Festival to Showcase 10 Narrative and 8 Documentary Features
9 World Premieres Among Feature Competition Titles
The Russo Brothers Grow Festival Support With Major Prize
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November 28, 2017 (Los Angeles) - The Slamdance Film Festival announced today their Narrative and Documentary Feature Film Competition programs for its 24th Festival edition, taking place January 19-25, 2018 in Park City. Dedicated to fostering a community for independent emerging artists, Slamdance continues to be the premiere film festival by filmmakers, for filmmakers.
The feature competition lineup includes 16 premieres— 9 World, 6 North American, and 1 US premieres. Most titles were produced in the US, with additional features coming from: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany and Netherlands. All competition films are feature length directorial debuts with budgets of less than $1 million USD, and without US distribution.
"Born out of rejection, Slamdance’s artist-led group continues to discover cutting edge talent creating work outside of convention.” states Co-founder and President, Peter Baxter. “Our 2018 competition lineup is daring, varied, and vivid—it represents the spirit of our time and leads us into the future.”
All films were selected from blind submissions by a team of Slamdance alumni and are programmed democratically. Jury and Audience Awards are presented for the Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature.
Additionally, a major new Festival award has been launched. Alumni Anthony and Joe Russo (Welcome To Collinwood, Captain America: Civil War) have partnered with Slamdance to further develop the mission of the artist led organization with their inaugural Russo Fellowship award. The award winner will receive a $25,000 cash prize and mentorship from Joe and Anthony in the development of the winner’s next project at the brother’s new Los Angeles based studio. Every participating filmmaker at the 2018 festival is eligible for this prize. The award will be presented annually to a new recipient at the Slamdance Film Festival.
“The Russo brothers exemplify our “by filmmakers for filmmakers” paradigm says Peter Baxter. They are joined by a great number of dedicated alumni who’ve shown when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, Slamdance’s independent and grassroots film community really can do it themselves.”
Established in 1995, Slamdance is dedicated to discovering and supporting new talents in independent filmmaking. In addition to the Russo Brothers, notable Slamdance alumni include: Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer), Lena Dunham (Girls), Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers), and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild).
Previous Feature Competition winners include: Dim the Fluorescents (Best Narrative Feature, 2017) and Strad Style (Best Documentary Feature, 2017). Films in both categories are eligible for the Audience Award and Spirit of Slamdance Award, the latter of which is voted upon by this year’s presented filmmakers.
The list of competition features is below:
NARRATIVE FEATURES
Birds Without Feathers
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Wendy McColm
Screenwriter: Wendy McColm
Desperate for human interaction, six emotionally damaged individuals risk self respect, shedding their disillusionment in a last grasp for happiness. A cruel-world comedy populated by struggling Instagram stars, Russian cowboys, Self-help gurus and more, their lives collide and crash in astounding ways.
Cast: Wendy McColm, Lenae Day Cooper Oznowicz, William Gabriel Greer, Sara Estefanos, and Alexander Stasko
Charlie And Hannah's Grand Night Out
(Belgium) North American Premiere
Director: Bert Scholiers
Screenwriter: Bert Scholiers
Two Girls. One Night. Magical Candy Consumed. Twenty-somethings, Charlie and Hannah, find themselves strolling through the city as events take a wildly surreal turn. Transported to a trippy galaxy, filled with cosmic wisdom and contradictions, the pair learn to realize the search for love can take many forms.
Cast: Evelien Bosmans, Daphne Wellens, Patrick Vervueren
Fake Tattoos
(Canada) US Premiere
Director: Pascal Plante
Screenwriter: Pascal Plante
Shy Theo finds himself unexpectedly kicked in the heart by a punk-rock romance on his 18th birthday as Mag bursts into his life for a rollicking encounter. Set against a backdrop of music and mayhem, this coming-of-age tale, explores the thrashing fragility of summer love as life choices and separation loom with no true answers in sight.
Cast: Anthony Therrien, Rose-Marie Perreault
Fish Bones
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Joanne Mony Park
Screenwriter: Joanne Mony Park
Hana, a Korean immigrant on winter break, is caught between worlds. While struggling to find peace with her conservative mother and the expectations surrounding her future, Hana finds herself falling for Nico, a tender and affectionate Latina music producer.
Cast: Joony Kim, Cris Gris
Human Affairs
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Charlie Birns
Screenwriter: Charlie Birns
This richly earnest drama follows Geneviève, a surrogate who must reckon with her ambivalence about the pregnancy and her precarious feelings for the parents-to-be.
