Beyond Program to Showcase 5 World Premieres
Oscar® Qualifying Shorts lineup Features International Titles From Over 20 Countries & 16 World Premieres
7 World Premieres, 2 US Premieres and 2 North American Premieres in Anarchy, Animation and Experimental Programs

December 6, 2017 (LOS ANGELES) – Slamdance today announced the Beyond and Shorts programs for their 24th edition.

This year, several Slamdance Alumni return with highly anticipated presentations in the Beyond lineup. All films in this highly-selective program are made by emerging filmmakers working just beyond their first features.

“The films in the Beyond Program exhibit singular directorial vision while sharing a common commitment to challenge audiences to step outside their comfort zones,” says Beyond programmer, Josh Mandel. “These bold and adventurous filmmakers represent the most current voices in American independent film, and will continue to push boundaries in the years ahead.”

This year’s short film lineup showcases productions from 26 countries, including: Canada, Iran, USA and beyond. Shorts in the Narrative, Documentary, Animation, Anarchy and Experimental sections are all eligible for the 2018 Oscar® Qualifying Shorts competition.

Along with continued standout programming in every category, Anarchy Shorts promises another year of exuberantly subversive cinema. "The Department of Anarchy has curated a diverse program of sublime, dangerous, and deviant films that provide shock therapy to the soul.” says Anarchy Shorts programmer, Noel Lawrence. “We hope to provoke, challenge, and enlighten audiences by smashing the status quo on any and all levels.”

Narrative Shorts programmer Taylor Miller adds “In the spirit of Slamdance as an alternative film festival, this year's slate of narrative shorts contains many films that challenge our conceptions of what constitutes a narrative, what stories are capable of, and what stories are for. We also have embraced works displaying unique talents and voices working in a raw, unpolished filmmaking style. We believe that once again Slamdance will be a place to find vital and bold works valued over short attempts to replicate mainstream accessibility.”

The 2018 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 19-25 in Park City, Utah. All Slamdance films are programmed entirely by the Slamdance filmmaking community from blind submissions

BEYOND PROGRAM
Back at the Staircase
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Drew Britton
Five distinctive people, each with a flimsy coping strategy, find themselves stuck together after an accident.
Cast: Jennifer Lafleur, Stephen Plunkett, Leonora Pitts, Mickey O'Hagan, Logan Lark, Heather LaVine

Funny Story
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Michael Gallagher
After years of being a neglectful father, a womanizing TV star decides to crash his estranged daughter’s same-sex destination wedding.
Cast: Matthew Glave, Emily Bett Rickards, Jana Winternitz, Nikki Limo, Lily Holleman, Jessica Diggins, Pete Gardner, Reginald VelJohnson

My Name is Myeisha
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Gus Krieger
A beloved teenager crosses over into a hip-hop-musical dreamscape at the moment of her tragic death and contemplates her life; what it was and what it could have been.
Cast: Rhaechyl Walker, John Merchant, Dominique Toney, Dee Dee Stephens, Yvette Cason, Gregg Daniel

The Rainbow Experiment
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Christina Kallas
An investigation uncovers more than just blame at a Manhattan high school when a science experiment permanently injures a student.
Cast: Chris Beetem, Francis Benhamou, Christian Coulson, Kevin Kane, Nina Mehta, Laura Pruden, Connor Siemer, Lauren Sowa, Swann Gruen, Christine McLaughlin

Savage Youth
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Michael Curtis Johnson
The lives of six troubled teens in a racially-divided small town take a violent turn over drugs and broken hearts. Based on true events.
Cast: Grace Victoria Cox, Tequan Richmond, Will Brittain, Chloe Levine, Mitchell Edwards, J. Michael Trautmann, Sasha Feldman, Tomas Pais

NARRATIVE SHORTS
The 99 Steps Left from the Square
(Finland, Turkey)
Director: Sevgi Eker
The iron gate safeguarding an old man’s peace is opened.
Cast: Sirin Erensoy, Yasemin Erensoy, Salih Kalafatoglu, Hasan Kurun

Abbas Kiarostami; The Director
(Iran)
Director: Mohsen Khodabakhshi
A boy wants to take a photo with Abbas Kiarostami...
Cast: Mani Sherafat - Nazli Gorgani - Shahed Sherafat

Audition
(USA)
Director: Richard Van
Unable to find a sitter, an aspiring actress has no choice but to drag her 3-year old son to her audition.
Cast: Shaquita Lopez, Nezih Lopez, Ernest Walker Jr, Laura Price

Clean Blood
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jordan Michael Blake
A family drama about Christmas, The Apocalypse and an IMMACULATELY PREGNANT man.
Cast: Jordan Michael Blake, Stephanie Allynne

Falling
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Ewen Wright
A potentially psychosomatic white man, a woman stuck in a vortex of “man-splaining,” and a young black man caught in a racially charged standoff are set on a collision course as society falls apart around them in this absurdist dark comedy.
Cast: Sarah Hollis, Elijah Reed, Davey Johnson

Flatbush Misdemeanors
(USA)
Director: Dan Perlman, Kevin Iso
Longtime friends Dan and Kevin adjust to their evolving surroundings in the unforgiving environment of Flatbush, Brooklyn. A raw comedy of city life.
Cast: Drew Dowdey, Kareem Green, Kevin Iso, Dan Perlman

Goodbye, Brooklyn
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Daniel Jaffe
Struggling with New York living, Dana Schapiro decides to move, saying goodbye to a neighborhood that can barely remember who she is...
Cast: Michelle Uranowitz, Angela Pietropinto, Luke Marinkovich, Ione Saunders

Hail Mary Country
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Tannaz Hazemi
Macho grandmother Irene Dandy has to defend her family of football fanatics from a gang led by a cocky thief named Nora.
Cast: Vera Cherny, Catherine Taber, Lori Jean Wilson, Alison Yates

Iris
(Canada)
Director: Gabrielle Demers
As the storm rages outside a special lust for Laura grows inside Emanuelle.
Cast: Marie Babbini, Daphné Germain

Katalysis
(Sweden) World Premiere
Director: Ashley Michael Briggs
A doctor and an artist use Anna's body as an tool to further their own professional progress.
Cast: Moa Nilsson, Adam Stålhammar, Peter Hildén, Anna Ladegaard

The Knits
(Canada) US Premiere
Director: Lisa Birke
A sweater, lovingly and arduously knit by a mother, incrementally unravels as her daughter treks her way across Canada by foot.
Cast: Barbara Birke; Lisa Birke

Magic Bullet
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Amanda Lovejoy Street
A psychologist combats grief with self-soothing rituals; a shopping network host obliterates hers in a self-destructive haze. They collide in a televised confrontation.
Cast: Rosemarie DeWitt, Molly Parker

Night on Floating Island
(Australia) North American Premiere
Director: Jack Atherton
From a storm drain, a strange man watches a tourist rollerblading through an unfamiliar nightscape in search of his missing girlfriend or an anonymous sexual encounter in a park.
Cast: Gavin Drumm, Annie Schofield, André Shannon, Kate Coates

Ok, Call Me Back
(USA)
Director: Emily Ann Hoffman
Craving companionship, a woman leaves a voicemail late at night.
Cast: Emily Ann Hoffman

Onikuma
(Italy, USA)
Director: Alessia Cecchet
Surrounded by a foreign landscape, two women will understand that demons can come in different forms.
Cast: Sandy Siquier, Sarineh Garapetian

Parthenon
(USA)
Director: Frank Mosley
A naked body moves a stranger to empathy.
Cast: Lily Baldwin, Tallie Medel, Thiago Martins

Reunion 1
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Brock Neilson
The artist re-enters a space from their childhood as an adult and is struck both by the haunting tone of the setting and an indelible memory from the past.

Rupture
(Jordan, Canada) US Premiere
Director: Yassmina Karajah
Rupture follows the journey of four Arab kids whose repressed traumas surface during their quest to find a public pool in their new city.
Cast: Asaad Al Arid Salam Almarzouq Hussein Al Ahmad Wazira Al Ahmad

Slap Happy
(Canada) US Premiere
Director: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
A dysfunctional couple with a penchant for twisted sexual fantasies fight to stay together as their relationship crumbles over the course of a day.
Cast: Jesse LaVercombe, Madeleine Sims-Fewer

That Thing
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Dan Roe
Tabby is conflicted about Patrick's sexual quirk.
Cast: Claire Lucido, Sam Yarabek

The Things You Think I'm Thinking
(Canada) US Premiere
Director: Sherren Lee
A black male burn-survivor and amputee goes on a date with a regularly-abled man for the first time since his accident, ten years ago.
Cast: Prince Amponsah, Jesse LaVercombe

Transmission
(USA)
Director: Morgan McGlothan
Father, daughter, and her 1999 Toyota Camry.
Cast: Darrin McGlothan, Morgan McGlothan

The Troubled Troubadour
(South Korea) North American Premiere
Director: Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon
An embittered old musician embarks on a journey which becomes the outward manifestation of his inner landscape.
Cast: Kasuga "Hachi" Hirofumi, Tetsu Kono, Lee Hwajin, Kang Saneh

Welcome To Bushwick
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Henry Jinings
On the heels of a successful first date, Evan and Marceline end up back at her place.
Cast: Tim Platt, Liba Vaynberg

Whales
(Iran) North American Premiere
Director: Behnam Abedi
A police officer and a soldier are assigned to investigate a case wherein seven dead bodies are found on a beach.
Cast: Majid Norouzi, Khosrow Shahraz, Majid Aghakarimi 


DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM
Big Surf
(USA)
Director: Brian Smee
San Francisquito Cyn, March 12th, 1928: The sound a horse makes as it's drowning.

Do I Have Boobs Now?
(Canada)
Director: Milena Salazar, Joella Cabalu
A trans activist’s journey to challenge Facebook and Instagram's censorship policies.

Ex Nihilo
(Finland) World Premiere
Director: Timo Wright
Ex Nihilo is an experimental short documentary about a doomsday seed vault, an advanced robot and a cryonics facility.

Homeland
(Belgium)
Director: Sam Peeters
Homeland is a creative documentary about right-wing populism and narrow-mindedness in the Belgian suburbs.

House
(Iceland, USA)
Director: Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson
A meditation on emigration and immigration, house and home.

Icon
(Poland) US Premiere
Director: Wojciech Kasperski
An old doctor who has spent his life working at a psychiatric hospital in the Siberian countryside - The place, which was inaccessible for film crews, can be shown thanks to its residents, some of whom spent several decades at the hospital.

The Last Man You Meet
(USA)
Director: Chris Bone
Take an exclusive look inside the gritty business of death as a third-generation funeral director reflects on his life.

Lorem Ipsum (pain itself)
(USA)
Director: Gabrielle Kash
A handmade look at why artists hate making, and keep making art.

Nueva Vida
(USA)
Director: Jonathan Seligson
A ball, some brains, and a lot of fluids. A cautionary true tale on the dangers of playing soccer from my dear brother, Kenny.

Phototaxis
(USA)
Director: Melissa Ferrari
Rooted in nonfiction, “Phototaxis” connects Mothman, a prophetic demon in West Virginia folklore, and Narcotics Anonymous, the primary treatment program in West Virginia’s addiction epidemic.

Pocket Sized Feminism
(USA)
Director: Valerie Schenkman
“This house is for wallpaper women. What good is wallpaper that speaks?" Women speak out about women's rights, or human rights.

Quiet Hours
(USA)
Director: Paul Szynol
Donald Hall, America's Poet Laureate and winner of the National Medal of Arts, lives in the fragile space between loneliness and solitude.

Taobao
(USA)
Director: Noah Sheldon
Modelling for China's largest online shopping site, Taobao.

True Love in Pueblo Textil
(Cuba, USA) US Premiere
Director: Horatio Baltz
Nine-year-old Maribel explains to us how it feels to be stricken with the world's oldest infliction: love.

Where Are You From
(USA, China)
Director: Xizi "Cecilia" Hua
In a world where western values dominate, coming to America as a “Parachute Kid” makes the filmmaker feel ashamed of her “Chinese” and “foreign” identity.


ANIMATION SHORTS PROGRAM
Airport
(Switzerland, Croatia)
Director: Michaela Müller
An exploration of the place in modern society where the limits of borders, security, and tolerance are constantly tested.

Ascribed Achievements
(Iran)
Director: Samaneh Shojaei
A man's suicide attempt leads to the idea that fate is breakable.

Black Dog
(USA)
Director: Joshua Dean Tuthill
A dark family drama set during the space race of the 1960's, utilizing stop-motion animation and archival footage to elucidate a time of heated social and political tension.

Gusla ou les Malins
(France) US Premiere
Director: Adrienne Nowak
Adrienne goes back to Poland to see her grandmother and ask her family about communism. In their cozy kitchen she will learn about the spirits that haunt the Polish imagination and the unexpected superstitions used to face them.

Icebergs
(USA, Greece) North American Premiere
Director: Eirini Vianelli
An existential, dark comedy of 14 stop-motion vignettes both mundane and absurd.

Interstitial
(Japan) North American Premiere
Director: Shunsaku Hayashi
A hybrid project of a painting and additive animation exploring a spacelessness of humanity in the defined space of a canvas of a continuous horizon.

Mak
(USA)
Director: Natalya Serebrennikova
Searching for opium, Big Macs, and cultural identity, a teenager visits her hometown in Russia and finds that her best friend has already grown up.

Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic
(USA)
Director: Annapurna Kumar
The most efficient containers can store multiple pieces of information in the same location, intersecting from different angles.

Railment
(Japan)
Director: Shunsaku Hayashi
In the anonymous crowds of commuter rail lines, it's possible to move at high speeds while remaining perfectly still.

The Realm of Deepest Knowing
(South Korea)
Director: Kim Seung-hee
A playful exploration of how knowing someone on the deepest level becomes a love that spans across objects.

Red Fat Cat
(Germany)
Director: Klaus Hoefs
A singer-songwriter animation confronting the dichotomy of drowned refugees washing up on a public beach while residents go about their settled, everyday lives filled with antique cars, dogs, and cats.

