By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Four Films and Composers Selected for 2012 Sundance Institute Composers + Documentary Lab

Posted Thursday, October 18th, 2012 - Comments Off on Four Films and Composers Selected for 2012 Sundance Institute Composers + Documentary Lab
Be Sociable, Share!

For Immediate Release
October 18, 2012 

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the four documentary film projects and composers that have been paired together for the tenth Composers + Documentary Lab, October 26 through November 1 at Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah. The Lab is a joint initiative of the Institute’s Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP) and Film Music Program.

Built upon the Sundance Institute Lab model launched in 1981 by Robert Redford, Fellows participate in an unique residential retreat focused on the role of music and sound design in documentary film. Four composers along with four documentary projects from a pool of over 100 active DFP-supported films were selected. Each composer is paired with a filmmaker to compose and record original music for a section of the work-in-progress film.  A team of award-winning filmmakers and composers participate as Advisors and work with Sundance Institute staff to guide the process and also screen and discuss their work. Advisors for the 2012 Lab are filmmakers Rob Epstein (Howl, Celluloid Closet), Vivien Hillgrove (In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee) and DFP Director Cara Mertes, as well as music editor Adam Smalley and composers Todd Boekelheide (Blessed is the Match), Miriam Cutler and Film Music Program Director Peter Golub (Wordplay, These Amazing Shadows).

Cara Mertes, Director of the DFP, said, “This Lab is unique in the world; through it we have seen the escalation of the use of original composition in cinematic documentary. During the week, we focus on familiarizing outstanding documentary directors with the potential of original music in their films. The composers commonly have established musical careers but have not composed for film, and documentary storytelling is uniquely suited to benefit from the attributes of an inspired musical score and soundscape.”

Peter Golub, Director of the Film Music Program, said, “Composers for documentaries face unique challenges yet there are few opportunities for them to work with documentarians and focus specifically on overcoming those obstacles. The Composers + Documentary Lab provides valuable hands-on experience composing for documentary film. More than that,  we hope it creates working relationships that will have practical applications throughout these artists’ careers.”

The four films and composers selected for the 2012 Sundance Institute Composers + Documentary Lab are:

Powerless (India)

Directors: Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar

In a city with 15 hour power outages, a nimble young electrician provides Robin Hood-style services to the poor. Meanwhile, the first female chief of the electricity utility company is on a mission to dismantle the illegal connections, for good.

Composer: Ed Barguiarena

Ed Barguiarena is a veteran composer, producer, arranger and musician. His work includes music for feature film, documentaries, theater, modern dance, recordings and live performances.

Regarding Susan Sontag (U.S.)

Director: Nancy Kates

Regarding Susan Sontag tells the dramatic story of the late writer, activist, and public intellectual. It explores Sontag’s career, contrasts her courageous public persona with her closeted private life, examines her contributions to culture, and documents her views as a thinker and activist on war, terrorism, torture, and other contemporary issues.

Composer: Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum

Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, a Juilliard graduate, has collaborated with world-renowned filmmakers, composers, multimedia artist. She has written music for film, television, video games, theater and the concert hall.

Stargazing (Denmark)

Director: Berit Madsen

A young Muslim girl dreams of becoming an astronaut. But at her age the nightly stargazing excursions in the desert are a thorn in the side of family and traditions.

Composer: Damian Montano

Damian Montano enjoys a varied musical career as a composer and performer in Los Angeles. He has worked on diverse projects, ranging from composing orchestral commissions to writing and orchestrating for feature film and television. As a bassoonist, he is a member of the LA Chamber Orchestra and performs with ensembles such as the LA Philharmonic and LA Opera.

Untitled: 1971 (U.S.)

Director: Johanna Hamilton

Filmmaker Johanna Hamilton continues her exploration of social movements and the limits of dissent, this time turning her lens to domestic contradictions in North America.

Composer: Larry Goldings

Larry Goldings is a Grammy-nominated pianist, keyboardist, composer, and arranger.  In addition to being recognized as one of the world’s top jazz organists, he composes songs for and with a growing list of singer-songwriters. He recently completed scoring his first feature film, Dealin’ With Idiots, written and directed by Jeff Garlin.

The Sundance Institute Film Music Program Composers Labs are made possible by BMI, Time Warner Foundation, and the Jerry & Terri Kohl Family Foundation.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund is made possible by generous support from Candescent Films, Cinereach, the Crosscurrents Foundation, The Charles Engelhard Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Hilton Worldwide, The James Irvine Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Joan and Lewis Platt Foundation, the S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, Wallace Global Fund, Marc Weiss, and The J.A. & H.G. Woodruff, Jr. Charitable Trust.

Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund provides year-round support to nonfiction filmmakers worldwide. The program advances innovative nonfiction storytelling about a broad range of contemporary social issues, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to audiences. Through the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory, Composers + Documentary Laboratory, Creative Producing Lab, as well as the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and a variety of partnerships and international initiatives – including Stories of Change and Good Pitch – the program provides a unique, global resource for contemporary independent documentary film. www.sundance.org/documentary

Sundance Institute Film Music Program

With the goal of nurturing the development of music in film, the Film Music Program connects composers and directors, giving them first-hand experience of the collaborative process. At the Sundance Film Festival, the program raises the profile of music in film through a series of concerts and panels. Year round, whether through international collaborations or through direct consultations with filmmakers, the Film Music Program is committed to enhancing the role of music in film.www.sundance.org/filmmusic

Sundance Institute

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute (http://www.sundance.org) on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/sundance), Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/sundancefest) and YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/sff).

# # #

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on Four Films and Composers Selected for 2012 Sundance Institute Composers + Documentary Lab

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon