Mary Harron is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter, and former entertainment critic. She gained recognition for her role in writing and directing several independent films, including I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). She co-wrote American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page with Guinevere Turner.
Viktor Anatolyevich Bout is a Russian arms dealer. An entrepreneur and former Soviet military translator, he reportedly used his multiple air transport companies to smuggle weapons since the collapse of the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s. Bout was nicknamed the Merchant of Death and Sanctions Buster for his reported wide-reaching operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes.
James Allan Schamus is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal.
Christian Frei is a Swiss filmmaker and film producer. He is mostly known for his films War Photographer (2001), The Giant Buddhas (2005) and Space Tourists (2009).
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.
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 more than 46,660 attending in 2016. It takes place each 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.
Tony Gerber is an American filmmaker and the co-founder of Market Road Films, an independent production company.
The Better Angels is a 2014 American biographical historical drama film about United States President Abraham Lincoln's formative years. It was written and directed by A. J. Edwards and produced by Terrence Malick.
Maxim Pozdorovkin is a Russian-American filmmaker based in New York. He is the director of The Truth About Killer Robots, an HBO documentary that premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. The Truth About Killer Robots was described by The Guardian as "the year's most terrifying documentary". His film Our New President premiered at Sundance 2018 where it won a Special Jury Award. Variety also listed it as one of the ten best films from the festival. Pozdorovkin's other films include: Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, The Notorious Mr. Bout, Clinica de Migrantes (HBO). Upcoming feature documentary How to Rob Banks For Dummies is currently in post-production.
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with Whiplash directed by Damien Chazelle and closed with musical drama Rudderless directed by William H. Macy.
Ivory Tower is a 2014 American documentary film written, directed and produced by Andrew Rossi. The film premiered in competition category of U.S. Documentary Competition program at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014.
Mr Leos caraX is a 2014 French documentary film written, directed and produced by Tessa Louise-Salomé. The film premiered in-competition in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2014.
Sterlin Harjo is an American filmmaker. He has directed three feature films, a feature documentary, and the FX comedy series Reservation Dogs, all of them set in his home state of Oklahoma and concerned primarily with Native American people and content.
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a 2015 documentary film about Scientology. Directed by Alex Gibney and produced by HBO, it is based on Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief (2013). The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It received widespread praise from critics and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning three, including Best Documentary. It also received a 2015 Peabody Award and won the award for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.
Jesse Moss is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer known for his cinéma vérité style. His 2014 film, The Overnighters, was shortlisted for best documentary feature at the Oscars. He has directed four independent, feature-length films, and three television documentaries and has produced 15 documentaries.
Matthew Heineman is an American filmmaker. The Sundance Film Festival called Heineman "one of the most talented and exciting documentary filmmakers working today", while Anne Thompson of Indiewire wrote that Heineman is a "respected and gifted filmmaker who combines gonzo fearlessness with empathetic sensitivity." He recently received a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First Time Feature Film Director from the Directors Guild of America for his narrative debut A Private War, making Heineman and Martin Scorsese the only filmmakers ever nominated for both narrative and documentary DGA Awards.
The 2018 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 18 to January 28, 2018. The first lineup of competition films was announced on November 29, 2017.
Our New President is a 2018 documentary produced by Third Party Films. It follows the story of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and is told entirely through footage from Russian state-sponsored media. Our New President is a satire about the Russian media and its take on American politics.
Lance Oppenheim is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and producer from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His work blends cinematic genres to explore the lives of people who create homes in unconventional spaces and places. His debut feature Some Kind of Heaven (2020) was an Official Selection at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