Satellite Strangers
(USA) World Premiere
Director: James Bascara
A zoom into a microscopic world reveals a strange cacophony.


EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS PROGRAM
38 River Road
(USA, Switzerland)
Director: Josh Weissbach
Fear resides in the gesture of a telling.

Are you tired of forever?
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Caitlin Craggs
A surreal meditation on the experience of self.

Cloud Of Petals
(USA)
Director: Sarah Meyohas
At the former Bell Labs, sixteen workers photograph 100,000 individual rose petals to map out an artificial intelligence algorithm that learns to generate new petals forever.

I'm Not Sure
(Germany) World Premiere
Director: Gabriel Hensche
By confronting an app with Surrealist paintings I’m Not Sure explores the psychology of artificial intelligence.

No Stories Now
(USA)
Director: CT Bishop
Hopefully, in moving toward weakness, there can be recognition of false relief.

Silica
(Australia, UK)
Director: Pia Borg
An unseen location scout explores an opal mining town in South Australia in this sci-fi-laced essay film, which finds in this semi-deserted region both the traces of indigenous culture and remnants of cinema history.

ANARCHY SHORTS PROGRAM
AniMal
(Iran)
Director: Bahram Ark, Bahman Ark
A man disguises himself as a ram to cross a border into another land.
Cast: Davoud Nourpour

Breaker
(Japan)
Director: Philippe McKie
In tomorrow's Tokyo, the technologically-enhanced body of a young mercenary hacker is overrun by a sentient data weapon.
Cast: Yuka Tomatsu / Arisa Hanzawa / Kazuya Shimizu

Clipping. - "Back Up"
(USA) US Premiere
Director: Anna Zlokovic
An unnamed filmmaker stumbles upon a horrifying discovery—an underground cult-like society where adults have baby faces and milk is the drug of choice.
Cast: Daveed Diggs, Antwon, Signor Benedick The Moor

Information Superhighway
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Mathew Nelson
A man participates in an experiment to test artificial intelligence in driverless cars.
Cast: Luke Banham, Elias Harger, Anna Faye Hunter , Michael Lee

Little Wonder
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jojo Carlman
This refreshing tale of puppet sexuality follows Username: Stray_Cat as he trolls internet dating sites and vaguely meditates on the loneliness of death.
Cast: Christine Moore, Daegan Palmero, Brisco Diggs, and David Breen III

Love After TIme
(Taiwan)
Director: Tsai Tsung-han
After a nuclear explosion, two mutant humans fall in love.
Cast: Lee Hong chi, Nana Lee

Manila Death Squad
(Phillipines, USA)
Director: Dean Colin Marcial
An ambitious journalist challenges the leader of a violent vigilante group to a high-stakes drinking game. Its outcome may score her a scoop... or a bullet to the head.
Cast: Sid Lucero, Annicka Dolonius

The Order of the Orchid
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Alex Italics
A lonely spinster's failed attempt at arranging flowers summons an ominous shadowy figure that sends her into a psychedelic netherworld to confront her own mediocrity.
Cast: Juliette James, Sean T. Randolph

Santa Ana
(Spain, USA) North American Premiere
Director: César Pesquera
Part art-film, part documentary, Santa Ana aims to elucidate the link between evil and the famed Santa Ana winds, extremely dry down-slope winds in Southern California supposedly responsible for a tense, uneasy, wrathful mood among the people of Los Angeles.

Steve's Kinkoes
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Emma Debany
A man copies posters for his missing (and dead) cat at an otherworldly 24/7 photocopy shop. What will happen to him if he stays forever?
Cast: Timmy Gibson, Chance Bartels, John Archer Lundgren


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A vérité documentary study of manhood as observed through the rites and ritual of a rural New Zealand rugby club.

Winner of the 2017 New Zealand Film Awards' top honors for Best Documentary and Best Documentary Cinematography, Slamdance Presents The Ground We Won by Christopher Pryor and Miriam Smith.

"The Ground We Won is a startling, ferociously intelligent, disturbing, heart-warming and hauntingly beautiful piece of filmmaking" - The Dominion Post

Download, rent and rate on iTunes

Pick Of The Litter Slated As Slamdance Opening Night Film
The Russo Brothers To Be Honored with Slamdance Founder's Award
Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab (De)escalation Room Project to Headline Education & DIG Program
Festival to be Presented by DGA as Partnership Celebrates 20 Year Anniversary

December 19, 2017 (Los Angeles, CA) Slamdance announced today the Special Screenings program for their 24th Festival edition. The lineup features provocative work from remarkable talent that celebrates the DIY spirit of Slamdance. In January, the festival will present four features in the Special Screenings Program: Bernard and Huey, directed by Dan Mirvish; Roll With Me, directed by Lisa France; Quest, directed by Santiago Rizzo; and the world premiere of Pick Of The Litter, directed by Don Hardy and Slamdance alumni Dana Nachman. Pick Of The Litter will screen as the festival’s Opening Night Film presentation.

“This year’s special screenings at Slamdance are not about movie stars, big name filmmakers or hot trending topics. They share the common theme of humanity—highlighting issues of disability, mental health, the resonance of friendship, and the extraordinary resilience of human beings,” shares Paul Rachman, Slamdance Co-Conspirator and Special Screenings programmer. “From the extraordinary power of one man’s determination to prove himself in Lisa France’s Roll With Me to the reliance and trust we put in the animals and pets we share the earth with, in Dana Nachman’s The Pick of the Litter, where dogs learn to lead the blind into a more fulfilling life. The message is clear—we are all here to help each other.”

Nachman’s previous film, Batkid Begins, premiered at Slamdance in 2015 and quickly became one of the most successful documentaries of the year. Following the film’s world premiere, Warners Bros. Pictures picked up worldwide distribution rights to the title, as well as the rights to adapt the documentary into a narrative film with Julia Roberts attached to produce and star.

Slamdance will host a filmmaker discussion with Slamdance Alumni, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo. The conversation, moderated by Slamdance Co-Founder and President Peter Baxter, will highlight the filmmaking duo’s history with the fest and impart career insight for the this year’s class of Slamdance filmmakers. During the discussion, Slamdance will also honor the Russo Brothers with the Founders Award, which is presented to a Slamdance alumni who has continued to support the indie spirit of the festival well into their careers. The award was first presented in 2015 to director Christopher Nolan (Inception, Dunkirk).

“Slamdance was born out of a determination to show the direct, unfiltered voice of independent artists to audiences.” said Peter Baxter, Slamdance Co-Founder and President. “Our line-up, and the massive support shown from our alumni and partners, embody who we are; an artist-led and artist-driven organization that influences media culture and discovers commercial trends before others do."

The Special Screenings program will also feature the festival’s closing night film, Bernard and Huey, a narrative feature directed by Slamdance co-founder Dan Mirvish and written by Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter, Jules Feiffer.

Slamdance returns to Park City with the next evolution of Polytechnic, presented by G-Tech. The year-round program offers a series of cutting-edge discussions designed to provide an inclusive learning environment for new ideas and creative methods in filmmaking with an emphasis on technology, development in craft, industry trends, and DIY solutions. In collaboration with University of Utah, Columbia University, Seed & Spark, alumni and industry partners, these daily Polytechnic programs focus on empowering emerging artists working with limited budgets in order to create future success and build long term careers.

The Slamdance showcase DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming) returns to Park City and will feature new and unseen works by emerging visual artists and indie game developers from around the world. This year the showcase will feature 3 unique works: BVOVB: Bruising Vengeance of the Vintage Boxer; The Game: The Game, and The (De)escalation Room.

The (De)escalation Room is a unique presentation that will headline both the DIG and Polytechnic program. It is a workshop-style experience will transform audience members into participants, working together to collaboratively explore de-escalation. The project is from Columbia University’s School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab (Columbia DSL) and School of Social Work’s SAFElab, and is led by storyteller and Slamdance alumnus Lance Weiler and interactive narrative designer Nick Fortugno.

"The (De)escalation Room represents an exciting step in furthering Digital Storytelling Lab's mission, exploring future forms and functions of storytelling.” said Weiler. “Stories have the power to do so much more than simply entertain us. They can be used as tools of inspiration, motivation, mobilization, healing and education. This particular project allows us to mine stories from our own lives, and use them to explore real-life opportunities to de-escalate real-life situations – woefully needed in today's heavily polarized landscape."

BVOVB: Bruising Vengeance of the Vintage Boxer by Michal Rostock is inspired by classic arcade brawlers (Double Dragon, Final Fight) with many enemies, some boss fights and a simple storyline. All in the style of old silent movies with a ragtime themed soundtrack. Both characters and backgrounds are based on original black-and-white photos from the ‘20s and ‘30s. The Game: The Game by Angela Washko presents the persistent practices of several prominent seduction coaches (aka pick-up artists) through the format of a dating simulator.

Today, the festival also announced the Directors Guild of America (DGA) as Presenting Sponsor. This milestone celebrates the 20 years of collaboration between Slamdance and the DGA. The careers of several prominent DGA members can be traced back to Slamdance: Joon-ho Bong (Barking Dogs Never Bite), Lena Dunham (Dealing), and Rian Johnson (Evil Demon Golf Ball from Hell!!!), The Russo Brothers (Pieces) and Lynn Shelton (We Go Way Back).

“We stand by Slamdance, the creative community it’s developed among directors with its mantra, ‘By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers’ and eagerly await their next group of filmmakers who will join our ranks.” said Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton, Co-Chairs, DGA Independent Directors Committee

The 2018 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 19-25. Both DIG and Polytechnic are free programs, open to the public. All presentations will be held at Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City, Utah.

SPECIAL SCREENING LINEUP
Bernard and Huey
(USA) - Narrative Feature
Director: Dan Mirvish
Screenwriter: Jules Feiffer
Synopsis: From a script by Oscar/Pulitzer-winner Jules Feiffer (Carnal Knowledge), this is the story of two men behaving badly, and the strong women who rein them in.
Cast: Jim Rash, David Koechner, Mae Whitman, Sasha Alexander, Eka Darville, Richard Kind, Nancy Travis, Bellamy Young

Pick Of The Litter
(USA) World Premiere - Documentary Feature
Directors: Dana Nachman, Don Hardy
Screenwriter: Dana Nachman
Synopsis: Pick of the Litter follows a litter of puppies from birth through the day they make it to become a Guide Dog and into the hands of a blind person, or… get cut from the program. The audience comes along on the two-year odyssey as the five dogs train to become guide dogs. Only the best dog will make the cut.

Quest
(USA) Narrative Feature
Director: Santiago Rizzo
Synopsis: Quest is a non-romantic story of love, about a friendship between a 12-year-old graffiti addict who faces constant abuse from his step-father, and a teacher named Tim Moellering who believes there is no such thing as a bad kid — only a bad situation. Based on the stories of their lives, the first draft of Quest was written by director Santiago Rizzo and his teacher Tim Moellering. This is their story.
Screenwriters: Santiago Rizzo, Darren Anderson
Cast: Dash Mihok, Lou Diamond Phillips, Lakeith Stanfield, Betsy Brandt, Greg Kasyan, Marlyne Barrett, Sepideh Moafi, Tobit Raphael

Roll With Me
(USA) Documentary Feature
Director: Lisa France
Screenwriter: Jeff Buccellato, Lisa France
Documentary Subjects: Gabriel Cordell, Christopher Kawas
Synopsis: After hitting rock-bottom, a newly sober paraplegic attempts to save his gang-banger nephew’s life by bringing him along on a 3,100-mile wheelchair trek across the United States. What starts out as a challenge to push an unmodified wheelchair from California to New York, morphs into a transcendent journey.

POLYTECHNIC PROGRAM
● Crowdfunding for Career Independence
With Emily Best & Gerry Maravilla
Friday, January 19 - Noon - 1:30pm

Emily Best and Gerry Maravilla from Seed&Spark are here to share how crowdfunding can be an important tool for raising funds, widening your audience, and communicating with current and future fans in order to ensure that this isn't the only project you make - it's one of many in your lengthy filmmaking career. You'll also find out why data, inclusion, and distro all factor into your success on Seed&Spark, the only platform with a 75% success rate for filmmakers. Learn why crowd-building has to occur before crowd-funding, how to set a realistic campaign goal, how to craft an effective pitch video, what the unique Seed&Spark feedback process is like, and how to continue your connection with your community after your campaign ends.

● Two Brothers, Twenty Years: The Russo Brothers' Past and Future
With Joe and Anthony Russo
Saturday, January 20 - Noon - 1:30pm

From their 1997 Slamdance premiere to their establishment of The Russo Brothers Fellowship at Slamdance 2018, Anthony and Joe Russo have seen the film industry change more (and more quickly) than it ever has before.

While working on myriad projects over two decades, the Russos have seen old-fashioned theater-going give way to pocket computers, streaming services, and endless OnDemand options. Amidst these changes, the brothers rose to studio heights while retaining the authenticity and artist-driven focus of independent filmmakers.

As mentors and partners, Anthony and Joe spend lunchtime with us, deconstructing the mythology of their own “indie success story,” and openly sharing the challenges they’ve faced and wisdom they’ve gained.

● (De)escalation Room by Columbia DSL
With Lance Weiler
Sunday, January 21 - Noon - 2pm

What if we built an environment inspired by negative conversations and behaviors found on social media platforms and in the real world? Inside of this environment, situations quickly escalate. But this time, we would be able to do something about it.

The goal of the (De)escalation Room project is to design a creative framework that allows people to take the lead in creating their own immersive, collaborative experiences. Within these experiences, they’ll be able to teach each other how to identify escalating situations and safely de-escalate them; change norms around escalation; and leave room for self and group reflection on the process.

At Slamdance this January, Columbia DSL will present the next iteration of the (De)escalation Room. This workshop-style experience will transform audience members into participants, working together to collaboratively explore de-escalation.

● When I Was You I Wish I Knew: The Ins and Outs of Distribution
With John Charles Meyer & Cullen Hoback
Monday, January 22 - Noon - 1:30pm

Slamdance alums John Charles Meyer (Dave Made a Maze) and Cullen Hoback (What Lies Upstream) remember how exhausting, overwhelming, and scary a time like this can be, no matter what sort of distribution possibilities you’re considering.

