Sundance 2007 Jury
by Andre Soares
From the Sundance 07 website:
The Sundance Film Festival is the premier showcase for American independent film, is an important new platform for International independent film, and screens films that embody risk-taking, diversity, and aesthetic innovation. These award winning films are selected annually by distinguished Jurors in the categories of American Dramatic & Documentary Competitions, World Cinema Dramatic & Documentary Competitions, the Short Film Competition and the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.
Jury, Independent Film Competition: Documentary
Alan Berliner
Alan Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers. His films include Wide Awake, which screened at Sundance last year, The Sweetest Sound (2001), Nobody’s Business (1996), Intimate Stranger (Sundance 1992), and The Family Album (Sundance 1988). They have been broadcast worldwide, received awards at major international film festivals, and become part of the curriculum for filmmaking classes at universities around the world. In March 2006, the International Documentary Association awarded Berliner an International Trailblazer Award for “creativity, innovation, originality, and breakthrough in documentary filmmaking.” In November, he received a career retrospective at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Berliner teaches courses at NYU and the New School University in New York City.
Lewis Erskine
Lewis Erskine occasionally describes himself as a technoweenie and computer nerd. Being paid to edit films for him is like a scholarship to graduate school, except that no one ever claps for a term paper. His editing ear was honed by mixing sound for records (yes, records) and listening to 1970s Black radio, and his eye was trained by watching the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grow. Erskine is celebrating his twentieth year as an editor. He has a beautiful son and a wonderful mother, prefers poetry to prose, and sails when time, weather, and inspiration (read, cash) coincide.
Lauren Greenfield
Acclaimed photographer Lauren Greenfield is considered a preeminent chronicler of youth culture as a result of her groundbreaking projects Girl Culture and Fast Forward. Her photographs have been widely published and exhibited and are in many museum collections. Greenfield’s first documentary film, Thin, premiered in the documentary competition at Sundance last year. It won the Grierson Award for best documentary at the London Film Festival, as well as the Grand Jury Prize at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, the Newport International Film Festival, and the Jackson Hole Film Festival. American Photo named Greenfield one of the 25 most influential photographers working today. Her photographs have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Time, ELLE, and American Photo. She lives in Venice, California, with her husband, Frank Evers, and their two sons.
Julia Reichert
Julia Reichert is a two-time Academy Award nominee for best feature documentary for Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists, which screened at Sundance in 1984, and Union Maids (1976). These films and two others, Growing Up Female and Methadone: An American Way of Dealing, all screened on PBS. Reichert cowrote, produced, and directed the feature film Emma and Elvis and coproduced The Dream Catcher. Her most recent project, with Steven Bognar, is A Lion in the House, which premiered in last year’s documentary competition and went on to win numerous awards, was broadcast on PBS, and is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Reichert has also worked for years to build the independent film community, and Filmmaker magazine named her one of the godmothers of American independent film.
Carlos Sandoval
Carlos Sandoval is the coproducer/director of Farmingville, which has won numerous awards, including a Special Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. He is currently at work on A Class Apart, a documentary about the untold story of the early Mexican American civil-rights movement. Lawyer and writer Sandoval’s work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times. His play, The Wolfman and His Wife, was part of the reading series at the Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis. Formerly a litigator, Sandoval also worked on immigration and refugee affairs as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, and as a program officer for the Century Foundation. Currently on the board of AFS-USA, Sandoval has also served on the boards of the Community Research Initiative on Aids (CRIA) and Ballet Hispanico.
Jury, Independent Film Competition: Dramatic
Mos Def
Regarded as one of hip-hop’s most introspective and insightful artists, Mos Def has shaped a career that transcends musical genres and artistic media. With the release of Universal Magnetic in 1996, Def became an underground favorite in the hip-hop world, leading to his legendary collaboration with Talib Kweli. As an actor, Def has appeared in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Monster’s Ball, and Brown Sugar, for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination. Other films include The Italian Job, The Woodsman, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Journey to the End of the Night. Def made his Broadway debut in 2002 in Topdog/Underdog and won an Obie for his performance in Fucking A. On television, his performance in the critically acclaimed HBO movie Something the Lord Made earned him Emmy, Golden Globe, and Golden Satellite Award nominations.
Catherine Hardwicke
By choosing thought-provoking and controversial material, Catherine Hardwicke has secured her place as an auteur and a member of an all-too-diminutive group of female directors. Her most recent directorial efforts are the historical drama The Nativity Story and the skateboarding biopic Lords of Dogtown. Hardwicke’s feature-film directorial and screenwriting debut was the critically acclaimed film thirteen, which won the Directing Award at Sundance in 2003. The film went on to win top awards at the Deauville, Locarno, and Nantucket film festivals and earn an Independent Spirt Award nomination for Evan Rachel Wood, Golden Globe nominations for Wood and Holly Hunter, and an Academy Award nomination for Hunter. Hardwicke is also an accomplished production designer with more than 20 films to her credit, including work with Cameron Crowe, David O. Russell, Costa-Gavras, Lisa Cholodenko, and Richard Linklater.
