[caption id="attachment_3013" align="alignnone" width="550"]Dear Mandela [/caption]

Sundance Institute announced the 25 feature-length documentary films that will receive $550,000 in grants from its Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP). 

Granted filmmakers reflect a range of experience, including five first-time feature filmmakers as well as noted documentarians Fred Wiseman, Sam Pollard and Jehane Noujaim. In-country filmmakers include those in Africa (Ghana), India and China, and additional countries of production include Afghanistan, Nepal, Senegal and Egypt.

DEVELOPMENT

Boomtown (U.S.) 
Director: Beth Murphy 
A modern day Grapes of Wrath story is playing out across America as families pack their bags and head to North Dakota in search of the American Dream.

Bukom Fighter (Ghana) 
Director: Makafui Zimrani 
A nine year old boy from a shanty town in Ghana tries to create hope for himself using the only resource at his disposal; the power of his fists.

Chameleon (Canada / Ghana)
Director: Ryan Mullins 
Africa’s most famed investigative reporter, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, takes us deep undercover for his own brand of brazen journalism.

Perry vs. Schwarzenegger (U.S.)
Directors: Ryan White and Ben Cotner
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that challenges California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Perry v. Schwarzenegger, filed by two couples with an unlikely legal team, has now reached the nation’s highest court and is poised to be the first ruling on the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry.

Rise and Fall of ACORN (U.S.)
Directors: Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard
In 2009 a national community-organizing group was destroyed. The complex story of ACORN involves a journalist posing as a pimp, embezzlement, and voter fraud.

PRODUCTION / POST-PRODUCTION

99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film (U.S.)
Directors: Audrey Ewell, Aaron Aites, Lucian Read, Nina Krstic
The Occupy movement erupted in September 2011, propelling economic inequality into the spotlight. In an unprecedented collaboration, filmmakers across America tell its story, digging into big picture issues as organizers, analysts, participants and critics reveal how it happened and why.

After Tiller (U.S.)
Directors: Martha Shane and Lana Wilson
Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in 2009, only four doctors in the country provide late-term abortions. With unprecedented access, After Tiller goes inside the lives of these physicians working at the center of the storm.

At Berkeley (U.S.)
Director: Frederick Wiseman
A world renowned, public university strives to maintain its academic excellence, public role, and the economic, racial and social diversity of the student body in the face of severe budget cuts by the California Legislature.

A Blind Eye (U.S. / Afghanistan)
Director: Kirsten Johnson
A one-eyed boy struggles to hide what really haunts him. A bold teenage girl defies convention, out running her nightmares of the Taliban, but still too afraid to show her face in a film. A U.S. Military surveillance blimp in the sky over Kabul tracks their every move.

Dirty Wars (U.S.)
Director: Richard Rowley 
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill chases down the truth behind America’s covert wars.

The Faun Experiment (U.S.)
Directors: Tamar Rogoff and Daisy Wright
He expected to be in a wheelchair by age 40 with cerebral palsy. Instead, Gregg Mozgala embarks on a dance project with choreographer Tamar Rogoff. As art overturns science his life is forever changed.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (U.S. / Nepal)
Directors: Amy Benson and Scott Squire, Co-Director: Ramyata Limbu
Shanta is an Untouchable Nepali girl with a rare opportunity to break her family’s cycle of poverty, through education. But, a year from graduation, Shanta falls victim to globalization’s new epidemic: suicide.

The Kill Team (U.S.)
Director: Dan Krauss 
An American soldier attempts to expose U.S. war crimes even more heinous than Abu Ghraib and then is himself charged with premeditated murder.

Mr. President (U.S. / Senegal)
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
President Abdoulaye Wade challenged Senegal’s constitutional term limits and ran for re-election. The election and pro-democracy movement is seen from both sides, ultimately documenting a chapter of African Spring.

The New Black (U.S.) 
Director: Yoruba Richen 
The New Black uncovers the complicated and often combative histories of the African-American and LGBT civil-rights movements.