DIG LINEUP
● (De)escalation Room Columbia University’s School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab and School of Social Work’s SAFElab, and is led by storyteller, entrepreneur and Slamdance Alumnus Lance Weiler.

The goal of the (De)escalation Room project is to design a creative framework that will allow people to take the lead in creating their own experience. Within these experiences, they’ll be able to teach each other how to identify escalating situations and safely de-escalate them; change norms around escalation; and leave room for self and group reflection on the process

● BVOVB: Bruising Vengeance of the Vintage Boxer by Michal Rostocki
Your glory days as a boxer are long gone. Once a champ, now a bum. All you care about is beer and your dog - Max the Rottweiler. Unfortunately your faithful dog has been stolen and you must get him back and punish the ones responsible.

The game is inspired by classic arcade brawlers (Double Dragon, Final Fight) with many enemies, some boss fights and a simple storyline. All in the style of old silent movies with a ragtime themed soundtrack. Both characters and backgrounds are based on original black-and-white photos from the ‘20s and ‘30s.

● The Game: The Game by Angela Washko
The Game: The Game is a video game presenting the practices of several prominent seduction coaches (aka pick-up artists) through the format of a dating simulator. In the game these pick-up gurus attempt to seduce the player using their signature techniques taken verbatim from their instructional books and video materials. The game sets up the opportunity for players to explore the complexity of the construction of social behaviors around dating as well as the experience of being a femme-presenting individual navigating this complicated terrain.
Washko hopes to add levels of complexity to public conversations around both pick-up and feminism which have both found themselves most often presented in highly polarized, dichotomous positions in mainstream media.

###

Facebook: SlamdanceFilmFestival
Twitter: @slamdance
Instagram: @slamogram

Additional References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slamdance_Film_Festival


Photos/Images:
Slamdance Logo: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9nekxn78u2vdyuf/AAC48cgUrZRZN2mgxowkj-WTa?dl=0
Special Screening, Polytecnic, DIG press release and film stills: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/740rqb0mczmmy4j/AADgpH51WPBICLwVGSfGJ0PTa?dl=0


PRESS CONTACT:
After Bruce PR
Eseel Borlasa
eseel@afterbruce.com
562-881-6725
Tracy Nguyen-Chung
tracy@afterbruce.com
503-701-2115

Rock Steady Row Wins Best Narrative Feature and Audience Award
Mr. Fish: Cartooning From The Deep End Wins Best Documentary Feature
Yassmina Karajah To Receive The Inaugural Russo Brothers Fellowship
Railment Wins CreativeFuture Innovation Award
Actress Rhaechyl Walker Wins Inaugural Acting Award
Director Wendy McColm Wins George Starks Spirit Of Slamdance Award

(PARK CITY, UT – January 25, 2018) – The 24th Slamdance Film Festival presented by DGA announced the feature and short film recipients of this year’s Sparky Awards in the Audience, Jury, and Sponsored Categories. The festival also announced the recipients of three new awards: The Russo Brothers Fellowship, the CreativeFuture Innovation Award, and a curated Acting Award. The award winners were announced this evening at the festival’s annual Awards Ceremony at the Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City, UT.

The Awards Ceremony celebrates a week of emerging talent and the continued success of Slamdance Alumni, which includes: Jana Winternitz (Ur Friendz, 2010) and Dana Nachman (BatKid Begins, 2015). Pick Of The Litter, directed by Don Hardy and Nachman, made its world premiere at the fest and was acquired by Sundance Selects. The film was sold within 24 hours of its Opening Night screening, making it the first documentary feature to sell in Park City this year.

“We congratulate the winners and everyone at Slamdance who represented the unfiltered voice of independent artists. Thousands came to appreciate our diverse international program, including our neighbors Sundance. As the major acquisition of Pick of the Litter demonstrates, we can expect millions more to follow as our filmmakers and their work continue to attract global recognition out of our showcase.”

During the Awards Ceremony, Baxter announced the recipient of the highly anticipated The Russo Brothers Fellowship. The $25,000 prize, presented by AGBO Films in partnership with the festival, is designed to enable a deserving filmmaker the opportunity to continue their journey with mentorship from Joe and Anthony as well as development support from their studio. The 2018 recipient of the inaugural Russo Brothers Fellowship is Yassmina Karajah, director of the narrative short, Rupture.

“Ever since their first film premiered at Slamdance, Anthony and Joe Russo have cared deeply about supporting our community. They have continually given back to a festival that helped them—first as programmers and increasingly now as mentors. The Russo brothers embody our ‘by filmmakers, for filmmakers’ paradigm and by awarding Yassmina Karajah with the inaugural Fellowship Award, demonstrate the power of our artist led community to help launch careers.”

Peter Baxter presented the award, and shared these remarks from Anthony and Joe Russo: “There were many special films at Slamdance this year, but Yassmina Karajah brought exceptional direction and an elegant cinematic style to a very difficult and worthy story, portraying the heartbreaking experience of immigrant children. We’re inspired to help her continue her journey as a filmmaker, and greatly look forward to working with her.”

The Festival also presented the inaugural CreativeFeature Innovation Award. Slamdance and CreativeFuture have partnered for years to support new talent in the world of film and educate creatives on the importance of protecting their work. This inaugural Award is given to an emerging filmmaker who exhibits the innovative spirit of filmmaking. The CreativeFuture Innovation Award went to Shunsaku Hayashi for his animated short film, Railment.

Peter Baxter presented the award on behalf of CreativeFuture, and shared remarks from Ruth Vitale, CreativeFuture CEO: “Congratulations to Shunsaku Hayashi for winning Slamdance’s CreativeFuture Innovation Award. His film, Railment, exemplifies the innovative spirit of filmmaking by masterfully telling a story through the expert use of visuals and striking colors. The award is well-deserved and we look forward to seeing more from Shunsaku.”

This year’s feature competition lineup included 16 premieres—9 World, 6 North American, and 1 US premiere. Most titles were produced in the US, with additional features hailing 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.

A jury of esteemed filmmakers and industry professionals determined the Slamdance Jury Awards for Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, and Short Film categories. Audience Awards, as well as the newly named George Starks Spirit Of Slamdance Award—an award given by the filmmakers of Slamdance 2018 to the filmmaker who best embodies the spirit of the Festival—were also presented during the ceremony.

This year’s Slamdance Narrative Jury Prizes were selected by: Charles Olivier (Director, Snow & Ashes), Lucy Mukerjee (Director of Programming, Outfest), Thomas Mahoney (Producer, The Girl In The Photographs). The Sparky Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Rock Steady Row, directed by Trevor Stevens and written by Bomani Story

“Rock Steady Row is a shining star in genre, young adult themes, and ‘save the day’ filmmaking. Done creatively in a comic book meets George Miller meets John Carpenter universe. Sharply directed by Trevor Stevens and written by Bomani Story. With strong ingenuity not commonly seen at this budget and experience level, Rock Steady Row stands tall,” said jurors.

This year’s Slamdance Documentary Jury Prizes were selected by: Charlotte Cook (Co-Founder and Executive Producer, Field Of Vision), and Cullen Hoback (Director, What Lies Upstream). The Sparky Award for Best Documentary Feature went to Mr. Fish: Cartooning From The Deep End, directed by Pablo Bryant

The jury shared, “Crafted with the same rugged earnestness and political incorrectness as its subject, this fast paced, exceptionally told portrait creates a complex, funny and layered depiction of a cartoonist who embodies the principles of free speech while revealing the trappings of such an existence. Just like Fish’s cartoons, Mr, Fish: Cartooning From the Deep End is a gateway to hard political discourse, challenging social norms and forcing us to look more closely at what tolerance means. For showing us what is lost when political art is sacrificed to subscription fees, and capturing its subject with the same raw idealism that keeps Fish drawing, we give the Feature Documentary Award to Mr. Fish: Cartooning From the Deep End.”

The Sparky Award for Best Documentary Short went to Nueva Vida, directed by Jonathan Seligson.

From the jurors: “Humble, heartbreaking, and hilarious; this short, personal documentary employs animation to great effect; reminding us of the impermanence and seeming randomness of the universe, and the life altering calamity that can ensue from nothing more than a soccer ball hit to the head. For transforming a captivating 7 minute interview into a highly illustrative and unforgettable story, we give the Best Short Documentary Award to: Nueva Vida.”

This year’s Slamdance Narrative Shorts Prize was selected by: Kevin Hanson (Head of the Film & Media Arts Department, University of Utah), Scott Renshaw (Arts & Entertainment Editor, The Salt Lake Tribune) and Olivia Mascheroni (Executive Producer, Blumhouse Productions). The Sparky award for Best Narrative Short went to Rupture, directed by Yassmina Karajah.

“As a filmmaker and a teacher, I am always encouraging blurring the line between narrative and documentary,” said Kevin Hanson. “This film does that to enormous effect. Not only is the film as a whole a beautiful and uniquely framed journey, but we also have a truly organic experience of these children who are pushed by the director and then allowed to live their own lives within the story. It was a privilege to experience this film.”

This year’s Slamdance Experimental and Animation Shorts jury prizes were selected by: Angela H. Brown (Executive Editor, SLUG Magazine), Beckie Stocchetti (Executive Director, Hawaii International Film Festival) and Andres Olsen-Rodriguez (Projectionist, Slamdance). The Sparky Prize for Best Experimental Short went to Are You Tired Of Forever?, directed by Caitlin Craggs.

“Are You Tired Of Forever? embodies the artistic, DIY soul of Slamdance ... in melting teacup." said the jurors.

The Sparky Prize for Best Animation Short went to Interstitial, directed by Shunsaku Hayashi.

"Interstitial is a visual poem that evokes a universal human experience. Hayashi's hand-drawn artwork and self-composed audio are testaments to the labor and love injected into this emotive piece," said the jury.

Each jury also recognized additional films with Honorable Mentions:
Narrative Feature Honorable Mention - Lovers (Dir.: Niels Holstein Kaa)
Narrative Feature Honorable Mention - Fake Tattoos (Dir.: Pascal Plante)
Documentary Feature Honorable Mention - MexMan (Dir.: Josh Polon)
Documentary Shorts Honorable Mention - The Last Man You Meet (Chris Bone)
Narrative Shorts Honorable Mention - Goodbye Brooklyn (Dir.: Daniel Jaffe)
Experimental Shorts Honorable Mention - Silica (Dir.: Pia Borg)
Animation Shorts Honorable Mention - Satellite Strangers (Dir. James Bascara)

Additionally, a curated Acting Award was presented to Rhaechyl Walker for her breakout performance in, My Name Is Myeisha.

“My Name Is Myeisha is one of the best feature narratives to have played at Slamdance and central to its a success is the performance of Rhaechyl Walker, one of the best I have ever seen,” said Baxter.

“When we started this project seven years ago on a stage at an open mic night, the thought of our story being amplified on a silver screen never entered my mind.” said Walker. “I am so proud, and beyond honored to be a part of such a powerful force of artistic expression that has found its way into many hearts, planted a seed, and nourished souls. Thank you Slamdance for providing this amazing platform, and for this phenomenal award.”

The George Starks Spirit Of Slamdance Award went to Wendy McColm, director of Birds Without Feathers. Formerly known as the Spirit of Slamdance Award, the prize was renamed in the honor of George Starks. Starks, who passed away last summer, was a longtime friend of Slamdance and served as the festival’s Utah Producer.

“I like to think that George was made for Slamdance, and Slamdance was made for him,” shared Baxter. “He always saw the best in our filmmakers and encouraged their potential while never seeking attention for himself. George’s spirit and constant belief in our community shaped Slamdance’s success and consequently many artists. We’ve lost a upon light upon us that we never wanted to go out. George will forever embody the spirit of Slamdance.”

Awards were also given to festival favorites, voted on by Slamdance audiences. The Narrative Feature Audience Award was presented to Rock Steady Row, directed by Trevor Stevens. Freedom For The Wolf, directed by Rupert Russell, received the Documentary Feature Audience Award, The Beyond Feature Audience Award was awarded to My Name Is Myeisha, directed by Gus Krieger.

The festival also recognized the Audience Award runners-up in their respective feature categories: Charlie And Hannah's Grand Night Out (Dir: Bert Scholiers), MexMan (Dir.: Josh Polon) and Funny Story (Dir.: Michael Gallagher).


A full list of winners is below:

Jury Awards | Narrative Features
Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize - Rock Steady Row (Dir.: Trevor Stevens)
Honorable Mentions: Fake Tattoos (Dir.: Pascal Plante) and Lovers (Dir.: Niels Holstein Kaa)

Jury Awards | Documentary Features, Documentary Shorts
Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize - Mr. Fish: Cartooning From The Deep End (Dir.: Pablo Bryant)
Honorable Mention - MexMan (Dir.: Josh Polon)

Documentary Short Grand Jury Prize - Nueva Vida (Dir.: Jonathan Seligson)
Honorable Mention: The Last Man You Meet (Dir.: Chris Bone)

Jury Awards - Narrative Shorts
Narrative Shorts Grand Jury Prize: Rupture (Dir.: Yassmina Karajah)
Honorable Mention: Goodbye, Brooklyn (Dir.: Daniel Jaffe)

Jury Awards - Experimental Shorts/ Animated Shorts
Experimental Shorts Grand Jury Prize: Are You Tired Of Forever? (Dir.: Caitlin Craggs)
Honorable Mention: Silica (Dir.: Pia Borg)

Animated Shorts Grand Jury Prize: Interstitial (Dir.: Shunsaku Hayashi)
Honorable Mention: Satellite Strangers (Dir.: James Bascara)

Slamdance Acting Award:
Rhaechyl Walker (My Name is Myeisha)

Spirit of Slamdance Award Winner:
Wendy McColm (Dir. of Birds Without Feathers)

CreativeFuture Innovation Award:
Railment (Dir.: Shunsaku Hayashi)

The Russo Brothers Fellowship Award Winner:
Rupture (Dir.: Yassmina Karajah)

Audience Awards:
Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature: Rock Steady Row (Dir.: Trevor Stevens)
Runner up: Charlie And Hannah's Grand Night Out (Dir.: Bert Scholiers)

Audience Award for Documentary Feature: Freedom For The Wolf (Dir.: Rupert Russell)
Runner up: MexMan (Dir.: Josh Polon)

Audience Award for Beyond Feature: My Name Is Myeisha (Dir.: Gus Krieger)
Runner up: Funny Story (Dir.: Michael Gallagher)

Photos/Images:
Slamdance Logo: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9nekxn78u2vdyuf/AAC48cgUrZRZN2mgxowkj-WTa?dl=0
Awards Images (Film Stills only): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1n_TwAskdDPZpEb4nOJZf3rIFEuMy4COa?usp=sharing
Event photos from Awards Ceremony: forthcoming (Photo Credit: Lauren Desberg/SLAMDANCE) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gm47rvn3fhmb5x0/AABbMUunhLJGBXX1dHptlJzpa?dl=0


PRESS CONTACT:
After Bruce PR
Eseel Borlasa
eseel@afterbruce.com
562-881-6725
Tracy Nguyen-Chung
tracy@afterbruce.com
503-701-2115

(PARK CITY, UT – January 26, 2017)– The 23rd Slamdance Film Festival tonight announced the feature and short film recipients of this year's Sparky awards in the Audience, Jury, and Sponsored Categories. The award winners were announced at the festival’s annual Awards Ceremony at the Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City, UT.


Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves. Previous Slamdance alumni include: Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT; MEMENTO), and Claire Carre (EMBERS).

“Independent film is made beautiful not by those individual artists that form celebrity culture but by creative collaboration” said Slamdance Co-Founder and President, Peter Baxter. “At Slamdance this year we've experienced an entire program of beautiful independent film and the promise of great emerging artists continuing the legacy of what we set out to do. With our awards we honor several filmmakers yet we know and must acknowledge Slamdance has just been made stronger by everyone of them who has taken part.”

A jury of esteemed filmmakers and industry professionals determined the Slamdance Jury Awards for Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, and Short Film categories. The Audience Awards as well as the Spirit of Slamdance, an award given by the filmmakers of Slamdance 2017 to the filmmaker who best embodies the spirit of the Festival, were also bestowed. Additional sponsored awards were provided by NAB Show, Final Draft, and Pierce Law Group LLP. The feature competition films in the Documentary and Narrative Programs are limited to first-time filmmakers working with production budgets of less than $1 million.

This year’s Slamdance Narrative Jury Prizes were selected by: film critic Jason Coleman, Ania Trzebiatowska (Visit Films), and filmmaker Jerzy Rose (CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY). The Sparky Prize for Best Narrative Feature went to DIM THE FLUORESCENTS; directed by Daniel Warth, and written by Warth and Miles Barstead.

“It’s empathetic, weird and insanely funny.” said Slamdance jurors. “This film delivers its crazy script with guts & panache. It's a delight--beautifully executed and smart as a whip.”

This year’s Slamdance Documentary Jury Prizes were selected by: filmmaker Adrian Belic (GENGHIS BLUES; BEYOND THE CALL), filmmaker Mario DeAngelis, filmmaker/journalist Silvia Bizio. The Sparky Prize for Best Documentary Feature went to STRAD STYLE; directed by Stefan Avalos.

Jurors shared that they honor the film, “for capturing a journey of passion and commitment, honesty and the triumph of one vision against all odds.”

The same Jury also gave the Sparky Prize for Best Documentary Short to MORIOM, directed by Francesca Scalisi and Mark Olexa, highlighting “its arresting portrayal dramatically shot of human trauma and its consequence.”

This year’s Slamdance Narrative Shorts and Animated Shorts jury prizes were selected by: filmmaker Sonia Albert Sobrino, Jeffrey Bowers (VIMEO, Sr, Curator), and filmmaker Malik Vitthal (IMPERIAL DREAMS). The Sparky Prize for Best Narrative Short went to NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT, directed by Tim Mason

Jurors celebrated the film and shared, “we recognize this brave new voice that found the magical combination to create this work.”

The Sparky Prize for Best Animated Short went to Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw), directed by Renee Zhan. “This film is brilliant, and nuanced portrait of power and control and the pain that this artists creates,” said Jurors. “Its honest voice found a way to share a very private moment with a flawless combination of oppressed levity”

This year’s Experimental Shorts/Anarchy Shorts Prizes were selected by: filmmaker Miriam Albert Sobrino, filmmaker Mike Olenick (RED LUCK; THE CURE), and film programmer Bryan Wendorf (Chicago Underground Film Festival)

The Sparky Prize for Best Experimental Short went to UpCycles, directed by Ariana Gerstein. “We are impressed by the unusual and meticulous process involved in making UpCycles,” said Jurors. “We are even more affected that the process never overshadowed the pure visual delight of experiencing this experimental film.”

The Sparky Prize for Best Anarchy Short was given to APE SODOM, directed by Maxwell McCabe-Lokos. “While we were impressed by the strange and fully realized world of this film,” Jurors said, “We were more impressed by seeing how many objects someone could shove up their ass at one time. Ape Sodom not only lived up to its name--it embodies the spirit of anarchy.”

The Spirit Of Slamdance Award went to the film team of NEIGHBORHOOD FOOD DRIVE, directed by Jerzy Rose, and written by Rose, Halle Butler, and Mike Lopez

Awards were also given to festival favorites, voted on by the Slamdance audiences. The Narrative Feature Audience Award was given to DAVE MADE A MAZE, Bill Watterson, and written by Watterson and Steven Sears. The Documentary Feature Audience Award was given to STRAD STYLE. The Beyond Feature Audience Award was given to FUTURE ‘38, directed by Jamie Greenberg.

Immediately following closing night, Slamdance will present a special encore screening in Los Angeles of their opening night film, WHAT LIES UPSTREAM. The documentary feature, directed by Cullen Hoback will launch the ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club 2017 season on Tuesday, January 31st at the ArcLight Hollywood. Tickets

Full List of Winners
Jury Awards | Narrative Features
Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize:
DIM THE FLUORESCENTS
(Canada) World Premiere
Director: Daniel Warth; Screenwriter(s): Miles Barstead, Daniel Warth
Jury statement: “Empathetic, weird and insanely funny, this film delivers its crazy script with guts & panache. It's a delight--beautifully executed and smart as a whip. The jury is thrilled to present the grand jury prize for best narrative feature to DIM THE FLUORESCENTS.”

Narrative Features Honorable Mention:
KATE CAN'T SWIM
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Josh Helman; Screenwriter(s): Jennifer Allcott, Josh Helman
Jury statement: “Flawless in its execution of portraying real relationships with believably nuanced characters, authentic on-screen chemistry and an engaging story that thrives on what isn’t said.”

Jury Awards | Documentary Features, Documentary Shorts
Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize:
STRAD STYLE
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Stefan Avalos
Jury statement: “For capturing a journey of passion and commitment, honesty and the triumph of one vision against all odds.’

Documentary Feature Honorable Mention:
THE MODERN JUNGLE
(Mexico/USA)
Director(s) & Screenwriter(s): Charles Fairbanks, Saul Kak
Jury statement: “For its beautiful cinematography, for a compassionate journey into a dangerous and uncharted world.”

Documentary Short Grand Jury Prize:
MORIOM
(Switzerland)
Director(s): Francesca Scalisi, Mark Olexa
Jury statement: “For an arresting portrayal dramatically shot of human trauma and its consequence.”

Documentary Short Honorable Mention:
IRREGULARS
(Italy)
Director: Fabio Palmieri
Jury statement: “For its visionary take on the dehumanized face of immigration.”

Jury Awards - Narrative Shorts/Animated Shorts
Narrative Shorts Grand Jury Prize:
NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tim Mason
Jury statement: “Brave new voice, that found the magical combination to create the complete short film. "It's Good There's no other way to say it."

Narrative Shorts Honorable Mention:
OH WHAT A WONDERFUL FEELING
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: François Jaros
Jury statement: “Powerful storytelling that found a way to lean away from the stereotypes and consider the humans within the context, with a technical savvy and social responsibility this film reminds us to witness everyone and to see their power.”

Animated Shorts Grand Jury Prize:
HOLD ME (CA CAW CA CAW)
(USA)
Renee Zhan
Jury statement: “For its brilliant, and nuanced portrait of power and control and the pain that this artists creates. This honest voice found a way to share a very private moment with a flawless combination of oppressed levity”

Animated Shorts Honorable Mention:
MY FATHER'S ROOM
(South Korea) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Nari Jang
Jury statement: “This heartbreaking portrait of a girl's broken relationship and the lifelong effects of growing up with an abusive father found a way to sear into its audience to look at the root of pain, asking us to reflect if we could ever escape its cloud. A complete and touching film.”

Jury Awards - Experimental Shorts/Anarchy Shorts
Experimental Shorts Grand Jury Prize:
UPCYCLES
(USA)
Director: Ariana Gerstein
Jury statement: “We are impressed by the unusual and meticulous process involved in making UpCycles. We are even more affected that the process never overshadowed the pure visual delight of experiencing this experimental film.”

Experimental Shorts Honorable Mention:
BLUA
(Colombia)
Director and Screenwriter: Carolina Charry Quintero
Jury statement: “We were surprised by the unexpected shifts between the documentary, narrative, and experimental moments in Blua, and we look forward to seeing the path the filmmaker takes with her future work.”

Anarchy Shorts Grand Jury Prize:
APE SODOM
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Jury statement: “While we were impressed by the strange and fully realized world of this film, we were more impressed by seeing how many objects someone could shove up their ass at one time. Ape Sodom not only lived up to its name -- it embodies the spirit of anarchy.”

Anarchy Shorts Honorable Mention:
HORSESHOE THEORY
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jonathan Daniel Brown
Jury statement: “At a time when America is more divided than ever, this film gives us the hope that two opposing sides can set aside their differences, come together, work together, fall in love... and cum together.”

Spirit of Slamdance Award Winner:
NEIGHBORHOOD FOOD DRIVE
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jerzy Rose; Screenwriter(s): Halle Butler, Mike Lopez, Jerzy Rose

Audience Awards
Audience Award for Narrative Feature:
DAVE MADE A MAZE
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Bill Watterson; Screenwriter(s): Steven Sears, Bill Watterson

Audience Award for Documentary Feature:
STRAD STYLE
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Stefan Avalos

Audience Award for Beyond Feature:
FUTURE '38
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Jamie Greenberg

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.

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 2017 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 20-26 in Park City, Utah.

Notable Slamdance alumni who first gained notice at the festival include: Christopher Nolan (Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (World War Z), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Anthony & Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin), Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Lynn Shelton (Humpday) and Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $11.5 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 traveling On The Road screening events, 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 new distribution arm established to access broader distribution of independent films. The goal is to build the popularity of independent films and support filmmakers on a commercial level through theatrical releases. In August 2016, Slamdance Presents launched the week long release of Claire Carré’s feature sci-fi film, Embers, at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood. 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 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. Ten works were featured in the inaugural DIG show that opened in Los Angeles at Big Pictures Los Angeles on December 4, running through December 13, 2015. The show was also featured at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival. DIG opened in Los Angeles December 2-10, 2016 and will form part of the 2017 Film Festival.

2017 Slamdance Film Festival Sponsors include Blackmagic Design, Distribber, CreativeFuture, Directors Guild of America, Fusion, Different By Design, Pierce Law Group LLP, Writers Guild Of America West, Salt Lake City's Slug Magazine, Beehive Distilling, and BlueStar Café. Slamdance is proud to partner with sponsors who support emerging artists and filmmakers. Additional information about Slamdance is available at www.slamdance.com

Facebook: SlamdanceFilmFestival
Twitter: @slamdance
Instagram: @slamogram

PRESS CONTACT:
After Bruce PR
Eseel Borlasa
eseel@afterbruce.com
562-881-6725
Tracy Nguyen-Chung
tracy@afterbruce.com
503-701-2115

Driven, co-presented by Slamdance, is a scripted series by Stephen Elliott (The Adderall Diaries, After Adderall) that delves into the world of on-demand car services and the lives behind those who ride and those who drive. It's also a commentary on how people live in post-Trump America.

Click here to view more episodes.



Paul Mitchell is 45 years old and lives in New York. He's the author of several books but hasn't written much in a long time. The day Donald Trump is elected Paul realizes he's tired of trying to write. He gives up and becomes a driver for Panda Car, a car-sharing platform rival to Uber.

Ep. 1 Cast: Jennifer Missoni, Paul Glover, Michael Cunningham, Will Dagger, Ariana Chevalier, Nina Binder, Stephen Elliott

Pics from Slamdance 2017 by Ian Stroud

The 4th annual Slamdance DIG showcase will take place at St. Vincent Court in Downtown Los Angeles from
September 13-16, 2018

DIG (Digital, Interactive and Gaming) is a community-driven showcase of interactive art that challenges us to rethink what we know about storytelling. DIG provides a platform to both emerging artists and established creators whose work goes beyond traditional art. Can you dig it?

Learn more and submit here.

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Slamdance is very excited to announce the quarter-finalists for the 2018 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. Congratulations to our Top 106!

We received so many amazing screenplays this year, and each year the final decisions get tougher to make. To those who did not make the quarter-finals, we wish to assure you that Screenplay Competitions are not the final say on writing, cinema and certainly not on artistic achievement. Many screenplays we have not selected in the past have gone on to great success at other contests and have been produced.

The semi-finalists will be announced on September 24th.
Keep an eye out for upcoming announcements on our website and social media!


