Industry

Sundance Institute announced the twenty two Documentary Film Program grant recipients for Fall 2010. Selected feature-length documentary films, chosen from nearly 450 projects from 80 countries, will receive $550,000 in support. Two of the 22 projects listed below are to receive a grant from the Sundance | Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute, part of a $1.5 million three-year grant funded by Cinereach. A portion of the grant is for emergency or discretionary grants and support for risk-taking documentaries on pressing global issues, as well as support.

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Sundance Institute has selected twelve projects for the annual January Screenwriters Lab, to be held January 14-19, 2011 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. The Screenwriters Lab is a five-day writers’ workshop that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensely on their feature film scripts with the support of established writers in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. Through one-on-one story sessions, fellows engage in an artistically rigorous process that offers them indispensable lessons in craft, as well as the means to do the deep exploration needed to fully realize their material.

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The San Francisco Film Society and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced the five winners of the fourth round of SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants. The grants are given twice annually to filmmakers for narrative feature films with social justice themes that will have significant economic or professional impact on the Bay Area filmmaking community. Between 2009 and 2013 the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grants will award more than $3 million, including a total of $275,000 already awarded.

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IFC Films announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to director Joe Swanberg’s UNCLE KENT. The film, which stars Kent Osborne, Jennifer Prediger, Josephine Decker, and Swanberg himself, will premiere as part of the Spotlight section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

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Following up on last month’s announcement of the Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue initiative, Sundance Institute announced today the ten films selected to participate in the inaugural year of this cultural exchange program. The first Film Forward slate includes five American and five international films which will be presented in collaboration with public and private partners. These films and their filmmakers will kick off the ambitious project in New York and Tunisia in December.

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A Los Angeles judge today ruled against the food company Dole, and awarded $200,000 in attorneys fees and costs as punishment for filing a defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers behind the documentary Bananas!*.

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Rapper Ja Rule will reportedly be starring in faith-based movie called “I’m in Love with a Church Girl,” alongside Stephen Baldwin and Adrienne Bailon.

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Tribeca Film has acquired US rights to The Bang Bang Club, a gripping drama based on the incredible lives of a group of young photojournalists whose graphic images drew the world’s attention to South Africa during the last stages of apartheid while enduring the stresses, tensions, and moral dilemmas of working in situations of extreme conflict.

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It took seven years but Colorado filmmaker Neil Truglio, has written and directed his very first feature film, We Are the Sea.

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The San Francisco Film Society announced today the finalists and honorable mention for the second SFFS/Hearst Screenwriting Grant. The grant of $15,000 will be awarded to a mid-career screenwriter who has been a practicing writer for at least five years and who has previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. The grant is open to writers residing in the United States whose project expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to the subject. Priority is given to writers whose previous short or feature screenplays have been produced as independent films. The finalists were selected from 91 applicants submitted in response to a nationwide call for entries.

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White Irish Drinkers, now has a US Spring 2011 theatrical release date, after Screen Media Films acquired North American rights. The film which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2010 Woodstock Film Festival, was written and directed by John Gray,and stars Nick Thurston, Geoff Wigdor and Leslie Murphy.

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Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” grossed $265,925 from just 4 theaters in New York and Los Angeles, the year’s second-highest per-screen average of $66,481, and the best per-theater-average, of director Danny Boyle’s career. “The Kids Are All Right” holds the record for the year’s best per-theater-average of $70,282 from 7 screens in July.

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