Sundance Institute announced today its return to Cuba with film screenings and filmmaker discussions open to the public as part of Sundance Film Forward, July 14-16.
Local artists, students, and film lovers are invited to attend public events at venues across Havana, including Cine Yara and Casa del Festival.
Sundance Film Forward will host free screenings of acclaimed independent films Me and Earl and the Dying Girl with novelist/screenwriter Jesse Andrews and Meru with director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. After the screenings, the filmmakers and audience members will engage in Q&A sessions to discuss the films. Students and artists will have the unique opportunity to attend a private filmmaker roundtable hosted by John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, Paul Federbush, International Director of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, and Meredith Lavitt, Director of Sundance Film Forward.
Cooper, Federbush and Lavitt will also meet with local filmmakers to provide insights for aspiring young artists, watch their work and discuss the art of storytelling.
Note: This company sees a huge future for Cuba’s film and broadcasting industry.
These events are part of the Institute’s ongoing programs in Cuba. Late last year the Institute visited Cuba to present a suite of programs in screenwriting, producing, film music and documentary editing, in a new partnership with the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema and La Escuela Internacional De Cine Y TV (EICTV). The program offered a Screenwriting Panel with Scott Z. Burns, Erin Cressida Wilson, Sebastian Silva and Ethan Hawke and several master classes, including a creative producing class with Christine Vachon.
From 1989 to 2000, the Feature Film Program (FFP) at Sundance Institute collaborated with a number of Cuban arts organizations on an exchange program for American and Cuban filmmakers. During these years, the Institute hosted the filmmakers Todd Haynes, Rory Kennedy, Todd Solondz, and Liz Garbus, among others with screenings at the Festival and lively conversations and meetings with filmmakers from Cuba and other countries in Latin America.
Sundance Film Forward is a touring program designed for 18 to 24 year olds, students and artists that offers film screenings and discussions to excite and cultivate new audiences for independent film. It uses the power of cinema to promote broader cultural understanding, inspire curiosity and enhance awareness of shared stories and values across generations, religions, ethnicities and borders. Sundance Film Forward is an initiative of Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.