If you are working on a screenplay/feature that has some mention of, or features anything related to the sciences or the sci-fi realm then, you’ll want to do what Alex Rivera (see pic) has done for a second project in a row. The Sundance Institute’s Alfred P. Sloan Grant has been awarded to Rivera and Bent-Jurgen Perlmutt this year while the Sloan Lab Fellowship Awarded Avi Zev Weider. Here is more info on the filmmakers and their projects.
Bent-Jurgen Perlmutt / ON THE LEFT
Perlmutt’s political thriller ON THE LEFT tells the story of a young Cuban-American designer who travels the world to research human behavior for a large mobile phone company. He becomes embroiled in Cuba’s flourishing black market, where he experiences a powerful connection to the unique culture, time, and place that is modern day Havana.
Perlmutt is a New York-based filmmaker. His feature-length documentary film LUMO (P.O.V., 2007) won a 2007 Student Academy Award and the President’s Award at the 2007 Full Frame Film Festival. His film LES VULNERABLES (2007), screened as the closing night short of the 2007 New York Film Festival and at the 2008 Berlinale.
Alex Rivera / LA VIDA ROBOT
Based on true events, LA VIDA ROBOT follows the story of four underachieving, high school classmates who compete against M.I.T. in a national underwater robot championship.
Rivera is a New York-based filmmaker and digital media artist. His first feature film SLEEP DEALER premiered at 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won the Alfred P. Sloan Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Rivera is a Fellow of the Sundance Feature Film Program Labs, a Rockefeller Fellow and an Annenberg Fellow. His work has been screened at The Berlin International Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, The Guggenheim Museum, PBS, and the Telluride Film Festival. SLEEP DEALER will be released by Maya Films this Spring.
2009 Sloan Lab Fellow
Avi Zev Weider / ZEROES AND ONES
In Weider’s screenplay ZEROES AND ONES, a young woman creates an intelligent machine out of discarded computer parts, and thus completes her grandmother’s fractured story of survival at Auschwitz and emerges from her own secluded life.
Weider’s award-winning short film, I REMEMBER, premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. He is currently working on a documentary feature about human relationships to technology, WELCOME TO THE MACHINE. Weider attended the 2009 January Screenwriting Lab in Sundance, Utah as part of his Sloan Fellowship.