Powerless (India) 
Directors: Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar 
In a city with 15-hour power outages, a nimble young electrician provides robin-hood style services to the poor. Meanwhile, the first female chief of the electricity supply company is on a mission to dismantle the illegal connections, for good.

Provenance (U.S.)
Director: Amie Siegel
Artist and filmmaker Amie Siegel traces the journey of Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret designs in reverse — the economic circuit and life of objects, revealed across three continents. Without interviews, actors or voice-over, these coveted items are the protagonists of this story.

Regarding Susan Sontag (U.S.)
Director: Nancy Kates 
The late writer, activist and public intellectual Susan Sontag was a study in contrasts; a courageous public figure who remained a closeted lesbian. The film examines her contributions to culture and her views, as a thinker and activist, on war, terrorism, torture and other contemporary issues.

Rich Hill (U.S.)
Directors: Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo
Rich Hill is the coming of age story of kids in a dying American town who find strength in unlikely places

Running in the City (China)
Director: FAN Jian
More than 240 million migrant workers who labor inside China aren’t acknowledged as urban residents due to China’s household registration policy. This is a story of one family’s rebellion.

The Shadow World (U.S. / Belgium) 
Director: Johan Grimonprez 
This feature documentary explores the international arms industry: a business in which wins and losses are counted in human lives.

The Square (Egypt / U.S.) 
Director: Jehane Noujaim
What does it mean to risk your life for your ideals? How far will five revolutionaries go in defending their beliefs in the fight for their nation?

Solarize This (U.S.)
Director: Shalini Kantayya 
In a city where oil spills, ecological red-alerts, and poverty are commonplace,Solarize This asks the hard questions of how a clean energy economy may actually be built, through the stories of three unemployed American workers seeking to retool at a solar power jobs training program in Richmond, California.

Uranium Drive-In (U.S.)
Director: Suzan Beraza
A proposed uranium mill gives an economically devastated mining community in Colorado hope of jobs for the first time in decades. When environmentalists step in to stop the uranium, pro-mill advocates are enraged. Is uranium worth it?

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

Dear Mandela (South Africa / U.S.)
Directors: Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza
When their shantytowns are threatened with mass eviction, three ‘young lions’ of South Africa’s new generation rise from the shacks and build a strong social movement to challenge their government in the highest court in the land, putting the promises of democracy to the test.

The Audience Engagement Award for Dear Mandela will support strategic exchanges between international human rights defenders, diplomats and law students poised to take action on the issues of evictions and housing rights, and a screening tour featuring a youth leadership initiative for shantytown dwellers in affected countries including Haiti, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, India and Brazil.

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Sundance Institute has selected 12 projects for its 2013 January Screenwriters Lab, an immersive, five-day (January 11-16) writers’ workshop at the Sundance Resort in Utah. Participating independent screenwriters – drawn from around the world, including the United States, Iran, Europe, Mexico, and Somalia – will have the opportunity to work intensely on their feature film scripts with the support of established writers. The 2013 Lab is dedicated to the memory of Frank Pierson (1925-2012), a founding creative advisor of the Feature Film Program whose body of work and generosity as a mentor served as an inspiration to countless writers.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Across all Sundance Institute Labs, which include offerings for various forms of artistic expression, the constant is creating an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. We look forward to building a unique community of artists at our Lab, in support of these emerging screenwriters and their stories.”

Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, said, “We are thrilled to welcome the new group of writers to the Lab whose stories are timely, ambitious and singular in their vision and independent voice. Exploring themes that resonate across cultures, the writers have found diverse and dynamic approaches to storytelling that will inspire and move audiences in the years to come. The January Screenwriters Labs marks the beginning of a rigorous year-round process of creative and tactical support which is tailored to the needs of each individual project and extends from script development to connecting with audiences.”

