Charles Robert Redford Jr. is an American filmmaker and retired actor. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014.
Boxing Helena is a 1993 American Avant-garde thriller film directed by Jennifer Lynch and starring Sherilyn Fenn, Julian Sands, and Bill Paxton. Before its release, the film's production was hampered by legal battles with Madonna and Kim Basinger, who both backed out of playing Helena. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1993, where it was received poorly. After receiving an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, the film was given an R rating on appeal and released in the United States in September 1993. It was a critical and financial failure.
Gregg Araki is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film Kaboom (2010) was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm.
Morgan J. Freeman is an American film director. In 1997, his debut feature, Hurricane Streets, won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
Debra Granik is an American filmmaker. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
Kyle Jarrow is a Los Angeles–based writer and rock musician.
Sam Green is an American documentary filmmaker. His most recent projects are “live documentaries” in which he narrates a film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. His 2018 project A Thousand Thoughts features a live score by the Kronos Quartet, and his 2012 project The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller featured a live score by the band Yo La Tengo. Green's 2004 film The Weather Underground was nominated for an Academy Award, included in the Whitney Biennial, and broadcast nationally on PBS.
Trouble the Water is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. The film centers on a young couple surviving Hurricane Katrina, and facing their own troubled past during the storm's aftermath. It features music by Massive Attack, Mary Mary, Citizen Cope, John Lee Hooker, The Roots, Dr. John and Blackkoldmadina. Trouble the Water was distributed by Zeitgeist Films and premiered in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on August 22, 2008, followed by a national release.
Habib Azar is an American film, theater and television director based in New York City. He married his wife, Carla Azar, in 2011, and has two children.
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, or simply Precious, is a 2009 American drama film, directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels. Its script was written by Geoffrey S. Fletcher, adapted from the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique, alongside Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, and Lenny Kravitz. This marked the acting debut of Sidibe, who portrays a young woman struggling against poverty and abuse. Filming took place in New York City from October to November 2007.
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers from all over the world. At the core of the programs is the goal to introduce audiences to the artists' new work, aided by the institute's labs, granting and mentorship programs that take place throughout the year in the United States and internationally.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.
Jack Goes Boating is a 2010 American romantic drama film directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and stars Hoffman in the title role, as well as Amy Ryan, John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega. The film's script was written by Robert Glaudini, based on his 2007 play Jack Goes Boating. The film's cast was mostly the same as that of the play's premiere at The Public Theater, although Amy Ryan replaced Beth Cole. The film was produced by Overture Films and Relativity Media. It premiered at the 26th Sundance Film Festival and was later released in the United States on September 17, 2010.
The 27th annual Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20, 2011 until January 30, 2011 in Park City, Utah, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah.
Lee Isaac Chung is an American filmmaker. His debut feature Munyurangabo (2007) was an official selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.
Sebastián Silva Irarrázabal is a Chilean director, actor, screenwriter, painter, and musician.
Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.
