SUNDANCE
SELECTS AND SUNDANCE INSTITUTE
COLLABORATE
TO BRING FILMS FROM THE
2010
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL TO A NATIONAL AUDIENCE FOR THE FIRST TIME VIA ON-DEMAND
PLATFORM
“Direct
from the Sundance Film Festival” to feature three films premiering
simultaneously at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and nationally through new
Sundance Selects VOD offering
New York, NY – January 7,
2010 —
new theatrical and video-on-demand film label, today announced an unprecedented
collaboration with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute for the 2010 Sundance
Film Festival (January 21st – 31st, Park City, UT).
As part of the “Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” initiative,
three films being screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival will
simultaneously be available nationwide, on–demand, through Sundance
Selects. The films in the collaboration represent the broad range of
cinematic expression found in this year’s festival, from a highly
anticipated documentary to a thrilling Park City
at Midnight title, to a critically-acclaimed American independent film.
Sundance Selects creates a new national platform
for independent film in the documentary and world cinema categories, and marks
the first time a transactional on-demand platform has existed for feature
documentary films.
The films featured through the Sundance
Institute and Sundance Selects partnership will be available on video-on-demand
the same day each premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, and will be
available in approximately 40 million homes on most major cable systems
including Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Time Warner, plus the satellite provider
Direct TV.
“Moving the storytelling of the Sundance
Film Festival beyond ten days in Utah
remains a top priority for us,” said Sundance Institute founder Robert
Redford. “This collaboration with Sundance Selects is a new and
important complement to this ongoing goal and is a perfect way to introduce
unexpected and refreshing voices to wider audiences simultaneous with the
event,” he added. “I couldn’t be more pleased that
these particular films will be available in this way.”
Josh Sapan, President and CEO of Rainbow Media,
which owns and operates Sundance Selects said, “We launched Sundance
Selects with the goal of giving national exposure to the type of exceptional
films and filmmakers for which the Sundance Film Festival is so well known. As
Sundance Selects continues to gain momentum as one of the leading VOD platforms
for documentaries and world cinema, we are excited by rich opportunities like
this partnership that makes the platform more timely and more closely related
to the festival experience. We’re thrilled to work with this talented
group of filmmakers and our friends and colleagues at the Sundance Institute on
this initiative to help these high-quality films reach the largest possible
audience.”
John Cooper, Director, Sundance Film Festival
said, “This is an exciting time to experiment with these kinds of
ventures. The independent film community has been abuzz of dialogue and
speculation in recent years about what is possible. This is true innovation
combined with action. New mythologies for how Sundance Film Festival can help
the films we so carefully select need to become realities. If it serves our
filmmakers, it is right for the festival."
Films selected for “Direct from the
Sundance Film Festival” are:
Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’
eye-opening socio-political documentary THE SHOCK DOCTRINE
American premiere simultaneously at the Sundance Film Festival and on-demand
through Sundance Selects on Thursday, January 28. Closely based on the
best-selling book by Naomi Klein, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE seeks to explain the rise
of disaster capitalism: the exploitation of moments of crisis in vulnerable
countries by governments and big business. The film traces the doctrine’s
beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman at the University of
Chicago, and its subsequent implementation over the past 40 years in countries
as disparate as Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Boris Yeltsin’s Russia,
Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain, and most recently through the
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Winterbottom and Whitecross present a
cinematic experience that takes this theory to a new audience, making heavy use
of archival images, offset with new footage of Klein's interviews and lectures.
The Sundance premiere screening will be followed by an onstage dialogue with
Robert Redford, Naomi Klein, and Michael Winterbottom to explore further the
ideas presented in the film.
Making its North American premiere on Friday,
January 22nd is DADDY LONGLEGS
known as Go Get Some Rosemary), Josh and Benny Safdie’s autobiographical
fairy tale and bittersweet comedy about the responsibilities of
parenthood. Divorced and alone, Lenny (Ronald Bronstein) is the father of
two young boys who he gets to see a couple of weeks a year. He cherishes these
days with the kids, being both stern parent and lovable buddy, inventing myths
and somehow living them, all while working overtime in the big city. When the
going gets tough, Lenny uses some unusual, perhaps even hazardous, techniques
to keep the kids safe from the world. With a fluid style, the
Safdie brothers (whose previous credits include the acclaimed The Pleasure of Being Robbed) capture the
magic of parenthood, invoking memories of their inventive dad from their own
childhood.