The Fellows will work with a distinguished group of creative advisors at the Lab, including Marcos Bernstein, D.V. DeVincentis, Michael Goldenberg, Susannah Grant, Walter Mosley, Marti Noxon, Anjum Rajabali, Howard Rodman, David Seidler, Susan Shilliday, Zach Sklar, Dana Stevens, Robin Swicord, Mike White, Tyger Williams and Erin Cressida Wilson.

The projects and Fellows selected for the 2013 January Screenwriters Lab are:

700th and International (U.S.A.)

Chinaka Hodge (writer)
A trash-talking hood track phenomenon named Tuka dies by an unexpected bullet; she awakes to find herself in a corrupt version of heaven where everyone has a job—namely, to decide the exact moment of death for someone still living on earth. 

Chinaka Hodge is a poet, educator and playwright from Oakland, California. She received her BA from NYU’s Gallatin School and her MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. After nearly a decade of performing her own words around the globe and on two seasons of Def Poetry, she made the transition to the screen and received her first credit for Brave New Voices on HBO. 

The Adderall Diaries (U.S.A.)
Pamela Romanowsky (writer/director)
While covering a real-life murder mystery, writer Stephen Elliott realizes he’d rather investigate his own dysfunctional relationships with women, his father and himself. Based on the memoir by Stephen Elliott.

Born and raised in Minnesota, Pamela Romanowsky moved to New York to attend NYU’s Graduate Film Program. Her short film Gravity premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and won the National Board of Review and the Wasserman/King Foundation’s student filmmaking awards. Her most recent directorial effort is TAR(James Franco, Mila Kunis, Jessica Chastain, Zach Braff), a multi-director omnibus based on the life and poetry of CK Williams.

Avalanche (Iran)
Morteza Farshbaf (co-writer/director) and Anahita Ghazvinizadeh (co-writer)
When a nurse takes the graveyard shift, a period of sleeplessness and solitude leaves her with a new perspective on her life.

Morteza Farshbaf is an Iranian writer and filmmaker. He studied cinema at the Tehran University of Art, during which time he was a student of and assistant for Abbas Kiarostami. After making several short films, Farshbaf’s first feature Mourningwon the New Currents Award and FIPRESCI Prize at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival. 

Anahita Ghazvinizadeh is an Iranian writer and filmmaker. She studied cinema in Tehran and is continuing her education in film in the United States. She was also a student of Kiarostami, and has made short films in Iran and the US. She has collaborated with Farshbaf on several projects, including as a co-writer of Mourning.

Franny (U.S.A.)
Andrew Renzi (writer/director)
When the daughter and new husband of late family friends move back to Philadelphia, a larger-than-life but damaged man cannot control his desire to recreate the past.

Andrew F. Renzi wrote and directed the short film The Fort, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. His newest short film, Karaoke!, will premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Previously, Renzi worked with the New York production company Borderline Films on Antonio Campos’ Afterschool (Cannes 2008) and Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep (Cannes 2010).

The Incident (U.S.A)
Jan Kwiecinski (writer/director)
When a young man decides to cover up an accidental murder, his whole life comes into focus in ways he never expected.

Jan Kwiecinski graduated from the filmmaking departments of the London Film School and the Wajda’s Master School of Directing. His award-winning short film,The Incident, screened internationally at many festivals including the Shanghai International Film Festival and the T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival. Recently, Kwiecinski directed the segment entitled Fawns of the omnibus feature The Fourth Dimension, co-directed by Alexey Fedorchenko and Harmony Korine. The film premiered in the Narrative Competition at the 2012 San Francisco Film Festival.

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (U.K. / Germany / U.S.A.)
Eva Weber (co-writer/director) and Vendela Vida (co-writer)
Twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa discovers on the day of her father’s funeral that everything she believed about her life was a lie. She flees New York and travels to the Arctic Circle to uncover the secrets of her mother who mysteriously vanished when Clarissa was fourteen. Based on Vendela Vida’s novel.

