Independent Producers Find Their Place in the Utah Sun

Each July, just as the summer blockbuster season is nearing its height, many independent film industry leaders and their up-and-coming counterparts head for the mountains of Utah and the Sundance Independent Producers Conference. In its 19th year, the three-day conference at Sundance Village ran from July 29 to August 1 and presented a program of panels, screenings, and small group discussions designed to explore a host of issues related specifically to independent film production.

Each year, conference panelists include a mix of agents, managers, lawyers, producers, actors, directors, representatives from both large and small distributors, a range of financiers, and a handful of now-successful producers who once attended the conference as participants. Participants are working producers – many with current film projects underway – who come prepared with very specific questions. This year 45 independent film professionals offered the benefit of their varied experience as they discussed topics including marketing and distribution, the changing landscape of documentary film production, and the many possible models for producing and financing an independent film.

“There may be just one road to Mecca, but there are many, many ways to make a movie,” said panelist Barbara Boyle, Chair of the UCLA Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media, and a producer whose credits include Instinct and Bottle Rocket among others.

Part of a producer’s challenge is to identify – and oftentimes develop – specific production and financing models that are best suited to a particular project. In a field that requires both knowledge of existing practices and an ability to assemble a network of resources specific to the needs of each film, an opportunity to compare practical notes with some of the most established people in the industry is extremely valuable.

Panelist Adam Shulman is a manager of writers, directors and actors at The Firm, and said that the conference fills a definite need within the independent film industry.

“I know that there are other labs for writers and directors. .. but I’m not aware of another lab strictly for producers,” said Shulman. “You learn a little bit (about producing) in film school but when you’re here, you’re dealing with a great mix of panelists who do this on a daily basis in the independent film arena.”

While the hands-on advise and war stories that panelists offer are valuable, Shulman said that the single most important thing a participant should gain from the conference is a network of relationships with his or her peers and with those more established in the field.

“I had a one-on-one session with a filmmaker today,” said Shulman, “and I advised him to really stay in touch with the people (advisors and panelists) he felt he’d bonded with. You never know when someone is going to be helpful to you in your career . . . it’s really important that the participants do stay in touch with the people they meet here and not only ask for help but also offer to help.”

As one of the 115 conference participants, writer/director Sterlin Harjo talked with panelists individually about his project, and attended the full slate of panels, screenings, and small group discussions. He was surprised to discover that many producers are interested in some of the same things that inspire him as a writer and a director.

“You might expect producers to be the people who say, ‘You’re going to have to get a really big star,’ or ‘You’re going to have to get some cars blowing up,’ said Harjo. “But today I heard a panelist say, ‘I like films that are about ordinary people. I’m only concerned with the story.’ And it was just really cool to hear her talk about how much she cares about story.”

Harjo attended the conference after spending the early part of the summer as a Fellow in the Institute’s Filmmakers Lab. He is in the midst of securing a producer for his project, Four Sheets to the Wind, which tells the story of one Native American family dealing with the suicide death of their patriarch.

“I would love to work with someone who isn’t afraid of this story about a small town in Oklahoma and a Native American family,” said Harjo. “Someone who says, ‘Wow, this has to be shot in Oklahoma. Wow, we have to have three Natives in the lead.’”

Just as Harjo was surprised by the range of experience and interests that the panelists represented, Shulman was struck by the diversity of the participants’ current projects this year.

“We had this pitch session today where participants came and pitched their ideas to a group of us,” Shulman said. “There were quite a few – about 30 or 40. And I would say the vast majority of them were incredibly interesting and fresh and original.”

“You think that every story has already been told and you come here and you realize that there are so many stories that haven’t been told,” he said. “And it reinvigorates me to see that there’s a whole new crop of people with incredibly fresh stories to tell. It’s really exciting.”

	At the Producers Conference, small group sessions are a chance for participants to ask panelists’ advice on their specific projects.
	Producers Ron Yerxa, George VanBuskirk, and Danielle Renfrew share their insights with independent producers at the 19th annual Producers Conference.

Fund Announces Support for Eleven Documentaries

The Sundance Documentary Fund recently announced its second round of funding for 2004. Grants were awarded to eleven projects, each of which focuses on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice or civil liberties. A committee of human rights experts and film professionals selected the feature-length documentaries from 400 films submitted from around the world.

