Sundance Film Festival alumni Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk.
he Honorable Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, will also join the Festival’s Power of Story panel, a collaboration between Sundance Institute and The Redford Center, with former President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, producer Heather Rae (Frozen River, RISE), social entrepreneur and philanthropist Jeff Skoll and environmentalist and scientist Dr. David Suzuki. A conversation between these prominent figures, who bring decades of direct experience with climate change and its effects, will be moderated by Democracy Now! journalist and broadcaster Amy Goodman on January 22, 2017, and livestreamed from Park City’s Egyptian Theatre at sundance.org.
The New Climate includes 14 documentaries, short films and virtual reality experiences across the Festival’s categories, and marks the first time that Festival programmers have focused efforts to highlight a specific cause.
Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, said, “I believe that storytelling is the greatest platform for getting people to care and take action on some of the most pressing issues of our time. Amid escalating threats to our environment, independent perspectives are adding the depth and dimension needed for us to find common ground and real solutions.”
John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, said, “This film and the 13 other films and projects that are part of The New Climate slate this year add a new chapter to our legacy of showcasing stories on the environment and climate change. When my team and I first watched this film, we were taken by its complete, sensitive and cinematic presentation of the issues. It was emotional to see the scope of our world’s problems — and heartening to see the potential for progress.”
2017’s other projects for The New Climate appear below. Environmental films and projects showcased at the Festival in recent years include The Cove, Gasland, Chasing Ice, Racing Extinction and Collisions. The New Climate is a partnership of Sundance Institute and The Redford Center.
Chasing Coral / U.S.A. (Director: Jeff Orlowski) — Coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. A team of divers, photographers and scientists set out on a thrilling ocean adventure to discover why and to reveal the underwater mystery to the world. World Premiere. (U.S. Documentary)
Chasing Coral: The VR Experience / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Jeff Orlowski) — Zackary Rago, a passionate scuba diver and researcher, documented the unprecedented 2016 coral bleaching event at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef with this exclusive underwater VR experience. (New Frontier: Virtual Reality)
The Diver / Mexico (Director: Esteban Arrangoiz) — Julio César Cu Cámara is the chief diver in the Mexico City sewer system. His job is to repair pumps and dislodge garbage that flows into the gutters to maintain the circulation of sewage waters. (Short Films)
Hot Winter: A film by Dick Pierre / U.S.A. (Director: Jack Henry Robbins, Screenwriters: Jack Henry Robbins, Nunzio Randazzo) — One of the first films in American cinema to address climate change, Hot Winter: A film by Dick Pierre, was also a hardcore porno. All sex scenes have been removed as to not distract from the conscious message. (Short Films)
Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry / U.S.A. (Directors: Laura Dunn, Jef Sewell) — This cinematic portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture is seen through the mind’s eye of farmer and writer Wendell Berry. (Spotlight)
Melting Ice / U.S.A. (Lead Artist: Danfung Dennis) — We take viewers on a transcendent exploration into the devastating consequences of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet. Stand under collapsing glaciers, next to raging rivers of ice melt and witness rising sea levels—all visceral warnings of our planet’s future. (New Frontier: Virtual Reality)
Plastic China / China (Director: Jiu-liang Wang) — Yi-Jie, an 11-year-old girl, works alongside her parents in a recycling facility while dreaming of attending school. Kun, the facility’s ambitious foreman, dreams of a better life. Through the eyes and hands of those who handle its refuse, comes an examination of global consumption and culture. International Premiere. (World Documentary)
Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman / U.S.A. (Directors: Susan Froemke, John Hoffman, Beth Aala) — From the Montana Rockies to the wheat fields of Kansas and the Gulf of Mexico, families who work the land and sea are crossing political divides to find unexpected ways to protect the natural resources vital to their livelihoods. These are the new heroes of conservation, deep in America’s heartland. World Premiere. (Documentary Premieres)