Pamela Martin
Pamela Martin is a feature-film editor who has many credits to her name, including Little Miss Sunshine, the sleeper hit of last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Saved!, How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog, Slums of Beverly Hills, The House of Yes, The Substance of Fire, Ed’s Next Move, and Spanking the Monkey, which won the Audience Award at Sundance in 1994. She also served as associate editor on What Happened Was…, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance the same year. Martin has also worked with director Ang Lee as the dialogue editor on Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet.
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley has been writing and directing in Canada for the last several years. She directed the short films The Best Day of My Life, Don’t Think Twice, and I Shout Love, which won a 2003 Genie Award for best live-action short. Away from Her, this year’s Salt Lake Opening Night film, is her first full-length directorial effort. Polley began acting at four, but it was her performance in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter that marked her breakthrough into adult roles and garnered her a Genie Award nomination for best actress and awards from the Boston and Chicago Societies of Film Critics. Other films include Egoyan’s Exotica, Doug Liman’s Go, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water, Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing, and Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me, which earned her a Genie Award as best actress.
Dawn Hudson
Dawn Hudson has been the Executive Director of Film Independent (formerly IFP/Los Angeles) since 1991. Under her leadership, Film Independent has grown seven-fold, from a 900-member organization to its current membership of 6,000. Revenues have also increased an average of 25% per year. Film Independent is dedicated to cultivating the careers of independent filmmakers, increasing the audience for independent films, and increasing diversity within the film industry. During her tenure at Film Independent, the organization has created Filmmaker Labs for writers, directors, and producers; provided full-time, on-staff advisors for filmmakers; introduced free one-on-one consultations for filmmakers in the categories of post-production, festival strategy, line-producing, legal advice, and foreign sales; and established onsite facilities (casting rooms, editing suite, and production office) for filmmakers. In addition, Film Independent’s first film mentorship program, Project:Involve, was established in 1993. Project:Involve is a mentorship program for under-represented, emerging filmmakers, and has provided jobs and industry access for over five hundred honorees for the past 12 years. In 2001, Film Independent acquired the Los Angeles Film Festival, now the largest film festival in Southern California, with attendance of more than 60,000. The Los Angeles Film Festival and the 20-year-old Independent Spirit Awards remain Film Independent’s two signature events. The organization also produces 250 educational and screening events annually. Prior to Film Independent, Hudson was Editor-in-chief of St Louis magazine and a freelance magazine writer. She received her B.A. from Harvard University, and did graduate work in political science at the Institut des Etudes Politiques in Grenoble, France, and at Washington.
Jury, World Cinema Competition: Documentary
Raoul Peck
Writer, director, and producer Raoul Peck was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and educated in Haiti, the Congo, the United States, and France. He studied economic engineering in Germany and received his film degree from the Berlin Film and Television Academy in 1988. Peck has developed experimental works, sociopolitical documentaries, and features such as L’Affaire Villemin, a six-hour miniseries for French television (2006); HBO’s Sometimes in April (2004) about the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Lumumba (2000),which screened at the Cannes International Film Festival; The Man on the Shore, which also screened at Cannes in 1993; and the award-winning documentary Lumumba—Death of a Prophet (1992). In 1995, when democracy returned briefly to Haiti, Peck served as minister of culture for 18 months. He was awarded the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award by Human Rights Watch in 2003.
Juan Carlos Rulfo
Juan Carlos Rulfo was born in Mexico City, earned a BA in communication sciences in 1988 from the Metropolitan Autonomous University there, and studied film direction at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, also in Mexico City. His thesis film, a documentary short entitled Grandfather Cheno and Other Stories, was nominated for the Student Academy Award and screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996. Rulfo’s first documentary feature, Juan, I Forgot, I Don’t Remember, screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and won four Ariels (the Mexican Academy Award) and a number of other awards at film festivals. His most recent film, In the Pit, won the World Documentary Jury Prize at Sundance last year. In his films, Rulfo is especially interested in investigating that space where time, memory, and personal heritage converge.
Elizabeth Weatherford
Elizabeth Weatherford is the founding director of the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and its international Native American Film + Video Festival. Presented biennially in New York City since 1979, the festival showcases outstanding recent Indigenous productions from throughout the Americas and brings the filmmakers together for discussion and interchange. The festival also organizes New Generations workshops and public screenings for Native youth. The 2006 festival presented 130 works from 10 countries in the Americas. Weatherford is also executive editor of the bilingual Native Networks/Redes Indigenas Web site, a unique site on the Internet dedicated to Native film, video, radio, television, and new media from throughout the hemisphere, produced by the center since 2001. She is on the advisory board of numerous film festivals and has taught classes at NYU.