Projects that have previously received development grants from the Fund and are currently in production or post-production are eligible for supplemental funding. Mercedes Moncada received supplemental funding for her current project, The Immortal (Nicaragua/Spain). In the film, Moncada investigates post-civil war Nicaragua and its current environment of religious manipulation, male chauvinism, and poverty.

Eight Work in Progress grants were awarded to films currently in production or post-production. Natalia Almada’s Al Otro Lodo (To the Other Side) (US), illuminates the economic crisis forcing many Mexicans to turn to drug trafficking or other dangerous border crossings by tracing the stories of three musicians as they travel to the U.S. from the Mexican drug capital of Sinaloa.

Raed Andoni’s Improvisation (Palestine) explores the conflict of identity faced by different generations of Palestinians, as told through the story of a family of musicians who are divided in their political views, but united by their passion for Oud and Arab classical music.

Why We Fight (US) by Eugene Jarecki is a look inside the anatomy of the American war machine, and moves beyond how the Iraq war was waged to the deeper question of why.

Anne Makepeace’s Refugee Dreams (US) chronicles a year in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave a legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in America.

Young members of Seattle’s Cambodian American community are faced with deportation after being convicted of various offenses. Nicole Newnham and David Grabias’ Sentenced Home (US) follows three such young men who are forced to leave behind their families and their lives in Seattle to return to Cambodia - a country they barely know.

Filmed in Afghanistan, Dennis O’Rourke’s Land Mines: A Love Story (Australia) reveals the stories of people whose lives and relationships have been defined by land mines.

By chronicling one man’s quest to bring the authors of the Screbrenica genocide to justice, Leslie Woodhead’s Hasan’s War (UK) reveals the continuing failures of the international community to take action against those known to commit mass killings.

Rounding out those films receiving Work in Progress grants is Sentenced to Marriage (Israel) by Anat Zuria. In the absence of civil procedures for marriage and divorce, three Israeli women must fight for their right to divorce – a resolution that can only be granted under the auspices of the Jewish Rabbinical Court.

Development grants are awarded to projects in the early stages of research or in the pre-production stage. The most recent round of funding included a development grant to international filmmaker Renata Gritskova for After (Belarus). A follow up to her earlier Prison Camp, After traces young men recently released from a Belarus prison as they attempt to assimilate to mainstream culture and lifestyle.

Sabiha Sumar also received development funding for her Musharraf’s Destiny (Pakistan), which explores the challenges facing President Musharraf in his attempts to contain Islamists and modernize Pakistan post-9/11.

The Fund accepts requests for funding throughout the year.

Hank Rogerson, a filmmaker supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, discusses his project, Shakespeare Behind Bars, with Producers Conference panelist Lois Vossen of PBS. In addition to receiving funding for his project from the Sundance Documentary Fund, Rogerson was invited to attend the Documentary Edit and Storytelling Lab, the Producers Conference, and the Documentary Composers Lab.

Free From Anywhere in the World: SOFF Takes the Festival Beyond Park City

When the Sundance Online Film Festival (SOFF) goes live on January 20, 2005, film lovers from Tokyo to Tulsa will gain free access to an online extension of the live Sundance Film Festival as it also kicks off in Park City. With a full range of programming including the same short films shown to Park City audiences, daily behind-the-scenes Festival coverage, and a special Frontier section presenting work made especially for the Web, SOFF 2005 will combine the energy of the live Festival experience with a platform for exciting work in new media.

Originally conceived as a showcase exclusively for Web-based work, SOFF was first launched in 2001 in the midst of the dot-com crash and just as the internet was on the verge of becoming a viable outlet for short films and experimental media. Festival programmers Trevor Groth and Shari Frilot recall that the online fest’s earliest incarnation grew out of a recognition that the Web allowed for innovations in the ways that artists could construct and present narratives.

“From day one, we saw that these completely new ways of storytelling were the future of the medium,” says Groth.

“We had to ask ourselves how we could nurture these kinds of filmmakers,” adds Frilot. “We were able to pick up where many commercial interests left off after the tech sector crashed. And as a festival rather than a for-profit venture, we’re in a unique position to support this type of work from an artistic standpoint.”