RISE / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Michelle Latimer) — This vibrant and immersive documentary series explores the front lines of indigenous resistance. Episodes Apache Stronghold, Sacred Water and Red Power examine factors that threaten indigenous liberation in the 21st century. A series of contrasts, this series is both a condemnation of colonialism and a celebration of indigenous peoples. Continuing Sundance Institute’s ongoing commitment to presenting bold stories from within the Native American and Indigenous communities, we are proud to debut three episodes: Apache Stronghold, Sacred Water and Red Power, followed by an extended Q&A. World Premiere. (Special Events)
Tree / U.S.A. (Lead Artists: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter, Key Collaborators: Aleksandar Protic, Jacob Kudsk Steensen) — This virtual experience transforms you into a rainforest tree. With your arms as the branches and body as the trunk, you experience the tree’s growth from a seedling to its fullest form and witness its fate firsthand. (New Frontier: Virtual Reality)
Trophy / U.S.A. (Director: Shaul Schwarz, Co-Director: Christina Clusiau) — This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities. World Premiere. (U.S. Documentary)
Visions of an Island / U.S.A. (Director: Sky Hopinka) — Indigenous and foreign presences coexist on an Alaskan island in the center of the Bering Sea. (Short Films)
Water & Power: A California Heist / U.S.A. (Director: Marina Zenovich) — In California’s convoluted water system, notorious water barons find ways to structure a state-engineered system to their own advantage. This examination into their centers of power shows small farmers and everyday citizens facing drought and a new, debilitating groundwater crisis. World Premiere. (U.S. Documentary)
The New Climate is Sundance Institute’s year-round environmental initiative, supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Kendeda Fund, Discovery Channel, Vulcan Productions, Code Blue Foundation, FOND Group, EarthX Film, and the Joy Family Foundation.
The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2017 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, SundanceTV, Chase Sapphire®, and Canada Goose; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, AT&T, DIRECTV, and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – American Airlines, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Francis Ford Coppola Winery, GEICO, Google VR,The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb, Jaunt, Kickstarter, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and the University of Utah Health. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Look for the Official Sponsor seal at their venues at the Festival. sundance.org/festival
Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Slamdance Opening Night Film: World Premiere Of What Lies Upstream. Oscar Qualifying Shorts Program Features 24 World Premieres
(LOS ANGELES, CA – December 6, 2016) – (LOS ANGELES, CA) – Slamdance today announced its Special Screenings, Beyond, and Shorts programs for their 23nd Film Festival. It is a bold selection of films from visionary filmmakers from across the globe. This year the festival will host 35 World, 9 North American and 10 US premieres within these programs.
“This year Slamdance’s Special Screenings selections are hard-hitting, revelatory films that deserve exposure in Park City,” says Paul Rachman, Special Screening Programmer. “Averting trends and remaining premiere agnostic this program reflects the gut instinct Slamdance programmers rely on in their singular choices.
Last year the festival presented EMBERS, a sci-fi indie directed by Claire Carre. Carre was recently nominated by the 32nd Film Independent Spirit Awards for the Kiehl’s Someone To Watch Award.
“The support of Slamdance has had a powerful impact on my first feature from selecting the film as the festival’s Closing Night film, through releasing it theatrically with Slamdance Presents,” shares Carre. “It’s challenging making a low budget indie movie on your own, and it’s easy to get lost. Slamdance has championed EMBERS in monumental ways.”
This year, several Slamdance Alumni return with highly anticipated presentations in the Beyond Program. These selections are made be emerging narrative and documentary filmmakers working beyond their first features.
“The films in the Beyond section exhibit bold directorial vision and singular characters that introduce audiences to exciting and uncharted new worlds,” says Beyond programmer Josh Mandel. “These emerging filmmakers are beacons of light in a sea of darkness that will continue to forge new paths in the years to come.”
Films in this program are eligible for the Audience Award. Additionally, the filmmakers are eligible for the Spirit of Slamdance Awards, which is voted upon by their festival filmmakers peers.
“Our slate of short films this year is one of the most daring we have been privileged to showcase,” says Narrative Shorts programmer Taylor O. Miller. Fellow programmer Breven Angaelica adds, “We continue this year with short films that fit into their own category, or none at all, and bring a rawness and and originality to the future of filmmaking that we are humbled to recognize and share.”