2018 QUARTER-FINALISTS - Top 106
(in alphabetical order)
Feature:
A Hunt For The Devil by Michael Machin
A Native Land by Caitlin McCarthy
A Texas Story by David Martin-Porras
The Anklebiter by Andy Jones
Baron of Havana by Alex Simon
Bullfrog by David O'Neill
Bury Me at Naper High by Michael Lackos
Calle De Los Negros by Daniel Holland
Cancuncito by Carlos Alejandro Marulanda
Cataumet by Matthew Percival
Coastline by Ned Farr
The Divide by Christopher San Diego
Doodle by Jonathan Medici
Drag by J Nava
Experience by Taj Jenkins Musco
Fast Fashion by David Mandell
Firelight by Matt Harry
Flightless by Kristine Stephenson
Forget-Me-Nots by John Dummer
Girls In Trouble by Brenna Perez
Glitter Pony by Kai Collins
Grit N' Glitter by Seth Donsky
I Am The Wolf by Joel Gregoire
In Burton's Shadow by Michael Selditch
Inang's Land by Arvin Bautista
The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss
Labour The Dogs of London by Mike L. Goforth
The Last Party Girl by Thomas Vickers and Jacob Hatley
Mail THief by Charlie Tarabour
May December by Sebastian Davis
Men by Rebecca Dreyfus
Midnight at the Movies by Jennifer Gutierrez
Mirsada by Patrick Holden
Orwell’s War by Larry Bogad
Penthouse B by Casey Schroen
Please Let Everything Be All Right by Paul Chang
Polly Freed by Brooke Berman
Rare Medium by Greg Wayne
The Rescuer by Lina Roessler
The Reset Button by Jennifer Rapaport
Roll The Bones by Donn Kennedy
Sacagawea by Peggy Bruen
Saving America by Michael Lederer
Scout by Samuel Goodwin
Shared Vision by Manuel Brandozzi
Shells by Justin Horowitz
Shrimp by Nicole Jones
Stall Boy by Luke Toye
The Terrible Child by Rebecca Pecaut
Toxic by Bennet De Brabandere
Trigger Spell by Kyle Ferchen
Tussle by Aaron Yarber
Twenty-Five Dangerous Crimes by Ward McMasters
Versus by Ariel Schmiedhauser
Water Boy by Annique Arredondo
When The SIidewalk Ends by T Sahara Meer
Young Monsters by Christine Vartoughian

Horror
Bar Mitzvah '94 by Michael Reich & Michael Pinkey
Blood in The Water by Laura Gillis
Candle by Jonathan Redding
Causeway by Stanley Wong & Patrick Dorsey
Night Wind Howls by Connor Savage
The Retreat by Alyson Richards
So Lonely I Could Die by Andrew Todd & Johnny Hall
The Undertaker's Children by Natasha Le Petit
Video Nasties by Jake Yuzna
Wendigo by Mike Langer

TV Pilot
All Together Now by Jules Horowitz
Dark Horizons by Erin Carere, Carlo Carere
Darkened Room by Tamara Maloney
Durango by Robert Brickman
Fufu by William Horace
Hag by Dan Hass
Hater by John A. Griffin
Head by Annabel Seymour
Holy Ghosts by Mimi Jeffries
Hooked by Rachel Hroncich
Indians in America by Shane Sakhrani
The Nation by Jon Kauffman
Over The Rainbow by Jessica Sinyard
The Peak by Jessica Sinyard
Phantom by Dan Williams
Politics as Usual by Nora Jobling
Prince of Vice by Christopher Beaton and Justin Talley
R.P.M. by Jeffrey Jackson
The Red by John Whitcher
The Resurrectionist: Pilot by Josh Katz and Josh Thorud
Salute by Kadija Moulton
Sasquatch by Rebecca Bohanan
Satanic Panic by JB Herndon & Celina Paiz
Scarlet by Keaton McGruder
Simple Lies, Hard Truths by Myles Reid
V-A-N-N-A by Laura Pollak
The Weather Underground by Brian Burstein

Short
Ami by Matt O'Connor
Blight by Brittany Clemons
Heartland by Monica West
Icon by Joshua Branstetter
P.O.V. by Justin Ching
The Proposition by Neha Aziz
The Settlement by Nikolas Benn
Standoff by Thomas Patrick
Sundown County by Victor Ridaura
That's the Password in This Town by Marfisia Bel
To Sonny by Maggie Briggs
Violet by Rafael Gamboa

We are delighted to announce and congratulate the semi-finalist screenwriters of the 2018 Slamdance Screenplay Competition! Finalists will be announced on October 1st and the competition winners will be announced at our celebration on October 11th at the WGA West.


Keep an eye out for upcoming announcements on our website!


2018 SEMI-FINALISTS - Top 32
(in alphabetical order)
Feature:
Calle De Los Negros by Daniel Holland
Cancuncito by Carlos Alejandro Marulanda
Experience by Taj Jenkins Musco
Girls In Trouble by Brenna Perez
I Am The Wolf by Joel Gregoire
The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss
The Last Party Girl by Thomas Vickers and Jacob Hatley
Orwell’s War by Larry Bogad
Penthouse B by Casey Schroen
Please Let Everything Be All Right by Paul Chang
Roll The Bones by Donn Kennedy
The Terrible Child by Rebecca Pecaut

Horror
Candle by Jonathan Redding
Causeway by Stanley Wong & Patrick Dorsey
The Retreat by Alyson Richards
So Lonely I Could Die by Andrew Todd & Johnny Hall
The Undertaker's Children by Natasha Le Petit
Wendigo by Mike Langer

TV Pilot
Darkened Room by Tamara Maloney & Maeve McQuillan
Durango by Robert Brickman
Fufu by William Horace
Head by Annabel Seymour
Over The Rainbow by Jessica Sinyard
The Peak by Jessica Sinyard
Phantom by Dan Williams
The Red by John Whitcher

Short
Ami by Matt O'Connor
Icon by Joshua Branstetter
The Proposition by Neha Aziz
The Settlement by Nikolas Benn
Sundown County by Victor Ridaura
That's the Password in This Town by Marfisia Bel

THIS IS IT. The Top 12 screenplays from the 2018 Slamdance Screenplay Competition! Congratulations to all our finalists and a huge thanks to all the writers who shared their work with us this year. The competition winners will be announced on October 11th at the WGA West.


2018 FINALISTS - Top 12
(in alphabetical order)

Feature:
Cancuncito by Carlos Alejandro Marulanda
Girls In Trouble by Brenna Perez
The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss


Horror
Candle by Jonathan Redding
Causeway by Stanley Wong & Patrick Dorsey
Wendigo by Mike Langer


TV Pilot
Darkened Room by Tamara Maloney & Maeve McQuillan
The Peak by Jessica Sinyard
The Red by John Whitcher


Short
Ami by Matt O'Connor
The Settlement by Nikolas Benn
Sundown County by Victor Ridaura

Jessica Sinyard Takes Home Slamdance Grand Prize For Television Pilot “The Peak”
LOS ANGELES, CA (October 11, 2018) – Slamdance today announced the winners of its 2018 screenwriting competition, awarding its Grand Prize to writer Jessica Sinyard for her television pilot “The Peak.” Additional prizes were awarded during a ceremony hosted by Writers Guild of America West across feature film, horror, TV pilot and short film categories. Upwards of 3,000 submissions were received for this year’s contest, and more than $16,000 was awarded to 2018 winners across all categories.


“The Peak” is a psychological survival thriller that follows a team of eight overachievers in their attempt to climb Mount Everest. When a team member goes missing on the peak, paranoia and altitude sickness corrodes the reliability of survivor accounts. With a dual narrative that interweaves both the team’s ascent and descent, “The Peak” reveals a complex central mystery that explores the choices people make when they believe no one is watching.

“This year's competition proved that wherever you come from in this world our judges are waiting to discover and honor great new writing talent, especially if you are Jessica Sinyard from Saxby All Saints village in the north of England, “ says Slamdance President, Peter Baxter. “We are proud to award Jessica Slamdance's 2018 Screenplay Competition Grand Prize for her pilot ‘The Peak,’ a pulsating psychological survival thriller that is primed for production.”

“Slamdance is such a vivacious, distinctive and inimitable festival, it is such as honor to be selected,” says writer Jessica Sinyard.

Slamdance recognizes four categories in its Writing Competition and congratulates the top three screenplays in each category. The top three 2018 Slamdance screenplays in each prize category are as follows:

Feature1st place:
The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss
Three young women embark on a dangerous mission to exact personal revenge in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II.

2nd place:
Cancuncito by Carlos Alejandro Marulanda
Using gambling to escape from her social isolation, Valeria, a disabled woman with limited use of her hands, recruits a poor Afro-Mexican worker to help her play the casinos and attempts to seduce him. When her ultra religious mother threatens to destroy their burgeoning love affair Valeria must move beyond the limits of her disabilities.

3rd place:
Girls In Trouble by Brenna Perez
(1964) Based on historic events. A young, unmarried woman's pregnancy derails her college and career-track life when she gets sent to St. Mary's House for Unwed Mothers, where she is forced to secretly give birth and put her child up for adoption.


Horror1st place:
Candle by Jonathan Redding
When a demon stalks Manhattan, an ex-nun with a gift for the occult must return to protect the Sisterhood she left behind.

2nd place:
Wendigo by Mike Langer
In the near future, a young Native American mother and her twins, in the final stages of a terrifying genetic mutation, must survive the brutal American West while being hunted by a Man hell-bent on killing them.

3rd place:
The Causeway by Stanley Wong & Patrick T. Dorsey
When a zombie-like outbreak puts New Orleans under strict quarantine, a closed-off survivalist and a ragtag group of neighbors attempt to escape across the only road to safety -- the longest bridge over water in the world.


TV Pilot1st place:
The Peak by Jessica Sinyard*
Psychological survival thriller in which eight overachievers attempt to scale Mount Everest. But when a team member goes missing on the peak, paranoia and altitude sickness corrodes the reliability of survivor accounts. With a dual narrative that interweaves both the team’s ascent and descent, The Peak reveals a complex central mystery exploring the choices we make when we believe no-one is watching.

2nd place:
Darkened Room by Tamara Maloney & Maeve McQuillan
Set in 19th century London inside the darkened rooms of séances where everyone is a fraud, only Alma Havenswood, a dissident from the Victorian ruling classes, can truly connect to the beyond. When Alma's gift leads to the loss of her child, she turns her back on the spirit world only to discover that any hope of reuniting with her son rests in her ability to harness her talents and defeat the powers trying to destroy her both in this world and the other.

3rd place:
The Red by John Whitcher
A Cree prostitute helps a racist detective hunt a serial killer preying on Native sex workers –– only to uncover mounting evidence the killer is her Grandfather.

*Fun Fact: Jessica Sinyard actually submitted two TV Pilots that made it into the semi-finals. Her sci-fi investigative thriller 'Over The Rainbow' came in at a close 4th place.


Short 1st place:
Ami by Matt O'Connor
A young girl must navigate the perils of an isolated existence in a crumbling dystopian future, with the help of her AI assistant cube, AMI.

2nd place:
The Settlement by Nikolas Benn
A silver tongued salesman tries to con a grandmother out of what little time she has left.

3rd place:
Sundown County by Victor Ridaura
When the United States government passes a sunset law that eliminates all the constitutional guarantees and rights of any minority in the country after the sun goes down, a Latino interracial family try to make it to Atlanta, a haven city, before the sun sets down on them.


Feature
1st place: The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss
2nd place: Cancuncito by Carlos Alejandro Marulanda
3rd place: Girls In Trouble by Brenna Perez

Horror
1st place: Candle by Jonathan Redding
2nd place: Wendigo by Mike Langer
3rd place: The Causeway by Stanley Wong & Patrick T. Dorsey

TV Pilot
1st place: The Peak by Jessica Sinyard
2nd place: Darkened Room by Tamara Maloney & Maeve McQuillan
3rd place: The Red by John Whitcher

Short
1st place: Ami by Matt O'Connor
2nd place: The Settlement by Nikolas Benn
3rd place: Sundown County by Victor Ridaura

Over the past 23 years, the success of the Slamdance Screenplay Competition and its winning writers continues to attract the attention of industry professionals searching for the best new independent writing talent. Slamdance Screenplay Competition winners that have gone to production include Maria Full of Grace from writer Joshua Marston and The Woodsman co-written by Nicole Kassel and Steven Fechter. Recent competition winners that have gone on to be produced include 100 Bloody Acres from co-writers Colin and Cameron Cairn and Jug Face written by Chad Crawford Kinkle.

The Slamdance Screenplay Competition is dedicated to discovering emerging writing talent. Since 1995 the organization has established a strong track record for identifying and supporting new screenwriters, and they welcome screenplays in every genre, on any topic, from anywhere in the world.

In addition to cash prizes, the top three screenwriters in each category receive prize packages that include Festival Passes good for all screenings and parties at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah (January 25-31 2019). Top three screenwriters in the Feature and Horror categories are eligible for membership in the Writers Guild of America West’s Independent Writers Caucus, and winners in both of these categories receive $2,500 in legal services from Pierce Law Group, LLP. All winners also receive a collection of Slamdance merchandise and will be included in the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival program which is distributed to industry professionals in Park City and year round.


About Slamdance
By filmmakers, for filmmakers. 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.

In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing community with several year-round initiatives. These include the Slamdance Screenplay Competition, its educational program Slamdance Polytechnic, DIG showcase of Digital Interactive and Gaming art, distribution efforts through Slamdance Presents, worldwide screening series Slamdance on the Road, and LA screening series Slamdance Cinema Club

Notable Slamdance alumni include: The Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War, Welcome to Collinwood), 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 $17 billion​ ​at​ ​the​ ​Box​ ​Office​ ​to​ ​date.


For more information on Slamdance, visit: https://www.slamdance.com
Follow Slamdance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Medium.

'Happy Face', directed by Alexandre Franchi. Photo courtesy of Stéphane Gérin-Lajoie

11 Narrative and 9 Documentary Features To Be Showcased in Competition During 25th Annual Festival, Including 18 World, North American, and U.S. Premieres. Festival Also Announces Inaugural Breakouts Section Lineup

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 26, 2018) - The Slamdance Film Festival today announced the Narrative and Documentary Feature Film Competition programs, as well as the lineup for its new Breakouts section, for their 25th edition, taking place January 25-31, 2019 in Park City. Slamdance continues to be the premiere film festival “by filmmakers, for filmmakers”, dedicated to fostering a community for independent emerging artists. The Directors Guild of America and Blackmagic Design are Presenting Sponsors of the festival.