From the beginning, the possibilities and ideas for Web-based work seemed endless but technology and consumer interest lagged behind the creative potential of the medium. Five years later, technological advancements coupled with a nearly universal knowledge and use of the Web have led Festival organizers to re-think the full extent of what SOFF could be.

In April of this year, programmers assembled a group of tech leaders to discuss issues ranging from the site’s core objectives to specific features. Advisors including Mika Salmi of Atom Films, Sam Black of Pixar Animation, Jed Rosenzweig of Yahoo! Movies & Yahoo! TV, Cathy Fischer of ITVS Interactive, and Michael Gough of Macromedia, Inc. made a range of recommendations such as extending the life of SOFF beyond the ten-day run of the live Festival so that viewers can access content on demand. The site will be live through June of 2005, and content will be refreshed monthly.

“We came to see SOFF as a way for us to bring the live Festival to an audience that’s both bigger and more diverse than the people who come to Park City each year,” explains John Cooper, director of programming for the Festival. “We also wanted to continue to develop it as a site that gives focus to the most interesting Web-based work that’s out there.”

The result is a platform that takes the action of the Festival far beyond the boundaries of Park City, expands the audience in both size and scope for Festival shorts, and presents the most cutting-edge work being made for the Web.

The site’s Frontier section will feature work with some interactive element – work that engages viewers in the storytelling process by allowing them to change the point of view, construct a narrative, or create or choose certain visual elements. A segment of the site called Splinks will offer a rotating catalogue of links to other Web sites that programmers deem especially inventive. “We’re looking for crazy, cool, smart, interesting stuff,” says Groth.

“We’re a Festival of discovery,” says Frilot, “and that drives a lot of the choices that we make. I think you really see that in the way that SOFF has evolved and in the kind of work we want to present to online audiences.”

SOFF 2005 is now actively seeking submissions for its Frontier and Splinks sections. The submissions deadline is September 24, 2004. Click here for a submissions form and for more information about submissions guidelines

Ahnold for Governor was one of the short films featured on SOFF in 2004. From directors Gregg Spiridellis and Evan Spiridellis of Jib-Jab, it took a punch at last year's recall election in "Kaleefornya."

Call for Entries: 2005 Sundance Film Festival
Submission deadlines are quickly approaching for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. All short film submissions are due September 3, and all feature-length submissions are due September 24.

This year, Festival programmers are actively focused on securing world premieres from U.S. and international filmmakers. The 2005 Festival will present roughly 120 feature-length films in seven distinct categories and 80 shorts.

16 narrative films and 12 documentaries will compete in the newly created World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions. To be eligible for the new international competition, films must be U.S. premieres though world premieres will be granted special consideration. To be eligible for the long-standing American Dramatic and Documentary Competitions, films must be prepared to have their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.

International and American films not selected for their respective Competitions are eligible for the Festival’s other categories, including Premiere, Park City at Midnight, and Frontier. American films are also eligible for the American Spectrum section. The Festival presents a separate competition for short films which are selected to screen before feature-length films at the Festival. The Festival will run January 20-30, 2005 in Park City, Utah.

Click here to learn more about submitting a film to the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Be sure not to miss this fall’s Sundance Salons in Los Angeles and New York. Patron Circle members will have the unique opportunity to meet Sundance artists and preview their current work.

Along with the Sundance Salons, the Patron Circle office has been planning special events for Patron Circle members during the 2005 Film Festival. Members will be invited to a private reception with Sundance Institute Trustees and Festival Filmmakers, a Patron Circle screening, and a special Awards Night celebration.

To learn more about the Sundance Salons and Patron Circle Festival events, click here. If you are interested in learning more about the Patron Circle please click here or e-mail patroncircle@sundance.org

Sundance Outdoor Film Festival Closes
August 23 marked the end of the Institute’s free, weekly outdoor screening series in Salt Lake City, Park City, and at Sundance Village. Seven films were shown in each of the three locations during the run of the series, which presented some of the most memorable work to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in recent years. The screenings attracted a total of 3300 audience members.

	The reels and prints are prepared for one of the screenings of the eight-week Sundance Outdoor Film Festival.
	Audience members settle in for the outdoor festival’s screening of The Secret of Roan Inish by indie film legend John Sayles. The free festival is part of the Institute’s Arts and Audiences: Utah initiative.