The 2017 OscarⓇ Qualifying Shorts competition showcases 51 US and 20 International productions in the Narrative, Documentary, Animation, Anarchy and Experimental sections. All Slamdance films are programmed entirely by the Slamdance filmmaking community from blind submissions.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS PROGRAM
After Adderall
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Stephen Elliott
In 2010 James Franco optioned the rights to my memoir, The Adderall Diaries. In 2015 The Adderall Diaries starring James Franco and Ed Harris premiered at the TriBeca Film Festival. This is a movie about James Franco making a movie about me. Cast: Stephen Elliott, Mickaela Tombrock, Bill Heck, Michael C. Hall, Ned Van Zandt, James Urbaniak, Lili Taylor, Jerry Stahl
A Narrative Film*
(USA)
Director: Michael Edwards
The most narrative narrative never narrated. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end…. It is at once both a three-act assault on the conceit of the traditional narrative, and also perhaps, a futile attempt to escape the narrative impulse of cinema.
What Lies Upstream (USA) World Premiere
Director: Cullen Hoback
In this detective story, filmmaker Cullen Hoback investigates the largest chemical drinking water contamination in a generation. But something is rotten in state and federal regulatory agencies, and through years of persistent journalism, we learn the shocking truth about what’s really happening with drinking water in America. Cast: Dr. Marc Edwards, Dr. Rahul Gupta, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Cullen Hoback, Randy Huffman, Dr. David Lewis, Maya Nye, Dr. Andrew Whelton
You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski
(Italy/Mexico/USA) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Matteo Borgardt
A night of drinking and talking about sex, literature, childhood and humanity with the irreverent writer poet Charles Bukowski in his California house in 1981. A story of tapes lost, found and brought back to life. Cast: Charles Bukowski, Linda Lee Beighle, Silvia Bizio
*Animated Short Preceding You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski
BEYOND PROGRAM
Automatic at Sea
(USA/ Denmark) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Lessner
Eve, a young Swedish traveler, finds herself stranded on a private island with Peter, a wealthy heir whom she hardly knows. While waiting for other guests to arrive, Eve becomes trapped in an unstable reality punctuated by feverish visions, dimensional shifting and secret soft drinks. How can she escape if she’s not even sure she’s there? Cast: David Henry Gerson, Livia Hiselius, Breeda Wool
The Erlprince
(Poland) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Kuba Czekaj
It’s the end of the world for a teenage genius, the feverish approach of the apocalypse – adulthood. Cast: Staszek Cywka, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Sebastian Łach,
Future ‘38
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Jamie Greenberg
1938 screwball comedy set in the far-off future year of 2018 Cast: Betty Gilpin, Nick Westrate, Robert John Burke, Ethan Phillips, Sean Young, Tom Riis Farrell, Sophie von Haselberg, Tabitha Holbert
Neighborhood Food Drive
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jerzy Rose; Screenwriter(s): Halle Butler, Mike Lopez, Jerzy Rose
A group of awful idiots fail at throwing a party over and over. Cast: Lyra Hill, Bruce Bundy, Ruby McCollister, Ted Tremper, Marcos Barnes, Jared Larson
Suck It Up
(Canada) World Premiere
Director: Jordan Canning; Screenwriter: Julia Hoff
Faye lost the love of her life, Ronnie lost her brother. These two best friends take off on a debaucherous journey into the mountains to cope with the loss of the man they both loved. Cast: Erin Carter, Grace Glowicki, Daniel Beirne, Toby Marks, Nancy Kerr, Michael Rowe
NARRATIVE SHORTS PROGRAM
August
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Caitlyn Greene
Deep in Louisiana’s swampland, a woman wakes from a fever dream where it has been August for 16 years. Cast: Kaelyn Charbonnet, Reginald Robinson, Sanita C. Irvin (Voice)
Birds with Human Heads
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Max Wilde
Basking in the wildlife of a handmade universe, a girl receives her first stick and poke tattoo from her best friend. Cast: Emma Factor, Emma Kikue Munson
Brad Cuts Loose
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Good
An uptight office drone seemingly discovers the perfect vehicle for letting off steam when an advertisement for a business catering to his innermost desires pops up one morning on his computer. Cast: Kentucker Audley, Tipper Newton, John Ennis, Wilson Vance
Business
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Kati Skelton
A terrified young man gets tangled up in a surreal and demoralizing “business opportunity.” Cast: Branson Reese, Peter Reznikoff, Dagmar Stansova, Matt Dennie
The Cure
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Mike Olenick
