Sundance Institute’s 2009 June Directors and Screenwriters Labs

Summer is a time for picnics, days at the beach, and Sundance’s Director’s and Screenwriter’s Labs. Out of the eight announced projects attending the Director’s lab, seven of them were part of the Screenwriter’s lab back in January. The new name added to the lab process is a project from artist/filmmaker Tala Hadid and The Narrow Frame of Midnight. Among the four projects invited to the Screenwriter’s Lab we find a familiar name in director (see pic) Todd Louiso (Love Liza, The Marc Pease Experience) and his latest project Hello, I Must Be Going. Following in a natural progression on the Sundance Institute’s part to develop young filmmakers and help develop their projects, here are the lucky dozen participants who will have a chance to workshop their films before they go into production – and here is a list of the people who will be there to coach them.:

Robert Redford, Michael Almereyda, John August, Ronan Bennett, Walter Bernstein, Joan Darling, Caleb Deschanel, Lisa Fruchtman, John Gatins, Michael Goldenberg, Keith Gordon, Susannah Grant, Randa Haines, Catherine Hardwicke, Ed Harris, Etgar Keret, Michael Lehmann, Peter Medak, Walter Mosley, Jeremy Pikser, Howard Rodman, Susan Shilliday, Stewart Stern, Wesley Strick, Joan Tewkesbury, Tyger Williams, Alfre Woodard, and Doug Wright.

The projects and participants selected for the June Directors Lab from June 2-20 are:

· All Fall Down/Jonathan Wysocki (writer/director), U.S.A.
· Beasts of the Southern Wild/Benh Zeitlin (co-writer/director) and Lucy Alibar (co-writer), U.S.A.
· Goodnight Moon/Elgin James (writer/director), U.S.A.
· My Brother the Devil/Sally El Hosaini (writer/director), U.K./Egypt
· Porfirio/Alejandro Landes (writer/director), Brazil/Ecuador
· The Narrow Frame of Midnight/Tala Hadid (writer/director), Morocco/U.S.A.
· On the Ice/Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (writer/director), U.S.A.
· The Story of Ram/Ritesh Batra (writer/director), U.S.A./India

These Fellows will be joined at the June Screenwriters Lab from June 21-26 by the following projects and participants:

· The American People/Keith Davis (writer/director), U.S.A.
· Hello, I Must Be Going/Sarah Koskoff (writer) and Todd Louiso (director), U.S.A.
· Land/Jan-Willem van Ewijk (co-writer/director) and Abdelhadi Samih (co-writer), Netherlands/Morocco
· Little Wings/Emily Tang (co-writer/director) and Chow Keung (co-writer), China