Jury, World Cinema Competition: Dramatic
Carlos Bolado
Carlos Bolado was born in Veracruz, Mexico and grew up in Mexico City, listening to his grandmother’s stories and watching the old black and white Mexican movies and American serials that ended with cliffhangers. He started to dream of making his own films. Bolado studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and film at CUEC. He worked as an editor for many years on films such as Like Water for Chocolate. Bolado’s first film Bajo California. El limite del tiempo, screened at Sundance and won seven Ariels, Mexico’s highest cinematic award, including best picture of 1999. He is also codirector and editor of Promises, a documentary nominated for an Academy Award in 2002 and the winner of two Emmys. His dramatic feature, Sólo Dios Sabe, screened at Sundance last year.
Lynne Ramsay
Glasgow native Lynne Ramsay studied photography at Napier College in Edinburgh. She went on to study cinematography and directing at the National Film and Television School. Her graduation short film, Small Deaths, won the Prix du Jury at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1996. Her other short films, Kill the Day and Gasman (both 1997), garnered numerous awards, including a BAFTA nomination for Gasman. Ramsay’s acclaimed debut feature, Ratcatcher (1999), opened the Edinburgh Film Festival and won its director the 2000 BAFTA Carl Foreman Award for a newcomer in British film. Morvern Callar (2001) won the FIPRESCI Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and an award from the Los Angeles Film Critics, among others. She is currently developing two films, Peter, Paul and Mary and We Need to Talk About Kevin.
U-Wei Bin Haji Saari
U-Wei Bin Haji Saari was born in Palang, Malaysia, and studied filmmaking at the New York School for Social Research. He debuted as a television director in 1987 and made about 16 television movies. Saari’s first feature film, Woman, Wife and Whore (1993), won five awards at the Malaysian Film Festival, including best film, director, and screenplay. In 1995, his film Kaki Bakar (The Arsonist), was invited to Un Certain Regard at the Cannes International Film Festival as well as a number of other festivals. The film was awarded the Grand Prix at the Brussels Film Festival. The Nantes Film Festival held a retrospective of Saari’s work in 2001. His latest film, My Beautiful Rambutan Tree in Tanjung Rambutan, was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last year and opened the Singapore Film Festival.
Jury, Shorts Competition
Jared Hess
Jared Hess’ first feature film Napoleon Dynamite debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and went on to become one of the sleeper hits of the year. His second feature, Nacho Libre, was released in 2006. He currently resides in Salt Lake City with his screenwriter wife, Jerusha, and their two children.
Daniela Michel
In 2003, Daniela Michel became founding director of the Morelia International Film Festival, whose mission is to promote new Mexican film talent and which has a partnership with the International Critics’ Week section of the Cannes International Film Festival. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, with additional film studies at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. Michel has published film criticism in magazines including Cine Premiere. Since 1994, she has been a TV anchor for film news shows and currently hosts the award-winning shorts and documentary show Abrelatas. Michel has also been organizing film festivals since 1994, when she began codirecting the Mexican Short Film Forum. She has served as a juror for the Rockefeller Media Arts fellowships and the Fulbright Institute.
Mark Elijah Rosenberg
Mark Elijah Rosenberg is the founder and artistic director of Rooftop Films. In the past 10 years, Rosenberg has built the company from a simple idea into one of the most innovative film companies in the country, encompassing a cutting-edge outdoor film festival, a forward-thinking production collective, and a full-service media center. Rooftop has shown more than 1,000 films to more than 30,000 audience members and has supported 50 emerging filmmakers through the Rooftop Filmmakers Fund and Production Collective. As a curator and filmmaker, Rosenberg has shot, directed, and edited more than 20 films, which have screened as part of national and international film festivals. Rosenberg is also the second baseman for the New York Giants of the Triboro Baseball League and the proud father of a dog named Rizzo.
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Jury
Created to recognize and celebrate an outstanding feature film addressing ideas central to science or technology, the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize is awarded through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Sundance Institute’s Science in Focus initiative. The initiative supports emerging filmmakers whose work heightens public awareness of science in our culture, illustrates the vital and unique role of scientists and their work in our society, and highlights the unique possibilities of communicating through independent film. In addition to the prize, this initiative also supports the development of science and technology projects in the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and expanding public discourse about science and cinema through a dedicated forum at the Sundance Film Festival.
A committee of film and science professionals will select this year’s Sloan Prize winner from among the films screening at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, based on the quality of the film’s presentation of science and technology themes and/or characters. Selection committee members include John Underkoffler, MIT Media Lab alumnus, science consultant on Minority Report, The Hulk, and Aeon Flux, and founder of Oblong Industries; Darren Aronofsky, writer and director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain; Ann Druyan, a writer and producer who cocreated Contact, cowrote the Cosmos television series, and served as creative director for NASA’s Voyager interstellar message system; Howard Suber, longtime faculty member at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, one of the founders of the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the author of The Power of Film; and Dr. Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos.
I’ll post the list of Sundance 2007 winners here.
Sundance Film Festival 2007 Links
Art Directors Guild (ADG) Awards - 2006 Nominations
Meet the Oscars in Los Angeles
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