A mom cries, photos fly, cats spy, and bodies collide in this sci-fi soap opera that unravels the secret dreams of people who are desperately searching for ways to cure their fears of loneliness. Cast: David Rysdahl, Jennifer Estlin, Justin Rose, Kait Staley, Mrva Russell
A Doll’s Hug (Taiwan/USA) World Premiere
Director: Rob Chihwen Lo; Screenwriter(s): Rob Chihwen LO (Story), Cheng-Han WU (Screenplay)
A Taiwanese boy learns to fight back from the threatening violence in his Barbie doll world. Cast: Pin-Chieh Su, Jackson Lou, Mengxi Hus, Fabio Grangeon, Ivon Huang
Dr. Meertz (USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Steve Collins
A renegade psychotherapist has a brief window of time to cure a patient with ungodly dreams. Cast: John Merriman, Byron Brown, Paul Gordon
E
(Canada) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Raphaël Ouellet
5 women : 5 tales of ordinary oppression. Cast: Victoria Barkoff, Sandrine Bisson, Debbie Lynch-White, Sarah Pellerin, Alexa-Jeanne Dubé
Ford Clitaurus (USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: MP Cunningham
An aspiring artist struggles to find his voice, his sexual identity, and the meaning of creativity. Cast: Bryce Van Leuven, Taylor Young, MP Cunningham
Get Out Fast (USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Alex’s best friend, Coyote Boy, is missing and he doesn’t know why. Cast: Hale Lytle, Tre Marquis Frazier, Warren Dedrick, Tori Wolsefer
I’m in Here
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Willy Berliner
When a man finds a family of strangers in his house who claim to have bought the place, he agrees to let them stay until they can get to the bottom of the mix-up. They never leave. Cast: Dave Hanson, Jim Santangeli, Jillian Lebling, Kathy Searle
The Investment
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Steve Collins
A mysterious salesman offers an inadvisable investment opportunity to a lonely woman in need of a friend. Cast: Courtney Davis, Paul Gordon
Last Night
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Kent Juliff
On the final night of their DIY stand up tour around Texas, five comics grow closer as friends. Cast: Kent Juliff, Elizabeth Spears, Joe Tullar, Martin Urbano
Losing It
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Henry Jinings
High schooler Marshall hopes to seal the deal on prom night, but his date, Sarah, might not be as into it as he had hoped. Cast: Bryce Earhart, Rachelle Henry, Eric Newsome, Anne Ruttencutter, Nic Chase, Mason Knight, Alice Tokaryev
Neon Lights (USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Bradley Bixler
After a seemingly ordinary transaction goes wrong, a young stripper encounters a violent customer on her way home to her father’s birthday. Cast: Adriana Llabrés, Parker Torres, Michael Barbour, Giovanny Cruz-Marín
No Other Way To Say It (USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tim Mason
A voice over actor tries to deliver the right performance while receiving confusing text messages and confusing direction. Cast: Beth Melewski, Sue Salvi, Megan Kellie
Nonna (Canada) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Pascal Plante
Just another visit at granny’s… Cast: Micheline Chamberland, Catherine Beauchemin
Oh What a Wonderful Feeling (Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: François Jaros
Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires. Nor any truck. Cast: Karelle Tremblay, Frédérike Bédard, Catherine Hughes, Patrice Beauchesne
One-Minded
(France/USA/South Korea)
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Forest Ian Etsler, Sébastien Simon
“One-minded” tells the story of one fan’s transformation from dog to God. Cast: Moon Choi, Yaerin Erin Joo, Ryu Jun-yeol, Kwak Jin-moo
The Package (USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Benjamin Whatley
An experimental narrative which follows the journey of a product from the factory line to a consumer and beyond. Cast: Michael Rudolf
Paco
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Catalina Jordan Alvarez
He wants you to bounce on his lap. Cast: Brian Jordan Alvarez, Rosalyn Williams, Daniel Fishkin, Parker Dilworth
Pedazos (USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Alejandro Peña
After a garish and violent ceremony, two lovers are thrown into a mysterious cave inhabited by flying creatures. Cast: Henry MacLean, Will Stryker
Redmond Hand, Private Dick (USA) World Premiere
Director: Todd Selby; Screenwriter: Jason Kreher
On her quest to find a beautiful woman’s missing cactus, LA’s most notorious detective gets caught up in some crazy shit and then dies. Cast: Felicia Pearson, Miranda Parham, Katya Zamolodchikova, Jay London
Sadhu in Bombay (India) North American Premiere
Director: Kabir Mehta
Sadhu In Bombay is a documentary portrait of a man, with ascetic origins, who has been radically transformed by city life . The film explores the grey zones between truth, fiction and the construction of reality; while vividly addressing contemporary life in India.