Making its World premiere on
Friday, January 22nd, as part of the Park City
at Midnight program, Daniel Grou’s dark and gritty 7 DAYS
best-selling novel “Les 7 Jours du Talion”) centers on a successful
surgeon whose world is torn apart by the murder of his eight-year-old
daughter. The father embarks on a quest for revenge against the
perpetrator of this heinous crime, and in a game of cat and mouse with the
police detectives assigned to the case, he successfully kidnaps the accused
murderer as he is transported to the courthouse. With the roles now reversed,
this father-turned-predator drives his prey to a remote cabin, where seven days
of unspeakable torture await. He even keeps the police apprised of his plan,
vowing to turn himself in after the execution of this alleged monster.
Director Daniel Grou aka Podz does a masterful job of immersing the audience in
this dark and gritty world, deftly capturing the psyche of a sane man gone mad.
7 DAYS is
an eye-for-an-eye tale that is chock-full of tension, suspense, and inner
conflict.
“Direct from the Sundance Film
Festival” will be available for 30 days on each cable system’s main
movies-on-demand channel in a special “Sundance Film Festival”
branded section. To promote the partnership, Sundance Selects has
created promotional spots that will run on some of the participating cable
systems as well as on the Sundance Channel throughout the month of January.
Arianna Bocco negotiated the acquisition deals
on behalf of Sundance Selects for THE SHOCK
DOCTRINE
with Charlotte Mickie from E1 Entertainment International (Sundance Selects
acquired U.S.
rights for both titles). Bocco negotiated the deal for DADDY LONGLEGS with producer Tom Scott and
sales rep Victoria Cook from Cinetic Media (North American rights).
Charlotte Mickie of E1 Entertainment
International said, “The ‘Direct from the Sundance Film
Festival’ initiative is tremendous – it’s a huge step forward
in ‘event cinema,’ bringing the excitement of the festival right
into communities all over America.
We’re very proud to be part of this initiative with our movies THE SHOCK
DOCTRINE and 7 DAYS.”
Tom Scott,
Founder/PartnerNaSA Entertainment, “Benny and Josh
are brilliant story tellers, and we are excited to work with Rainbow Media and
the Sundance Institute in a new and innovative way to bring DADDY LONGLEGS to
U.S. audiences – in both Park City, UT and nationwide.”
Offering films on the VOD platform is one of the
new initiatives of the Sundance Film Festival, giving audiences across the
country the opportunity to experience the 2010 festival. The
festival recently announced the inaugural Sundance Film Festival USA, a
nationwide expansion of the 2010 festival bringing filmmakers and their films
direct from Sundance to eight different cities on the night of Thursday,
January 28, 2010. Select films from the 2010 lineup (including DADDY LONGLEGS
theaters in participating cities followed by a conversation with the
filmmakers. For more information about Sundance Film Festival and a complete
lineup of films visit: http://festival.sundance.org/2010/film_events/sundance_usa/.
DADDY LONGLEGS, THE SHOCK
DOCTRINE
theatrical and transactional video-on-demand film label for documentaries and
world cinema which launched last summer with the release of Spike Lee’s
acclaimed film, PASSING STRANGE: THE MOVIE. Sundance Selects releases are
available on the on-demand platform of major cable operators, with select
titles also receiving theatrical distribution.
Upcoming Sundance Selects releases include the
following acclaimed films: Don Argott’s thrilling documentary whodunit
THE ART OF THE STEAL, which chronicles the long, politically charged struggle
for control of the Barnes Foundation, the greatest collection ever assembled of
Post-Impressionist and early Modern art (February 24th);
Chris Wiatt’s documentary A COMPLETE
HISTORY OF MY SEXUAL FAILURES (January 2010); and Dominic Murphy’s WHITE
LIGTHNIN’ which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival (January
27th).
Recently releasesd Sundance Selects titles
include: Academy Award-winner Adam Elliot’s animated film MARY AND MAX,
which opened the 2009 Sundance Film Festival; Kief Davidson’s acclaimed
documentary KASSIM THE DREAM, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film
Festival; and Tom Thurman’s documentary NICK NOLTE: NO EXIT;
Rainbow Media Holdings LLC
Rainbow
Media Holdings LLC is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:
CVC). Rainbow Media owns and operates some of the world’s most
popular and award-winning entertainment brands, including AMC, IFC, Sundance
Channel, WE tv, Wedding Central, Sundance Selects and IFC Entertainment (IFC Center,
IFC Festival Direct, IFC Films, IFC In Theaters and IFC Productions).
Additional information about Rainbow Media’s multiplatform brands is
available at www.rainbow-media.com
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981,
Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the
development of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the
annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally recognized for its artistic
development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers,
playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects
as
Sin Nombre, Born into Brothels
and Trouble the Water. www.sundance.org.