Originally from Germany, Eva Weber is a London-based filmmaker working in both documentary and fiction. Her award-winning films have screened at numerous international film festivals, including Sundance, Edinburgh, SXSW, BFI London, and Telluride; and have also been broadcast on UK and international television. Her documentary short film The Solitary Life of Cranes was selected as one of the top five films of the year by critic Nick Bradshaw in Sight & Sound’s annual film review in 2008.

Vendela Vida is the author of four books, including the novels Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers. She is a founding co-editor of the Believermagazine and co-writer of the film Away We Go, which was directed by Sam Mendes.

Love After Love (U.S.A.)
Russell Harbaugh (writer/director)
Taking place over the course of several years, Love After Love is a messy, autobiographical love story about grief, sex and the separation of a family.

Russell Harbaugh’s short film Rolling on the Floor Laughing played the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and many other festivals around the world including the FSLC/MoMA co-curated New Directors/New Films, Maryland Film Festival, Sarasota International Film Festival, Milano, Warsaw, and others. Previously, Harbaugh was the assistant to Eric Mendelsohn on the film 3 Backyards, which earned the Best Director award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Harbaugh received his MFA from Columbia University in 2011 and is originally from Evansville, Indiana. He lives in New York. 

Maanokoobiyo (Somalia/U.S.A.)
K’naan (writer/director)
In war-torn Somalia, an artistic orphan named Maano joins the mercenary killing squad of a notorious warlord, only to discover his adoptive father and gang leader is responsible for wiping out his family.

K’naan is a Somali poet, rapper and singer, songwriter. He spent his childhood in Mogadishu, Somalia and was on one of the last commercial flights out of the country before its collapse. He rose to prominence with the success of his song “Wavin’ Flag” after it was chosen as the anthem of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He lives in New York. 

Mercy Road (U.S.A.)
Ian Hendrie (co-writer/co-director) and Jyson McLean (co-writer/co-director)
Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the political and spiritual odyssey of a small town housewife as she turns from peaceful pro-life activist to underground militant willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.

Ian Hendrie is a San Francisco-based director, screenwriter, producer. He is also the co-founder of Fantoma Films, a production company and independent DVD label which has been releasing premium edition DVDs of films by such famed auteurs as Francis Ford Coppola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Samuel Fuller, Fritz Lang, Kenneth Anger and Alex Cox, among others, since 1999. Along with Jyson McLean, Hendrie was the recipient of the Fall 2011 San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grant for Screenwriting for Mercy Road.

Jyson McLean began making short films in high school. He attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and shortly thereafter began directing commercials and music videos, which have aired nationally and overseas. His commercial credits include spots for Bud Light, Career Builder and Quaker Oats. He has won the Gold ITVA PEER award three years in a row, and has worked with numerous award-winning advertising agencies including DDB Los Angeles, BBDO London and Fred & Farid, Paris.

State Like Sleep (U.S.A.)
Meredith Danluck (writer/director)
Under the surreal cloud cover of northern Europe, a young American widow reluctantly revisits her past when her mother is hospitalized in Brussels. While coping with the bleak reality of parental loss, Katherine explores her deceased husband’s secret life of underground sex clubs and finds comfort in a relationship with a stranger as equally broken as she is.

Meredith Danluck is an artist and filmmaker. Her work has screened at major art institutions internationally including MoMA, PS1, Venice Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, and Reina Sofia, as well as various film festivals including SXSW, TIFF, Doc NYC, Margaret Mead and Hamburg International. This year, as part of the New Frontier exhibition at the Sundance Film Festival, she will be showing her four-screen film installation North of South, West of East.

Zeus (Mexico)
Miguel Calderón (writer/director)
Sporadically employed and still living with his mother, Joel finds his only joy in falconry in the flatlands outside Mexico City, until an encounter with a down-to-earth secretary forces him to face reality.

Miguel Calderón is a visual artist working in various mediums, notably photography, video and writing. His exhibitions have been included at the Sao Paolo Biennial, Museo Tamayo, Yokohama Triennial, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and Jumex Collection. He lives in Mexico City.

via press relase – Sundance Institute

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