Student Union (Hungary) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: György Mór Kárpáti
The return journey on a train from a freshman summer camp, where 18-year-old Dóra has just been sexually abused. Cast: Katica Nagy, Krisztián Rózsa
Voyage of Galactic Space Dangler
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Evan Mann
A space man meets a cave man. Cast: Andrew Finzel, Nolan Brown, Rick Romero, Valerie Simon
We Together
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Henry Kaplan
A zombie is awakened. Cast: Martel Rudd, Kristopher McAfee
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM
Clean Hands
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Lauren DeFilippo
On a Sunday morning the congregation of the Daytona Beach Drive-In Christian Church tunes in. Cast: Robert Kemp-Baird
Clip-135-02-05
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Sasha Gransjean
Animals are used to express the dislocation, helplessness, and anger, while nature illustrates the lack of control that we have on events that come to pass. Cast: Sasha Gransjean
Commodity City
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jessica Kingdon
An observation of the daily lives of vendors who work in China’s Yiwu Markets, the largest consumer market in the world. The film explores moments of tension between the fake and the real, between what is for sale and the humans who sell them.
The Dundee Project
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Mark Borchardt
In his long-awaited follow-up to 1997’s ‘Coven,’ filmmaker Mark Borchardt steps behind the camera again with ‘The Dundee Project,’ a documentary chronicling a small town UFO festival in Wisconsin. Cast: Mark Borchardt, UFO Bob, Mike, Sheldon
Dust & Dirt (USA) World Premiere
Director: Chris Stanford
Mason Massey dreams of one day making it to the top level of racing but with a lack of big money sponsorship he knows that it is going to be a long, hard road. Cast: Mason Massey
Eveready
(Uganda/USA) World Premiere
Director: Paul Szynol
Uganda’s most surprising boxer steps into the ring one more time.
Irregulars (Italy)
Director: Fabio Palmieri
Against a tellingly hypnotic factory backdrop, a refugee encapsulates the global immigration crisis in his own wrenching words. Cast: Cyrille Kabore
It Is What It Is
(USA) US Premiere
Director: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar
As filmmaker Cyrus Yoshi Tabar digs deep into his family history for answers to questions that have shaped his life, he finds that there are some things that might be better off left in the past. Cast: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar, Afsaneh Sade, Roxane Maiko Pate
Moriom
(Switzerland)
Director(s): Francesca Scalisi, Mark Olexa
Moriom, a beautiful but strange young woman, says her parents must be punished for holding her prisoner and torturing her. They have a different story.
The Real Wi-Fi of Baltimore (USA) World Premiere
Director: Julia Kim Smith
Featuring the genre-busting talent of James Nasty and TT the Artist, The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore offers a punny and nuanced view of Baltimore neighborhoods in a short film edited from iPhone screenshots of Wi-Fi network names. Cast: James Nasty, TT the Artist
Richard Twice
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Matthew Salton
Richard Atkins, the singer and songwriter of the early 70’s California psychedelic folk duo ‘Richard Twice’, was on his way to stardom and a huge success with his first debut album when he mysteriously walked away from it all. Cast: Richard Atkins
Searching for Wives
(Singapore) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Zuki Juno Tobgye
A foreign worker from South India, whose customs says he is not allowed to marry at an even age, comes to Singapore in search of a job and a chance to find a wife before he turns 32. Cast: Shanmugavel Pathakarnan, Sheeja Sajeev Lal, K. Sajeev Lal, Ramalingam Muthu
Sweet Pie
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Pierce Cravens
Sweet Pie, also known as Paul Winer, revives his career as the baron of bare-assed boogie-woogie and blues at the Public Theater in NYC. Cast: Sweet Pie aka Paul Winer, Joanne Winer, Will Perone
This is Yates
(USA)
Director: Josh Yates
A reflexive analog-elegy that hates itself.