Cast: Dominic Fumusa, Kerry Condon, David Harbour, Julie Sokolowski
Lovers
(Denmark) North American Premiere
Director: Niels Holstein Kaa
Screenwriter: Magnus B. B. Lysbakken
In the streets, parks and cafes of Copenhagen, a triptych of love stories come to vivid life. Framed with a superb naturalism, these tales through the seasons tackle the ever rising tide of loneliness and self-doubt that can come in the face of new love.
Cast: Marie Mailand, Niklas Herskind, Nina Terese Rask
M/M
(Canada, Germany) World Premiere
Director: Drew Lint
Screenwriter: Drew Lint
Wayward Canadian, Matthew, crushed by the isolation of being new to Berlin, turns his sexual desires toward Matthias that spiral into a dark fixation of assumed identity. Soon, this obsessive power struggle between the two, careens toward brutal passion and violence in a bid for dominance.
Cast: Antoine Lahaie, Nicolas Maxim Endlicher
Rock Steady Row
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Trevor Stevens
Screenwriter: Bomani Story
Demented chaos rules this bizarro-world college campus where the reigning gang-frats target a freshman, who dare crosses their path. Trapped between a blaze of twisted ‘Mad Max’ style power games, he shrewdly plays both sides, fueling apocalyptic-sized battles that escalate to ensnare the school Dean who’s coming unglued.
Cast: Heston Horwin, Diamond White, Logan Huffman, Isaac Alisma, Allie Marie Evans, Larry Miller, Peter Gilroy
Songs in the Sun
(Denmark) North American Premiere
Director: Kristian Sejrbo Lidegaard
Screenwriter: Allan Hyde, Kristian Sejrbo Lidegaard
Off the coast of Denmark, young Anna discovers she is the only lifeline to ailing childhood friend Julie and Sonja, Julie’s apathetic mother. Over the course of one momentous afternoon, Anna will learn the healing power of belief and myth-making in everyday living
Cast: Emma Sehested Høeg, Charlotte Munck, Victoria Carmen Sonne
The Starry Sky Above Me
(France) North American Premiere
Director: Ilan Klipper
Screenwriter: Ilan Klipper, Raphaël Neal
Bruno is happy to live out his days luxuriating in the existential highs and lows only a brilliant literary mind can appreciate. But when his loved ones seek to intervene with the help of a psychiatrist, Bruno's bohemian lifestyle may in fact be the perfect anecdote to the colorless, PC lives they didn't know they hated.
Cast: Laurent Poitrenaux, Camille Chamoux, Marilyne Canto, Alma Jodorowsky, François Chattot, Michèle Moretti, Frank Williams
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Circus Ecuador
(Ecuador, USA) World Premiere
Directors: Ashley Bishop and Jim Brassard
James and Ashley travel to the jungles of Ecuador to make a documentary about a school being built for an indigenous community only to discover that the community may or may not be involved in aliens, gold smuggling, human trafficking, and murder.
Freedom for the Wolf
(Germany, USA)
Director: Rupert Russell
From Hong Kong to Tunisia to Bollywood, people are fighting against elected leaders dismantling freedom and democracy. These seemingly disparate international stories are cohesively tied into what is happening in the US to reach some very compelling conclusions.
Ingrid
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Morrisa Maltz
An intimate look at a woman who left her life as a successful fashion designer and mother in Texas to become a reclusive hermit, immersed in nature, focused solely on creating art.
Instant Dreams
(Netherlands) North American Premiere
Director: Willem Baptist
An essayistic quest for the secret of instant film, the magic appeal of Polaroid and what that tells us about the fascinating relationship we have with the photographic image.
Man on Fire
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Joel Fendelman
Grand Saline, Texas was a sleepy, unremarkable town--until a white preacher lit himself on fire to protest the town’s racism in 2014.
MexMan
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Josh Polon
Germán is a young artist and filmmaker striving to complete his first feature film, while plagued by the ghost of a long-lost love and a battle for creative control with his producers.
Mr. Fish: Cartooning From The Deep End
(USA)
Director: Pablo Bryant
This personal documentary follows a controversial political cartoonist as he struggles to provide for his family and stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humor has an ever-diminishing commercial value.
Sunnyside
(Belgium, Netherlands) North American Premiere
Director: Frederik Carbon
On a seaside mountain in Northern California two old friends (one a visionary architect and the other an influential sound artist) dream, talk, live, and create.
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ABOUT SLAMDANCE:
Slamdance is a community, a year-round experience, and a statement. Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers who were tired of relying on a large, oblique system to showcase their work, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves.
Over 100 Slamdance alums are responsible for the programming and organization of the festival. With a variety of backgrounds, interests, and talents, but with no individual filmmaker’s vote meaning more than any others, Slamdance’s programming and organizing committees have been able to stay close to the heart of low budget and do-it-yourself filmmaking. In this way, Slamdance continues to grow and exemplify its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.
The 2018 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 19-25 in Park City, Utah.
Earlier this Fall, critically acclaimed directors and Slamdance alumni Anthony and Joe Russo, The Russo Brothers, announced the presentation of the inaugural Russo Brothers Fellowship to be presented to a Slamdance filmmaker at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival. Anthony and Joe will select one filmmaker, who will receive a $25,000 prize consisting of filmmaker support, an office at their new Los Angeles based studio, mentoring from Anthony and Joe, and a cash stipend for one year. The Russos launched their career when their first film, Pieces, premiered at the 1997 Slamdance Festival. Steven Soderbergh, who was attending the festival, saw their film and offered to produce their next movie, Welcome To Collinwood, starring George Clooney, William H. Macy, and Sam Rockwell. The Brothers made their Marvel Studios directorial debut with the critically lauded blockbuster Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Their follow-up, Captain America: Civil War, not only enjoyed the 5th-highest weekend gross in domestic box office history, but also had the highest worldwide gross of 2016, as well as widespread praise from both critics and fans.
Other notable Slamdance alumni who first gained notice at the festival include: Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (World War Z), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room), Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Lynn Shelton (Outside, Humpday), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), and Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $13.3 billion at the Box Office to date.
In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing audience with several year-round activities. These include the popular Slamdance Screenplay Competition, the Anarchy Workshop for student filmmakers, and The ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club – a monthly cinema club partnership with ArcLight Cinemas based at the ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Chicago, with two screenings and filmmaker Q&A’s each month:
www.arclightcinemas.com/en/news/arclight-presents-slamdance-cinema-club
Slamdance Presents is a distribution arm established to access broader distribution opportunities for independent films. The goal is to build the popularity of independent films and support filmmakers on a commercial level through theatrical releases. Steve Yu’s The Resurrection of Jake the Snake was the first film to be released by the company. The documentary reached number one on iTunes in December, 2015. In August 2016, Slamdance Presents launched the week long release of Claire Carré’s sci-fi film, Embers, at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood. In 2017, Slamdance Presents acquired four award winning and critically acclaimed films now available on VOD: Driftwood by Paul Taylor, Dead Hands Dig Deep by Jai Love, Without by Mark Jackson, and The Ground we Won by Christopher Pryor, coming to iTunes this December.
In November 2015, Slamdance announced DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming), a new digital, interactive and gaming showcase dedicated to emerging independent artists working in hybrid, immersive and developing forms of digital media art. This December, DIG will return to Big Pictures Los Angeles, from December 1-8, presenting select multi-media works that will form part of the of the 2018 Film Festival.
Slamdance Film Festival Sponsors include Blackmagic Design, Distribber, CreativeFuture, Directors Guild of America, Different By Design, Pierce Law Group LLP, Salt Lake City's Slug Magazine, Salt Lake City Weekly, and Beehive Distilling. Slamdance is proud to partner with sponsors who support emerging artists and filmmakers. Additional information about Slamdance is available at www.slamdance.com
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Today marks our 24th annual unveiling of the Slamdance Film Festival key art and artist. This year, we welcome Dakota Noot, a recent Claremont University graduate from North Dakota, to the already impressive list of artists who have contributed to Slamdance including Shepard Fairey, Kii Arens, David Flores, Rosie Lea and Tommy C. Burns.
Tell us a bit about the Slamdance artwork your created from your point of view 
You've just graduated. What's your next big artistic challenge? 
Dead Hands Dig Deep is the debut directorial outing from young Sydney based filmmaker Jai Love. The documentary tells the tale of Edwin Borsheim and his band Kettle Cadaver from Temecula, California, profiling his gory glory days of the nineties and his current situation and state of mind. It’s rife with death, nihilism, self-mutilation, blood, drug use, small-town weirdness and Satan.
What motivation do you think Edwin had in taking part in the documentary?
Please share five random facts / memories about your own life with our dear readers.