The feature competition lineup boasts 18 premieres, including 10 World, 4 North American, and 4 U.S. debuts. In addition to the United States, films come to Slamdance from countries around the globe, including Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Poland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. All competition films are feature length directorial debuts with budgets of less than $1 million USD, and without US distribution. Featured films were selected by a team of Slamdance alumni via a blind submission process and are programmed democratically. Films in both categories are also eligible for the Audience Award and Spirit of Slamdance Award, the latter of which is voted upon by filmmakers at the festival.

“When it comes to discovering talent, Slamdance has consistently shown that its artist led community can do it themselves,” said Slamdance Co-founder and President, Peter Baxter. “In a milestone year, our competition lineup symbolizes this ongoing endeavor. It’s full of incredible talent representing a global diversity that we believe will play a significant role in our cultural future.”

In addition, the 2019 festival will see the return of the Russo Fellowship -- a $25,000 prize launched in 2018 by celebrated festival alumni Anthony and Joe Russo (Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Infinity War) to enable a deserving filmmaker the opportunity to continue their journey with mentorship from the filmmaking duo. Presented by AGBO Films in partnership with the festival, the inaugural fellowship was awarded to filmmaker Yassmina Karajah for her narrative short Rupture.

Also announced today is the lineup for the festival’s all-new Breakouts section. Breakouts are films by non-first-time-feature directors who demonstrate a determined vision of filmmaking that is instinctively becoming their own. These artists continue to push boundaries in genre and form, and are beacons of light that predict the future of film. Slamdance’s goal is to help daring and resilient filmmakers connect with bigger audiences and take their well-deserved place on the world cinema stage. The 2019 Breakouts feature the work of several Slamdance alumni, including Steven Soderbergh, who executive produced Beats, and Canadian filmmaker Alexandre Franchi who received the Audience Award for best Narrative Feature at the 2010 festival for The Wild Hunt.

"Our newly minted Breakouts section celebrates a group of experienced directors, including some Slamdance alumni, who are genuinely intent on taking bigger risks with their storytelling and career paths,” said Paul Rachman, Slamdance co-conspirator and Breakouts programmer. “These are films from around the world that deliver a bold vision from filmmakers with drive and intent to establish their unique cinematic voices."

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), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Bong Joon Ho (Okja), Lena Dunham (Girls), Ari Aster (Hereditary), Gina Prince-Blythewood (Shots Fired), and Sean Baker (The Florida Project).

2019 competition features include:

NARRATIVE FEATURES

A Great Lamp (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Saad Qureshi
Screenwriters: Saad Qureshi, Donald R. Monroe, Max Wilde
On the river towns of North Carolina, two sad vandals and an unemployed loner wait for a fabled rocket launch.
Cast: Max Wilde, Spencer Bang, Steven Maier, Julian Semilian, Laura Ingram Semilian, Netta Green, Connie Stewart, Smokey, Spaz

Boni Bonita (Brazil, Argentina) - North American Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Daniel Barosa
Reeling from the death of her mother, Beatriz moves to Brazil where she begins an intense and toxic relationship with Rogério, an older musician struggling with his family's artistic legacy.
Cast: Ailín Salas, Caco Ciocler

Cat Sticks (India) - World Premiere
Director: Ronny Sen
Screenwriters: Ronny Sen, Soumyak Kanti DeBiswas
A pack of Calcutta youth seek greater lust and life in their relentless pursuit of Brown Sugar (dirty heroin)... and it’s unsustainable high.
Cast: Tanmay Dhanania, Sumeet Thakur, Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Rahul Dutta, Saurabh Saraswat, Sreejita Mitra, Raja Chakravorty, Kalpan Mitra

Crystal Swan. Photo courtesy of Andrew Brown

Crystal Swan (Belarus, USA, Germany, Russia) - North American Premiere
Director: Darya Zhuk
Screenwriter: Helga Landauer
In mid-90s Belarus, a young DJ's big overseas plans get derailed when a typo on her Visa application sends her to a backwater factory town where she is determined to fake her way to the American dream.
Cast: Alina Nassibulina, Ivan Mulin, Yury Borisov

Dollhouse: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity from American Popular Culture (USA, Canada) – North American Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Nicole Brending
A puppet-animation charting the rise and fall of fictional child pop star, Junie Spoons.
Cast: Aneikit Bonnel, Sydney Bonar, Nicole Brending, Erik Hoover, Maggie Morrisson, Peter Ooley, Adam Sly

Hurry Slowly (Norway)
Director/Screenwriter: Anders Emblem
Hurry Slowly follows Fiona over a few life-changing summer months on the north-western coast of Norway, where she juggle the care of her brother, her job at the local ferry and her interest in music.
Cast: Amalie Ibsen Jensen, David Jakobsen, Lars Halvor Andreassen

Impetus (Canada) - US Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Jennifer Alleyn
In the process of her ongoing film shoot in New York City, a filmmaker finds herself questioning the origin of impulsion. As she tries to overcome loss through creation, an unexpected event enlightens her journey.
Cast: Pascale Bussières, Emmanuel Schwartz, Jorn Reissner, Esfyr Dyachkov

Lost Holiday (USA) - World Premiere
Directors/Screenwriters: Michael Matthews, Thomas Matthews
Two old highschool friends solve a Christmas mystery in D.C.
Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil, Thomas Matthews, Keith Poulson, William Jackson Harper, Ismenia Mendes, Tone Tank, Joshua Leonard and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Spiral Farm (USA) - World Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Alec Tibaldi
When two outsiders arrive on an isolated intentional community, seventeen-year old Anahita begins to question her role at home, and what a future out in the world-at-large could be.
Cast: Piper de Palma, Amanda Plummer, Jade Fusco, Teo Halm, Cosimo Fusco, Landen Beattie, Akuyoe Graham, Kayleigh Gilbert

The Vast of Night (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Andrew Patterson
Screenwriter: James Montague, Craig W. Sanger
At the dawn of the space-race, two radio-obsessed teens discover a strange frequency over the airwaves in what becomes the most important night of their lives and in the history of their small town.
Cast: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Bruce Davis

We Are Thankful (South Africa) - North American Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Joshua Magor
When Siyabonga, a young South African actor hungry to expand his craft, gets wind of a movie production that is shooting in a neighboring town, the eager actor decides to set out a journey that will take him away from his quiet home life and out into a bustling world of possibility.
Cast: Siyabonga Majola, Sabelo Khoza, Xolani “X” Malinga, Amanda Ncube, Percy Mncedicy Zulu, Ntokozo Mkhize, Sibusiso “Sbu” Nzama, Luthando “Cminzah” Ngcobo

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

Behind the Bullet (USA) - World Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Heidi Yewman
An in-depth look at four individuals who have pulled the trigger and the profound impact it’s had on their lives.

The Beksinskis. A Sound and Picture Album (Poland) - US Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Marcin Borchardt
A famous Polish painter known for his dark and twisted imagery chronicles his son's troubled life from the 1950s through the millennium.

Desolation Center (USA) - US Premiere
Director: Stuart Swezey
Screenwriters: Stuart Swezey, Tyler Hubby
The untold story of a series of Reagan-era anarchic punk rock desert happenings that still reverberate throughout our culture.

Dons of Disco (USA)
Director: Jonathan Sutak
A lip-syncing scandal pits an American singer against an Italian male model over the legacy of 1980s 'Italo Disco' star Den Harrow.

Markie in Milwaukee (USA) – World Premiere
Director: Matt Kliegman
A mid-western transgender woman struggles with the prospect of de-transitioning under the pressures of her fundamentalist church, family and community.

Memphis ‘69 (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Joe LaMattina, Screenwriters: Joe LaMattina, Lisa LaMattina
A year after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, a group of blues legends came together to celebrate the 150 year anniversary of Memphis, TN. This concert documentary, shot over 3 days in June of 1969, celebrates an American art form that unites us all.

The Professional: A Stevie Blatz Story (USA) - US Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Daniel La Barbera
A behind-the-scenes look at the magic of Stevie Blatz, an entertainment entrepreneur in Bethlehem, PA.

Seadrift (USA) - World Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Tim Tsai
In 1979, the fatal shooting of a white crab fisherman in a Texas fishing village ignites a maelstrom of hostilities against Vietnamese refugees along the Gulf Coast.

Sudan: The Last Male Standing. Photo courtesy of Andrew Brown
Sudan: The Last Male Standing (USA, Kenya) - World Premiere
Director: David Hambridge
Through the conservation efforts of a rhino caretaker unit in Kenya, we peer past the headlines into the emptiness of extinction in real time.

BREAKOUT FEATURES

Beats (UK) - North American Premiere
Director: Brian Welsh, Screenwriter: Kieran Hurley, Brian Welsh
A universal story of friendship, rebellion and the irresistible power of gathered youth – set to a soundtrack as eclectic and electrifying as the scene it gave birth to, BEATS is a story for our time.
Cast: Cristian Ortega, Lorn Macdonald, Laura Fraser

Demolition Girl (Japan) - World Premiere
Director: Genta Matsugami, Screenwriters: Yoshitaka Kasui, Genta Matsugami
A high-school girl who lives in a rural town in Japan struggles to define her own way in life. To help her impoverished family she works as a video fetish performer which leads to problems for her and her family with a criminal underworld.
Cast: Aya Kitai,Hiroki Ino,Haruka Imo,Yura Komuro,Yota Kawase,Ko Maehara,Ryohei Abe,Nobu Morimoto

Happy Face (Canada) - US Premiere
Director: Alexandre Franchi, Screenwriter: Alexandre Franchi, Joëlle Bourjolly
Desperate to become less shallow, a handsome teenage boy deforms his face with bandages and attends a support group for disfigured people.
Cast: Robin L’Houmeau, Debbie Lynch-White, David Roche, E.R. Ruiz, Alison Midstokke, Cindy Nicholsen, Noémie Kocher.

History of Love (Slovenia, Italy, Norway) - North American Premiere
Director/Screenwriter: Sonja Prosenc
A teenage swimmer/high diver Iva, endures a grieving process, as family secrets and mysteries, especially her mother’s, unveil.
Cast: Doroteja Nadrah, Kristoffer Joner, Matej Zemljic, Zoja Florjanc Lukan, Matija Vastl, Zita Fusco

###

ABOUT SLAMDANCE:
By filmmakers, for filmmakers. 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.

In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing community with several year-round initiatives. These include the Slamdance Screenplay Competition, its educational program Slamdance Polytechnic, DIG showcase of Digital Interactive and Gaming art, distribution efforts through Slamdance Presents, worldwide screening series Slamdance on the Road, and LA screening series Slamdance Cinema Club

Notable Slamdance alumni include: The Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (Christopher Robin), Jeremiah Zagar (We The Animals), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room), Gina Prince-Blythewood (Shots Fired), Lynn Shelton (Outside In, Humpday), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night) and Ari Aster (Hereditary). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $17 billion at the Box Office to date.

For more information on Slamdance, visit: https://www.slamdance.com
Follow Slamdance on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
#Slamdance25

PRESS CONTACT:
Sylvia Desrochers | Tiffany Wagner
sylvia@bigtime-pr.com
tiffany@bigtime-pr.com
424-208-3496

SLAMDANCE TO HONOR ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER STEVEN SODERBERGH WITH 2019 FOUNDERS AWARD
The director’s newest film HIGH FLYING BIRD to sneak preview as part of the festival honorFestival Also Announces Opening and Closing Night Films, Special Event Screenings and Short Film Lineup
December 11, 2018 (Los Angeles) - The Slamdance Film Festival today announced that Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Magic Mike) will be presented with their 2019 Founders Award, given to a Slamdance alumnus who has continued to represent the Slamdance organization and support the filmmaker community of Slamdance well into their careers. The award was first presented in 2015 to director Christopher Nolan (Inception, Dunkirk) and in 2018 was awarded to Joe and Anthony Russo (Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War). Soderbergh will participate in a live discussion with Slamdance Co-founder and President Peter Baxter before a sneak preview of his newest film, High Flying Bird.

Written by Oscar-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and starring André Holland, Zazie Beetz, Melvin Gregg, Sonja Sohn, Zachary Quinto, Kyle MacLachlan and Bill Duke, High Flying Bird takes place during a pro basketball lockout and follows a sports agent (Holland) as he pitches a rookie basketball client (Gregg) on an intriguing and controversial business proposition. The film was produced by Joseph Malloch and executive produced by Holland and Ken Meyer. High Flying Bird will launch globally on Friday, February 8, 2019 on Netflix.


"’Don't ask for permission!’ That was Steven Soderbergh's advice to us when Slamdance was getting started and it continues to be the core of our brand. We answer to no one,” said Baxter. “Slamdance filmmakers have changed the entertainment industry and Steven Soderbergh showed us the way. Without his involvement over the last 25 years both as a filmmaker and mentor to our filmmakers, Slamdance wouldn't be the organization it is today."

Slamdance has also announced the world premiere of Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story as their 2019 opening night film. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Creadon (Wordplay) and produced by Jeff Conroy under his production banner BoBCat Studios, as well as Joe Berry of Lorton Entertainment, the documentary chronicles the life and times of legendary filmmaker Warren Miller, who served as a driving force in the development and promotion of skiing in America and throughout the world. Miller, who died earlier this year at the age of 93 while the documentary was still in production, sat with the filmmakers months before his passing in what would prove to be his final interview.

In addition to Miller himself, Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story features interviews with Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley, ski legends Scot Schmidt, Dan and John Egan, Kristen Ulmer, Brad Vancour, and fellow ski filmmaker Greg Stump, along with members of Miller’s family and the filmmaking team.