Troll: A Southern Tale (USA)
Director: Marinah Janello
An eccentric artist navigates self-expression through his experiences living and growing up in the South. Cast: Tony Arnold
ANIMATION SHORTS PROGRAM
Auto
(USA) US Premiere
Director: Conner Griffith
Cars dance on highways, crowds of people wash across sidewalk shores.
Batfish Soup
(USA)
Director: Amanda Bonaiuto
Wacky relatives give way to mounting tensions with broken dolls, boiling stew and a bang.
Chella Drive
(USA) Us Premiere
Director: Adele Han Li
A disembodied memory of adolescence in a Southern Californian suburb. The stuck-stillness of endless summer is disrupted only by a passing El Niño.
Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw)
(USA)
Renee Zhan
Flap flapflapflapflap flap. A large bird and a small boy cohabit in an unhappy relationship, trapped by four walls and a mutual codependency. The fragile balance of their existence is cracked by an un-eggs-pected arrival.
Insect Bite
(USA)
Director: Grace Nayoon Rhee
A tiny bug tries to figure out what it wants to become.
It Is My Fault
(China) North American Premiere
Director: Liu Sha
This work utilizes the own approach of the digital medium itself to deconstruct, to form the subliminal synesthesia visually and to create a fictional experience for the mind.
Monkey
(China) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Shen Jie
One of the three monkeys died.
My Father’s Room (South Korea) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Nari Jang
Sometimes, family members can be worse than strangers.
The Noise of Licking
(Hungary)
Director and Screenwriter: Nadja Andrasev; Short story by: Ádám Bodor
A woman is being watched every day by the neighbor’s cat, as she takes care of her exotic plants. Their perverted ritual comes to an end when the cat disappears. Next spring a peculiar man pays her a visit.
Plena Stellarum
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Wade
Neon ghosts dreaming in dead landscapes.
Q
(USA) US Premiere
Director: James Bascara
A bashful encounter.
Remember
(Japan)
Director and Screenwriter: Shunsaku Hayashi
“Leaving home, ‘I’ got a phone call. As ‘I’ answered it, the house exploded. ‘I’ went to work and continued as normal”…
Serpentine (USA) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Bronwyn Maloney
A young woman’s reflective fantasy arouses a surreal exploration of sensuality, self-esteem, and deeply rooted fears.
EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS PROGRAM
Blua
(Colombia) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Carolina Charry Quintero
What do we see when we really look at an animal? Certainly, not just what meets the eye. Cast: Margarita Quintero, Chuja Seo, Rafa Rojas, José Adam Arriola
Experiments in Non-Cinema (USA) World Premiere
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Spencer Holden, Noah Engel
Making cinematic experiences without a camera apparatus. Non-Cinema Cast: Spencer Holden, Noah Engel
Girl Becomes Snow (USA) World Premiere
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Ryan Betschart, Tyler Betschart
An investigation into death induced dream ephemera or; a body (mind) dissolves into video signal memories. Cast: Karissa Hahn
Press Play (USA) World Premiere
Director: Kym McDaniel
Discernment becomes crucial as a little girl negotiates an adult world where different forms of entrapment threaten reality.
The Trembling Giant (United Kingdom)
Director: Patrick Tarrant
The bark of the quaking aspen is thought to provide the cure for any fear who cause can’t be named.
Unknown Hours (USA) North American Premiere
Director: Calum Walter
An observer journeys down a main street in Chicago towards a neighborhood known for its nightlife.
UpCycles
(USA)
Director: Ariana Gerstein
Cycling from original footage shot on super 8mm, up to 16mm, 35mm, down again to 16, optically printed, hand processed, and then optically printed again using a digital still camera to end on digital video.