I recently watched the must-see documentary DEAD HANDS DIG DEEP (written by Spencer Heath and Jai Love, and directed by Jai Love) that was about one of America’s most fucked in the head bands that goes by the name of KETTLE CADAVER. Their frontman, Edwin Borsheim, inflicted harm on himself that made GG Allin seem like a wimp – I’m just saying, this dude is fucking next level. The documentary takes a look into his mind, where nothing but violence dwells. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a film about a band or musician that has been so intense. If I had to describe Kettle Cadaver’s sound, it would be like crossing Christian Death with pure, feral sonic poison. 
Society needs the deviant. It needs the anarchist and the addict to function properly. They show us when we've gone too far. Without them how would we know? Edwin Borsheim, the subject of Jai Love's Dead Hands Dig Deep, lived and died a soldier on that frontline.
If you’ve ever had to remind yourself that what you’re watching is just a movie in order to stomach a violent scene or disturbing imagery – don’t watch this film; it won’t give you this comfort. Everything in this movie is a part of our reality and once you see it and acknowledge this fact, there is no going back. Dead Hands Dig Deep is a documentary that hits hard and leaves a mark.
Slamdance is very excited to announce the quarter-finalists for the 2017 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. Congratulations to those who made it to the Quarter Finals! 
What was your experience with filmmaking before making this movie?
Did Edwin have anything to do with the finished product? Did he see it before you released it?
Slamdance is delighted to announce and congratulate the 32 semi-finalists for the 2017 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. The Finalists will be announced on October 2nd and the competition winners will be announced on October 13th at the WGA West.
Now we're down to 12. 
Award to include $25,000 prize, filmmakers mentoring, office at new studio 
Writer/director Mark Jackson’s Without is a film of rare, strange, and unsettling beauty. From its opening shot of a ferry churning deeper into the margins of the Pacific Northwest—taking the film’s 19-year-old protagonist, Joslyn (Joslyn Jensen), further away from civilization, her troubles, and her past—there’s a disquieting stillness in the air. 
(LOS ANGELES, CA---October 13, 2017) 
by Ben Umstead 
"Driftwood was made as a reaction to the state of contemporary cinema. I wanted to create something that would stray from the many dialogue-driven films of my generation, something that would be made to see in a theater and not only streamed digitally. The bulk of modern filmmaking favors convenience, excessive exposition and style over substance, all of which leads to a passive audience. Driftwood eschews many of these aforementioned approaches and instead is constructed using only what is essential. As the film slowly unfurls, the camera moves only when necessary and the characters never speak, urging its audience to engage with it and ask questions" 
Close your eyes and concentrate on the sounds around you: the humming of the refrigerator, footsteps from the floor above, water running through the pipes inside the walls, a distant ticking.
Before we moved any further with the sound design, it was incredibly important for us to find a studio that would be interested in taking on a project of such magnitude—not just for a paycheck but to really utilize their skills and create something of resonance. They were to be the ones to give the film a pulse and finish our half-painted canvas. We approached the crew over at Silver Sound Studios in New York, explained a bit about the project and watched as their jaws slowly dropped to the floor. They jumped at the opportunity.
3rd Edition of DIG Features Digital Artists from South Africa, Poland and beyond
Brief Excursion by Aaron Oldenburg
BVOVB: Bruising Vengeance of the Vintage Boxer by Michal Rostocki
Dujanah by Jack King-Spooner
Everything Is Going To Be OK by alienmelon (Nathalie Lawhead)
F.L.O.W. (Future Ladies of Wrestling) by Jennifer Juniper Stratford of Telefantasy Studios
Laser Non Laser by Jeanette Bonds of GLAS Animation
Nour by Terrifying Jellyfish (aka TJ Hughes)
Semblance by Nyamakop (Cukia Kimani and Ben Myres)
Sundays with Absalon by John Vanderhoef
Super Void by Sam Weiss (Shnabubula) and John Donohue Bell (Lazy Brain Games) 
The Game: The Game by Angela Washko
ULTRA ADHD (Amazing Death and Huge Destruction) by Alon “DancingEngie” Karmi.
November 28, 2017 (Los Angeles) - The Slamdance Film Festival announced today their Narrative and Documentary Feature Film Competition programs for its 24th Festival edition, taking place January 19-25, 2018 in Park City. Dedicated to fostering a community for independent emerging artists, Slamdance continues to be the premiere film festival by filmmakers, for filmmakers.