The New York Television Festival (NYTVF) is a yearly festival dedicated to the celebration and promotion of independent small-screen productions, web series, and television. [1]
The festival was founded in 2005, and is held in venues across New York City. [2] Its main event is the Independent Pilot Competition, [3] which showcases independent television pilots to industry executives and producers. [4] [5] HBO, NBC Universal, A&E, and many other networks, have all made regular appearances at the festival, while pilots in the competition have received development deals. [6] In addition to the pilot competition, the festival hosts parties, seminars, and other events to honor television as an institution and as an art form. [1]
New York Magazine dubbed the festival "small screen Sundance". [7] In 2017, Tubefilter described the festival's competition slate as "diverse", noting that "44% of all selected projects feature people of color as either creator, writer, or director" and that "71% of the projects feature at least one woman in a core creative role". [8]
John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).
Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall is an American actress and filmmaker. Her film appearances include The Faculty (1998); But I'm a Cheerleader; Girl, Interrupted ; Ghosts of Mars (2001); Identity;21 Grams ; The Grudge (2004); Zodiac (2007); and Argo (2012). On television, DuVall starred as Emma Borden in Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014) and its miniseries spinoff, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015). Her other credits include Carnivàle (2003–2005), Heroes (2006–2007), American Horror Story (2012–2013), Better Call Saul (2015–2017), Veep (2016–2019), and The Handmaid's Tale (2018–2022). She also voiced Elsa on Fox's HouseBroken, which she co-created, from 2021 to 2023.
Justin Lin is a Taiwanese-American film and television director, producer, and screenwriter. His films have grossed over $3 billion USD worldwide as of March 2017. He is best known for his directorial work on Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), the Fast & Furious franchise from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) to Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and F9 (2021), and Star Trek Beyond (2016). He is also known for his work on television programs like Community, and True Detective.
Patrik-Ian Polk is an American director, screenwriter, and producer. Polk, who is gay, is noted for his films and theatre work that explore the experiences and stories of African-American LGBT people. In 2016, Polk was included in the Los Angeles Times Diverse 100 list, which described him as "the man bringing black gay stories to screens large and small".
R. J. Cutler is an American filmmaker, documentarian, television producer and theater director.
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a documentary film about the late American civil rights attorney William Kunstler directed by daughters Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler that premiered at the 25th Sundance Film Festival in January 2009.
Dan McNamara is an American artist and humorist who works primarily with video and special effects. McNamara's works include the animated web series The Bear, The Cloud, and God, which appeared on Comedy Central, G4 TV, and Channel Frederator. Four of his projects have been screened at the New York Television Festival, including Redeeming Rainbow, featuring performances by Kristen Schaal and Ellie Kemper.
Tamara Jenkins is an American filmmaker and occasional actress. She is best known for her feature films Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), The Savages (2007), and Private Life (2018).
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.
The Film Collaborative (TFC) is an American non-profit organization. Based in Los Angeles, The Film Collaborative services filmmakers worldwide by providing distribution guidance and support as well as theatrical, film festival and digital distribution of art house, independent and world cinema.
Azazel Jacobs is an American film director and screenwriter. He is the son of experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. His short films include Kirk and Kerry (1997) and Message Machine (2002), and his features include the acclaimed The GoodTimesKid (2005), Momma's Man (2008), Terri (2011), The Lovers (2017), French Exit (2020), and His Three Daughters (2023).
Papillon is a live action comedy series about an ultra-discount airline, starring Kevin McDonald of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. The project was produced in 2011 as part of the first funded web series by the Independent Production Fund. Papillon is about the excruciating realities of modern air travel and features a motley crew led by cowboy pilot, his co-pilot with a debilitating fear of flying, and two flight attendants.
Tooty's Wedding is a 2010 short comedy film, written by Perrier Award Winners Ben Willbond and Laura Solon and directed by Frederic Casella. It was screened as part of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, having been selected from a record 7,675 submissions.
C.J. Obasi is a Nigerian film director, screenwriter and editor.
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.
Craig William Macneill is an American film director, writer, and editor. His feature film Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, premiered in the U.S Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film was acquired by Roadside Attractions and Saban Films and released theatrically in the fall of 2018. Macneill's first feature film, The Boy, premiered in the narrative competition at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and which was also based on a previous short film he co-wrote, directed, and edited titled Henley, which screened in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the grand jury prize for "Best Short Film" at the Gen Art Film Festival and Clint Eastwood’s Carmel Film and Arts Film Festival. In 2016.
Reed Morano is an American film director and cinematographer. Morano was the first woman in history to win both the Emmy and Directors Guild Award for directing a drama series in the same year for the pilot episode of The Handmaid's Tale. Morano is known for her cinematography work on feature films such as Frozen River (2008), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and The Skeleton Twins (2014).
Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker, most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.
Jeff Galfer is an American actor, producer, and writer who has appeared on television shows such as Homeland, Hawaii Five-0, Steven Spielberg and Jason Blum's The River, the CBS series Scorpion, and the Titmouse, Inc. animated series Little Big Awesome, where he voiced multiple characters.
Alison Rich is an American actress, writer, and director. She is best known for her acting on The Goldbergs and The Other Two and for her short films that have played Sundance and SXSW.