ANARCHY SHORTS PROGRAM
Ape Sodom
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Three degenerates navigate the descending hierarchy of post-consumerist enlightenment. Cast: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Mihaly Szabados, Perrie Olthuis, David Cronenberg
Hell Follows
(USA/Japan) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Brian Harrison
Betrayed by his clan and murdered for his past evil deeds, a sadistic killer’s soul possesses his identical twin’s body and sets out onto the road of vengeance for one final crusade of extermination… Everywhere he goes… HELL FOLLOWS. Cast: Takuya Iba, Shu Sakimoto, Masahiro Takahashi, Sohanny Rose
Horseshoe Theory
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jonathan Daniel Brown; Screenwriter(s): Jonathan Daniel Brown, Travis Harrington
A weapons deal between a white supremacist and a member of the Islamic State blossoms into more. Cast: Jackson Rathbone, Amir Malaklou, Lily Harrington, Travis Harrington
In a World of Bad Breath
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Graybill
Watch general confusion amongst an ancient presence. Cast: Oates Wu, Asher Knowles
Lighter Click (USA) World Premiere
Director: Robbie Ward
An odyssey through a mysterious psychedelic landscape full of monsters and secrets both beautiful and dark.
Silverhead
(USA) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Lewis Vaughn
A deranged, 300 lb. masked ax murderer terrorizes the streets of Chicago as a calculated hunter tracks him. Cast: Christopher Porter, Corbin Manning, Clayvon Reeves, Jason Grey, Jarren Davis, Rodney Andrews, Ashley Pough
TheBox
(USA) US Premiere
Director(s): Jack Turpin, Davy Walker
An expressionistic journey through the gilt-pop-entrapment in which we find ourselves.
Vitamins for Life (USA)
Director: Grier Dill; Screenwriter: T. R. Darling
An educational film about some lesser known vitamins. Cast: Tessa Greenberg
What a Beautiful World This Will Be (USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tyler Walker
While a mysterious disease called “the Blank” ravages New York City, a young drunk must find his missing friend. Cast: Jordan Michael Blake, Luke Marinkovich, Kara Dudley, Amanda Evans
ABOUT SLAMDANCE
Slamdance is a community, a year-round experience, and a statement. Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers who were tired of relying on a large, oblique system to showcase their work, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves.
Slamdance alums are responsible for the programming and organization of the festival. With a variety of backgrounds, interests, and talents, but with no individual filmmaker’s vote meaning more than any others, Slamdance’s programming and organizing committees have been able to stay close to the heart of low budget and do-it-yourself filmmaking. In this way, Slamdance continues to grow and exemplify its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.
The 2017 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 20-26 in Park City, Utah.
Notable Slamdance alumni who first gained notice at the festival include: Christopher Nolan (Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (World War Z), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Anthony & Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin), Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Lynn Shelton (Humpday) and Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $11.5 billion at the Box Office to date.
In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing audience with several year-round activities. These include the popular Slamdance Screenplay Competition, the traveling On The Road screening events, the Anarchy Workshop for student filmmakers, and The ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club – a monthly cinema club partnership with ArcLight Cinemas based at the ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Chicago, with two screenings and filmmaker Q&A’s each month: www.arclightcinemas.com/en/news/arclight-presents-slamdance-cinema-club
Slamdance Presents is a new distribution arm established to access broader distribution of independent films. The goal is to build the popularity of independent films and support filmmakers on a commercial level through theatrical releases. In August 2016, Slamdance Presents launched the week long release of Claire Carré’s feature sci-fi film, Embers, at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood. Steve Yu’s The Resurrection of Jake The Snake was the first film to be released by the company. The documentary reached number one on iTunes in December, 2015.
In November 2015, Slamdance announced DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming), a new digital, interactive and gaming showcase dedicated to emerging independent artists working in hybrid, immersive and developing forms of digital media art. Ten works were featured in the inaugural DIG show that opened in Los Angeles at Big Pictures Los Angeles on December 4, running through December 13, 2015. The show was also featured at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival.
DIG will open December 2-10, 2016 in Los Angeles and form part of the 2017 Film Festival.
2017 Slamdance Film Festival Sponsors include Blackmagic Design, Distribber, CreativeFuture, Directors Guild of America, Fusion, Different By Design, Pierce Law Group LLP, Writers Guild Of America West, Salt Lake City’s Slug Magazine, Beehive Distilling, and BlueStar Café. Slamdance is proud to partner with sponsors who support emerging artists and filmmakers. Additional information about Slamdance is available at http://www.slamdance.com