(left) A scene from Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story directed by Patrick Creadon. Photo courtesy of Warren Miller Co. (right) A scene from This Teacher, directed by Mark Jackson. The Closing Night film at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Mark Jackson

The festival’s closing night film, This Teacher, is directed by Slamdance alumni Mark Jackson (Without) and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival in September. In his third feature, Jackson follows a French Muslim woman (Cesar-winner Hafsia Herzi) as she travels to New York City to visit her childhood best friend. When the reunion proves disastrous, Hafsia disappears to a remote cabin upstate where her vacation gradually descends into a terrifying study of the intolerance and suspicion she encounters and reflects back to an Islamophobic America.

“Being premiere agnostic means Slamdance can shine a spotlight on exceptional films and filmmakers who might otherwise slip through the cracks,” said Slamdance co-conspirator Paul Rachman. “The Teacher is a timely and poignant story, beautifully written and directed, anchored by a powerful performance from Hafsia Herzi.”

Getting its world premiere out of competition will be The Drone from director Jordan Rubin (Zombeavers). The film follows a newlywed couple as they get terrorized by a consumer drone that has become sentient with the consciousness of a deranged serial killer. In addition, Slamdance has added a special event presentation of Blessing Yen and James Kaelan’s America the Beautiful to the lineup. An audience favorite during their September DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming) showcase in Los Angeles, America the Beautiful was shot entirely on iPhone and has been called the found-footage thriller for our turbulent political moment.

The 2019 shorts lineup was also unveiled today by Slamdance, showcasing 78 short films from countries around the world including the United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The lineup includes 26 World, 5 North American and 6 US Premieres. Shorts in the Narrative, Documentary and Animation sections are eligible for the 2019 Oscar® Qualifying Shorts competition.

Added to the 2019 short film program is an all-new Episodes category showcasing episodic work in any style, genre and format intended for broadcast – from comedy and drama to documentaries and social commentary and beyond.

"Our new Episodes program focuses on the next generation of series storytellers who are distorting familiar story structures with unfiltered or unique setups and story arcs," said Episodes program Co-Captain Craig Parish. "We continue to support and be excited by creators who are challenging perceptions and shaping their own art with fewer creative constraints than have traditionally been in place."

The Slamdance shorts program has a rich history of screening the first works of filmmakers who have gone on to highly successful careers in Hollywood, including Rian Johnson, Lena Dunham, Benh Zeitlin, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Don Hertzfeldt, Ari Aster, Andrew Thomas Huang, Jeremiah Zagar, Jon M. Chu and Ana Lily Amirpour.


The 2019 shorts program includes:

NARRATIVE SHORTS

023_GRETA_S (Germany) – World Premiere
Director: Annika Birgel
A young actress' audition quickly spirals out of control, turning into an intimate and manipulative interrogation.
Cast: Lilian Mazbouh, Tania Carlin, Gerrit Neuhaus

Akeda (USA)
Director: Dan Bronfeld
An orphan boy has his humanity tested when a film director encourages him to give a violent performance that will blend fiction with reality.
Cast: Karim Saleh, Gustavo Quiroz

Autumn Waltz (Serbia, USA) – World Premiere
Director: Ognjen Petković
A couple is attempting to escape their besieged town when they run into a barricade of unfriendly soldiers and must think fast.
Cast: Tanja Pjevac, Jovo Maksić, Ljubiša Milišić, Marjan Apostolović

Blast Beat (Canada) – US Premiere
Director: Pascal Plante
It ain't easy singing for a black metal band...
Cast: Corinne Cardinal, Alexandre Dostie

Butt Fantasia (USA) – World Premiere
Director: Mohit Jaswal
With the help of a magic hat, a man contemplates the good and bad times his butt has been through.
Cast: Bruce Patzke

Charmer (New Zealand)
Director: Judah Finnigan
Torn between two competing needs, a middle-aged woman is forced to make a difficult decision during a rocky first date with a disagreeable bachelor.
Cast: Robyn Malcolm, Stephen Lovatt

Chicken Wraps and Condoms (USA) – World Premiere
Director: Jacob Gregor
A darkly comical look at the culture and making of YouTube videos.
Cast: Ray Bruster, Bryant King, Jacob Gregor

Clams Casino, Narrative Short. Photo Courtesy of Pam Nasr

Clams Casino (USA)
Director: Pam Nasr
Arcelia Diaz invites an unknown audience to an extravagant seafood dinner as she struggles to rebuild her relationship with her mother.
Cast: Eloisa Santos, Roma Lopez, Rina Mejia, Sarah Lynne

East of the River (USA) – World Premiere
Director: Hannah Peterson
Teonna is unexpectedly suspended from school and is faced with a day on the streets of Washington, DC.
Cast: Ayiana T. Davis, Steloni Mason, Malachi Mack

Hair: The Story of Grass (Saudi Arabia, Canada)
Director: Maha Al-Saati
Abandoned by her prince, an Arabian Cinderella is left serving guests while her mentally-challenged ward attempts to escape the body of the hairy grown up he is trapped in.
Cast: Nada Tawhid, Aziz Gharbawi, Abdulhalim Alnami, Fahad Alghamdi

Hands and Wings (South Korea) – World Premiere
Director: Sungbin Byun
One day, a disabled son rejects his mother's help.
Cast: Seonghoon Hong, Geumsoon Kim, Wookyum Kim

Hierophany (USA)
Director: Kevin Contento
Living on the margins of American society, a Florida boy comes in contact with the sacred.
Cast: Jean Voltaire, Wiltavious Mckelton, Roy Thompson Jr., Malik Hall

Midnight Confession (Canada, USA)
Director: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Manny Jumpcannon wants your sympathy.
Cast: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, August Diehl, Breeda Wool

Mothering (UK) – US Premiere
Director: Lucy Bridger
On her first day in a new foster home, Mia faces an awkward new challenge.
Cast: Sapphire Paine, Ursula Jones, Angela McHale

My Expanded View (USA)
Director: Corey Hughes
A YouTube Yoga tutorial. A collapsed body. An expanded view.
Cast: Malek Robbana, Aidan Spann, Danielle Criqui, Cooper Wright, Tyler Davis, George Cessna, Christian Hughes, Fiona Sergeant, Corey Hughes

Nettles, Narrative Short. Image Courtesy of Raven Jackson

Nettles (USA)
Director: Raven Jackson
Shot over the course of a year, in six chapters, Nettles delicately explores stinging moments in the lives of different girls and women.
Cast: Kamile Bailey, Jordan-Amanda Hall, MeeWha Alana Lee, Alicia Ocana

Norteños (UK) – US Premiere
Director: Grandmas
Barry, a mild mannered dimwit from the Northwest of England, tries to elicit the help of his former lover after a terrible incident involving his Nan.
Cast: Daniel Watson, Chelsea O'Connor, Shane Dickinson

Piu Piu (USA)
Director: Naima Ramos-Chapman
Jordan escapes into the city for a day to herself, only to be trailed by a stranger and pushed into finding her own weapon against him.
Cast: Natalie Paul, Jermaine Small, Trae Harris, Santana Caress Benitez

Ready for Love (USA)
Director: Dylan Pasture & Lauren McCune
Amber Lynn Weatherbee knows that the right man is out there. Maybe he's on The Bachelor?
Cast: Lauren McCune, Nancy Munger, Angeline Gragásin

Tunnel Ball (Australia) – World Premiere
Director: Davis Jensen
A boy goes to a new school. Everyone is identical and loves the sport Tunnel Ball. The only way to fit in is to beat them at their own game.
Cast: Reuben Ward, Wilson Moore

Users (Poland) – North American Premiere
Director: Jakub Piatek
A woman and a man try to wrench some feelings from each other on a video chat site that connects random strangers.
Cast: Maja Pankiewicz, Dobromir Dymecki

Wet Pavilion (UK)
Director: Teva Cheema
A kid witnesses the disintegration of his older brother's love life in a car wash.
Cast: Filippo D'antuono

Woman in Stall (Canada)
Director: Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli
A woman finds herself trapped in a bathroom stall by a man whose intentions are not entirely clear.
Cast: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Ben Kerfoot


DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

Acadiana (Canada) – World Premiere
Directors: Yannick Nolin, Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau
May 2017: Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, is the theatre of the mythic Crawfish Festival

All on a Mardi Gras Day (USA) – World Premiere
Director: Michal Pietrzyk
In a gentrifying New Orleans, Demond sacrifices to be Big Chief in a secret hundred-year culture known as Mardi Gras Indians: African-American men from the city’s roughest neighborhoods who spend all year sewing feathered suits they’ll wear only once, in a battle to decide who’s “the prettiest.”
Cast: Big Chief Demond Melancon, Alicia Winding, Spyboy Walter "Trigga" Blakk, Spyboy Rashaud "Shaudy" Brown

Betty Feeds the Animals (USA) – World Premiere
Director: James P. Gannon
Betty loves animals, she loves them so much that everyday she puts 30 bowls of food outside of her home to feed them. She feeds skunks, raccoons, cats, foxes and the occasional opossum. This is her story.
Cast: Elizabeth Gannon

Dramatic and Mild (Russia) – North American Premiere
Director: Nastia Korkia
Visitors are free to briefly enjoy a painting by Visily Kandinsky in a small enclosed room of a former power station. Art is in the eye of the beholder.
Cast: Vladimir Bolshedvorskiy

Enforcement Hours (USA)
Director: Paloma Martinez
In a climate of xenophobia and confusion, a San Francisco hotline aims to provide limited assistance to a targeted population.

Gloria's Call (USA)
Director: Cheri Gaulke
From the cafés of Paris to the mountaintops of Samiland, a scholar’s life is forever changed through her friendships with the women artists of Surrealism.
Cast: Gloria Orenstein

Guns Found Here (USA)
Director: David Freid
Every gun sold in America has a serial number. A few brave citizens are tasked with tracking them. This is their story.

Las Del Diente (Spain, USA)
Director: Ana Perez Lopez
Three women discuss the social pressure of having kids while celebrating the uniqueness of their bodies.
Cast: Ángela Stempel, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Aitziber Olaskoaga

Roughly Delicate (USA) – US Premiere
Director: Heqiuzi Wang
Firearm and footwear. Food and space. Memory and reality. It’s a story of Chinese women immigrants using shooting guns and dancing to fight their insecurities.
Cast: Jenny Dai, Jun Wang, Helen Chen

Swatted (France) – North American Premiere
Director: Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis
Online players describe their struggles with "swatting", a life-threatening cyber-harassment phenomenon that looms over them whenever they play. The events take shape through youtube videos and wireframe images from a video game.

Tungrus, Documentary Short. Image courtesy of Rishi Chandna

Tungrus (India)
Director: Rishi Chandna
In a cramped apartment in Mumbai, a family considers eating their hell-raising pet rooster, so that they can reclaim their lives.
Cast: The Bharde Family

Winners Bitch (USA)
Director: Sam Gurry
Inspired by a found archive on a doyenne of the dog competition world, a rumination on the many sacrifices it can take to be a woman of distinction.
Cast: Anni Weisband, Donald Gurry, Nancy Venezia, Dr. Michael Buxbaum

EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

601 Revir Drive (USA)
Director: Josh Weissbach
A series of spatial limits are defined while a maker imbibes.

Applied Pressure (USA)
Director: Kelly Sears
Ease the pain from past physical and mental distress.

Exit Strategy #4 (USA)
Director: Kym McDaniel
I confront memories that have contributed to my chronic pain. The fourth in a series examining how a head injury has asked me to cope with emotional and physical traumas.

Mudanza Contemporánea, Experimental Short. Image courtesy of Teo Guillem

Mudanza Contemporánea (Spain)
Director: Teo Guillem
Armchairs, mattresses, feet, blankets, arms, memories, mops, tubes or plastic dance, twist, fall, fly and break in this emotional choreography in which a man and his army of objects try to defeat a ghost from the past.
Cast: Teo Guillem, Cristina Pérez

Nothing Blue (USA)
Director: Laura Herman
A letter of grief across the solar system.
Cast: Laura Herman

A Study of Fly (USA)
Director: Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu
A reflection on the relationship between insect, human, environment and the universe. The fly in this film can be approached as a living being, a metaphor for human desire to reach beyond, and a state that demonstrates the capacity to move between the realms of life and death.
Cast: Wen-Chu Yang, Zheng Fu

Watermarks (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Sara Suarez
Along the James River in Richmond, Virginia, impressions of a buried world emerge beneath the monuments on the surface, questioning how the past is recorded or suppressed.
Cast: Audrey Collette, Mavra Peponi

Wayward Emulsions (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Tina Takemoto
Queer glimpses of a wayward woman captured in bits of emulsion lifted from stray reels of a 35mm Asian drama.

ANIMATION SHORTS
11010 (Brazil) - North American Premiere
Director: ONZE (Gabriela Monnerat + Rodrigo Amim)
Ada and Evon live in a town being abandoned. A scenario dominated by artificialities, exchanged by virtual environments. It's love? Is it a binary code?

Bloeistraat 11 (Belgium, Netherlands)
Director: Nienke Deutz
Inseparable best friends spend their last summer holiday of childhood amusing themselves around the house. As summer progresses their bodies start to morph and shift and an awkwardness descends on their friendship. Puberty seems determined to interrupt their bond.

Egg (France, Denmark)
Director: Martina Scarpelli
A woman is locked in her home with an egg, which she is both attracted to and scared of. She eats the egg, she repents. She kills it. She lets the egg die of hunger.

Eyes at the Specter Glass (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Matthew Wade
An otherworldly vision of the power of light and the weight of planets. "Its memories are not its own."

Frontier Wisdom (USA)
Director: Jenna Caravello
In the dry desert space between here and there, a phone repairwoman encounters a chatty corpse, a self-propelled peanut, and some portents of the rapture.
Cast: Diana Cioffari, Anna Cangellaris, Jake Acosta

Get Up, Pierrot (USA)
Director: Gurleen Rai & F. Anthony Shepherd
Pierrot is an existential pastry made by folding layers of identity upon itself with equal parts tears and smiles.
Cast: F. Anthony Shepherd, Kit Pfisto

Goodbye Forever Party (USA)
Director: Jonni Phillips
Lilith, a performer for a children's show called The Scrumbos, struggles with her job, mental illness, and relationships.
Cast: Aster Pang, Emily Martinez, Victoria Vincent, Noah Malone, Lorenzo Fresta, Kai Lynn Jiang, Isabel Higgins, Jonni Phillips

Hedge (USA) - US Premiere
Director: Amanda Bonaiuto
A singularly comical/surreal vision of a family visiting a funeral home.

Saw/Ate Sad Bird (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Lauren Flinner
I saw a bird. I caught a bird and I ate it. Now there is a sad bird in me.

Shalva, Animation Short. Image courtesy of Danna Grace Winsor

Shalva (Tranquility) (USA)
Director: Danna Grace Windsor
An alternative vision of a female superhero. In a synthetic meditation space, an empty shell seeks power.
Cast: Danna Grace Windsor

Sparky (China, USA)
Director: xinbaonuzi
Sparky likes to gaze out of the window, to see every possible or impossible thing.

Via (USA)
Director: Maria Constanza Ferreira
A unique look at the vivid colors and surprising textures of macro-geographic structures. Roads, Rivers, Cities. Arteries, Veins, Neurons.

EPISODES

Asian American Studies, Episodes. Image Courtesy of Woody Fu.

Asian American Studies (USA)
Director: Woody Fu
A hyper-paced sketch series examining the plight of yellow life in a white-filtered world.
Cast: Woody Fu, SJ Son, Fumi Abe, Christopher Simpson

The Big Spaghetti (Australia) - North American Premiere
Director: Zoe Pepper
Perhaps the best way to get over that special someone, is to become somebody else. A lesson in reinvention for just us girls.
Cast: Tim Watts, Adriane Daff, Andrea Gibbs

Bobo Touch Helpline: Bushwick Tarzan (USA)
Director: Mike Rizzo, Brian Bonz
It's a sausage way of life for this bizarro neighborhood hero who thwarts a strange doctor while confronting the meaning of love.
Cast: Mike Rizzo, Brian Bonz, Azusa SHESHE, Patrick Estrabrook

Division Street: Fish Out of Water (USA)
Director: Traven Rice
A withdrawn little girl is reluctantly sent to live with her cranky grandmother in NY's Lower East Side. What feels, at first like punishment, soon blossoms into wonderment as the gritty neighborhood is oddly transformed into a place that's truly magical.
Cast: Naledi Makel Murray, Jodi Carol Harrison, Amy Rutledge, Jeffrey Farber

Finding The Asshole (USA)
Director: Melissa Stephens
It's like playing 'Where's Waldo?' only, you are searching for Waldo in a world of couture, cluttered with super-annoying Waldos.
Cast: Christine Woods, Melissa Stephens, Tom Detrinis, Tina Huang, Courtney Pauroso

No. 3: In the Absence of Angels (Canada) - World Premiere
Director: Camille Hollett-French
In the brutal aftermath of sexual assault in broad daylight, Crystal, a streetwise community mentor, is forced to make a crucial decision that will shape the person she becomes.
Cast: Camille Hollett-French, Abanoub Andraous, Brett Donahue and Juno Rinaldi

Propolis, part 7 (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Patricia Beckmann Wells
Siblings, Liz and Beaux, remain trapped inside a closet as punishment served by their alcoholic mother, however, escape means the pair will face a far more nefarious world that awaits just beyond.
Cast: Lilly Manzaneda, Jack Chiu, Patricia Beckmann Wells, Scott Wells

Rage Room (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
Exasperated with life, a newly determined woman opens a business using her paltry alimony. The emotionally-charged space becomes an unusual place welcoming all who seek healing by unleashing their anger through demolition and more.
Cast: Summer Chastant, Sarah Lancaster, Johnny Ramey, Adam Huss

The Rocky Roads (USA)
Director: Robert Kleinschmidt
Rejoice! The beloved, yet forgotten, children's show 'The Rocky Roads' is back with all new goopy adventures!
Cast: Star Childe

They Quit Botherin' Norman Tibbs (Stories by Dick) (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Christopher Noice
Bullied and ignored, young Norman is encouraged by an unlikely mentor to stand tall for himself, once and for all.
Cast: Dick Noice

Tijuana (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Mary-Lyn Chambers
It's 1924 in Tijuana, Mexico during U.S. Prohibition. Carmen, a wildly ambitious and deviously calculating woman, manipulates her husband into launching a tequila-smuggling business that triggers a chaotic downward spiral.
Cast: Ilana Guralnik, David ‘Blak’ Plascencia, Ruby Pedroza, Enrique Castillo

ANARCHY

Apex (UK)
Director: Stuart T Birchall
Emergence of a hybrid human-alien consciousness from the void.
Cast: Pixie Le Knot

Dog in the Woods (USA) - World Premiere
Directors: Christian Chapman, Paul Jason Hoffman
A downtrodden house dog escapes into the woods at night to follow the psychedelic temptations of the natural world.
Cast: Alice Chapman, Astrid Chapman, Suzanne Chapman, Micheal Chapman

Dominant Species (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Joseph Sackett
10 aliens in human host bodies learn how to be men.
Cast: Julian Cihi, Colby Minifie, Will Seefried, Vasile Flutur

Filtrate (Canada) - US Premiere
Director: Mishka Kornai
Far from now in a subterranean compound, tucked below a desolate world, five characters seek to connect. Shot entirely on iPhone 7 in the Montréal underground, FILTRATE is an exploration of digital connectivity and physical isolation.
Cast: Taylor James, Elie-Anne Ross, Namo Chanethomvong, Gama Fonseca

Grosse Auge (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Everett Kelsey
Mortality and spirituality wrestle behind the enlightened eyes of a Man engulfed within the eternal moment
Cast: Everett Kelsey

King Wah (I Think I Love You) (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Horatio Baltz
A disgruntled delivery man, a woman with chronic déjà vu, Pat Sajak, and a slow dance in a Chinese takeout restaurant.
Cast: Vincent Leong, Lucy Cottrell, Napoleon Emill

Perfect Town (Switzerland)
Director: Anaïs Voirol
In search of perfection a city obeys blindly to selection.

Placenta, Anarchy Short. Image courtesy of Robert Broadhurst

Placenta (USA) - North American Premiere
Director: Robert Broadhurst
Sacco de Bambino Erotico.
Cast: Tavet Gillson, Michael Hurst, Anna Lewis, Nick Vargas

Prizefighter (USA) - World Premiere
Director: Lyndon J Barrois
Prizefighter is an animated sportrait depicting three days in the life of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, battling his fiercest opponent - racism.
Cast: Keith David, Peter Macon, Nathan Ives, JB Blanc

Remission (USA)
Director: John Charter
Inspired by co-creator of the film Paul Kaiser’s struggle with PTSD and his real life mission to reconnect with his daughters, three creatures are manifestations of an unknown soldier’s war trauma and his vast, lonely pilgrimage toward emerging from a purgatory loop.
Cast: Paul Kaiser, Alice Kidd, Ursa Major, Mackinzie Dae, and Zach Smith

Signal (USA)
Director: Steven Lapcevic
A reliable glut of misinformation.

Slip Road (Australia) - World Premiere
Director: Raphael Dubois
A young man leaves the life he has always known, to strike a deal with a creature, but strange forces pull him into something deeper.
Cast: Izaak Love, Sohaib Zaman

Ykcowrebbaj (Austria, Germany, India) – World Premiere
Director: Helen Hideko
Once upon a time, Alice came across a curious Looking-glass poem called, “Jabberwocky” that was all in some language she didn't know. Now, follow the little green bird into this Looking-glass world and see a mesmerising version of the poem that Alice read there...
Cast: Kumaresan, Bharati Kapadia, Sravasti Banerjee


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ABOUT SLAMDANCE:
By filmmakers, for filmmakers. 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.

In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing community with several year-round initiatives. These include the Slamdance Screenplay Competition, its educational program Slamdance Polytechnic, DIG showcase of Digital Interactive and Gaming art, distribution efforts through Slamdance Presents, worldwide screening series Slamdance on the Road, and LA screening series Slamdance Cinema Club

Slamdance alumni are unique in their ongoing support of up and coming filmmakers. Some notable names include: The Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (Christopher Robin), Jeremiah Zagar (We The Animals), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Greg Mottola (The Daytrippers), Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room), Gina Prince-Blythewood (Shots Fired), Lynn Shelton (Outside In, Humpday), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night) and Ari Aster (Hereditary). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $17 billion at the Box Office to date.

The 2018 Slamdance Film Festival takes place in Park City, Utah from January 25th - 31st and is presented by sponsors Blackmagic Design and Directors Guild of America.

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Tickets and Passes now on sale for Slamdance 2019!

PRESENTING THE 2019 SLAMDANCE JURY
The 2019 Slamdance Jury brings together alumni from across our 25 years, along with filmmakers and industry leaders whose work embodies the spirit of experimentation and adherence to independence that we support at Slamdance. Meet the Jury members of the 25th Slamdance Film Festival.


Narrative Features
Frédéric Forestier
Frédéric was born in Paris, February 8th, 1969. He made his first film at age 10 and decided to work in cinema. After he graduated with a baccalauréat in micro technics and optics, he studied at ESCA in Paris for 2 years, founded his production company, and self-produced his first short films. One of them, Paranoia hit Slamdance, got him an agent in Los Angeles, and his first feature film starring Dolph Lundgren and Roy Scheider in 1996 at age 27.




Shih-Ching Tsou
Shih-Ching is a New York City-based filmmaker. She co-wrote, co-directed and co-produced Take Out with Sean Baker, which debuted at Slamdance in 2004 and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards. Following Take Out, Tsou continued to collaborate with Baker, executive producing Starlet, serving as producer, costume designer and art department on Tangerine, and producing The Florida Project, which premiered at the Directors' Fortnight of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Tsou is currently working on her second feature, Left Handed Girl, a family drama set in a night market in Taipei, Taiwan.

Jeremiah Zagar
Jeremiah grew up in South Philly. At the age of 19, he premiered his documentary short Delhi House at Slamdance 2002. In 2008 he completed his first feature documentary, In A Dream, which screened theatrically across the US and in film festivals around the world. It was broadcast on HBO, shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two Emmy nominations, including “Best Documentary.” His next documentary Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart premiered in competition at Sundance and aired on HBO in 2014. His latest film, the feature-length narrative We The Animals, premiered at Sundance in 2018 and took home the NEXT Innovator Award.





Documentary Features and Shorts
Dana Nachman
Dana is an award-winning filmmaker of both fiction and documentary films. Nachman’s 2018 feature doc Pick of the Litter was sold within 48 hours of its Slamdance premiere and is being released by IFC Films. Nachman’s 2015 film Batkid Begins was bought and distributed by Warner Bros./New Line Cinema. She has won three regional Emmys, dozens of festival Jury and Audience Awards, and many more. Nachman’s films have also been shown on television networks like MSNBC, OWN and PBS. Dana is currently on the festival circuit with three films and is working on a trilogy of romantic comedies.


Mark Moskowitz
Mark Moskowitz's first documentary feature, Stone Reader, won a Slamdance Special Grand Jury Award in 2002. It went on to a U.S. theatrical release, picked by many critics as one the year's 10 Best films. His latest documentary, a limited series called It Was the Music, will premiere in 2019.






Stefan Avalos
Stefan Avalos is filmmaker who enjoys jumping between genres and job descriptions. His psychological thriller, The Last Broadcast (co-directed with Lance Weiler), made history as the first feature to be released digitally to theaters. Stefan is a Slamdance alum; his 2017 documentary, Strad Style, won two Sparkys - the Audience Award and the Grand Prize for Best Feature Documentary.








Experimental and Animation Shorts
Kelly Gallagher
Kelly Gallagher is an experimental animator, filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Film at Syracuse University. Her award winning films have screened at The National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Ann Arbor Film Festival, LA Film Forum, and Anthology Film Archives. Upcoming screenings of her commissioned animations include: Sundance, MoMA, and PBS.





Skizz Cyzyk
Skizz Cyzyk has held positions at MicroCineFest, Maryland Film Festival, Slamdance, and Atlanta Film Festival, as well as serving on juries and advisory boards at many other festivals. His films include Icepick To The Moon, Hit & Stay, Freaks In Love, plus many shorts and music videos (Beach House, Young Fresh Fellows). He serves on the Board of Directors for Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and performs music with The Stents, Go Pills, The Jennifers, Garage Sale, Half Japanese and Mink Stole & Her Wonderful Band.



Bryan Wendorf
Bryan Wendorf co-founded the Chicago Underground Film Festival while working in a video rental store in 1994 and remains its Programmer and Artistic Director. He has served on the board of directors of IFP Chicago and has curated film programs at numerous venues including Conversations At The Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago) and the Revelation Film Festival (Perth). He's served on juries at Chicago International Movies and Music, Onion City and Lake County Film Festivals among others, and has written articles for a variety of publications including New City Chicago and Indiewire.





Narrative Shorts

Andrew Hevia
A filmmaker from Miami, Andrew Hevia's producing credits include the Oscar winning film Moonlight, and projects by Phil Lord, Amy Seimetz and Hannah Fidell. He co-founded Miami's Borscht Corp. and currently works as a Producer and Vice President at Fabula US, the production company started by director Pablo Larraín.






Jeremy Yaches
Jeremy is the executive producer and co-founder of Public Record, a production company that specializes in film, TV, branded content, and commercials. His most recent film, We The Animals, won the NEXT Innovator award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and is nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards. His doc work includes In a Dream, which screened all over the world and was broadcast on HBO, as well as the Netflix original Voyeur, which premiered at the 2017 New York Film Festival.



Gus Krieger
Gus Krieger is a Los Angeles-based writer/director/producer of stage and screen. His first produced feature screenplay The Killing Room starred Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, Academy Award nominee Chloe Sevigny, and premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Recently, Krieger produced Fender Bender for Mark Pavia and the Chiller Network, and Kevin Shulman’s I Am Fear for Roxwell Films. As writer-director-producer, Mr. Krieger’s feature films include the philosophical thriller The Binding, and the hip-hop drama My Name Is Myeisha (Slamdance 2018 Winner - Audience Award, Acting Award for Rhaechyl Walker).