(LOS ANGELES – January 18, 2016) – The Slamdance Film Festival announced today Jury members for its 22nd edition, which includes the minds behind “William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe,” “Curfew,” “The Resurrection of Jake The Snake”, the novel AGAINST CONTROL, Clever Fox, Caucho Technology, the Montclair Film Festival and the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival to name a few. Juries of leading industry experts and esteemed filmmakers determine the Slamdance Jury Awards for Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, and Short Film categories. These awards will be presented on Thursday, January 28th, during the Festival’s Awards Ceremony. “We are fortunate to have such acclaimed industry members and alumni join our juries and we welcome the Digital Bolex fearless filmmakers to round out our festival program,“ states Peter Baxter Co-Founder and President of the Slamdance Film Festival.
Tuesday, January 26th, Digital Bolex will present the second edition of FEARLESS FILMMAKING: ART ON YOUR OWN TERMS, a block of shorts shot on the D16 camera that bring together the Slamdance and Digital Bolex filmmaking communities in Park City for Festival audiences.
The 90-minute showcase features the work of fourteen filmmakers from Croatia, Australia, Romania, France, and the USA, including two films created at the 2015 Résidence Audiovisuelle Francophone in Slon, Romania, and a University of Connecticut thesis film that received the Digital Bolex Grant for Women Cinematographers.
"We're thrilled that for the second year we've been able to give users of our camera the opportunity to premiere their work on the big screen at such an esteemed celebration of independent cinema," said Digital Bolex Creative Director Elle Schneider. "We're grateful to Slamdance for partnering with us to give back to our incredible user community, and that the filmmaker initiatives we began to support in 2015, such as the Women Cinematographer's Grant and the Slon Residence, are already producing festival-quality work."
2015 Showcase filmmakers Jeremy Osbern and Misti Boland will be joining fellow 2015 alum Lindsey Haun, Paste Magazine editor Michael Dunaway, cinematographer Ben Kasulke, and directors Leah Shore and Tina Mabry as jurors for the 2016 FEARLESS FILMMAKING SHOWCASE, which takes place at Slamdance Film Festival Headquarters, Treasure Mountain Inn, Park City, UT, at 5:15PM on Tuesday, January 26th.
Haun, who received a D16 cinema camera as a prize for winning the 2015 Showcase with her one-take film Coming To, is currently shooting her first feature, Hanky Panky, exclusively on the camera in Heber, UT, starring Coming To's Jacob Demonte-Finn, Clare Grant, Ashley Holliday, Christina Laskay, Anthony Rutowicz, Nick Roth, Toby Bryan, Azure Parsons, and several puppets.
Narrative Features Jury:
Damon Russell grew up in the Atlanta suburbs. After graduating from Georgia State University, he began working in documentary television, as a Producer on the A&E show The First 48. In 2012 he wrote and directed the critically acclaimed feature film, Snow On Tha Bluff, about the real-life Atlanta crack dealer and robbery boy, Curtis Snow. The film was Executive Produced by Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, 12 Years A Slave) and acquired by Screen Media. The following year, Damon produced the 2013 Oscar winning short film, Curfew. He went onto Produce and Edit the feature version of Curfew, entitled Before I Disappear, which won the audience award at SXSW (2014) and was acquired by IFC.
Erik Jambor co-founded the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, Alabama in 1999. He served as Director for Sidewalk's first eight years and in 2006 developed and produced the organization's inaugural Birmingham SHOUT, the first LGBTQ film festival in Alabama. Erik ran the 2007 BendFilm Festival in Bend, Oregon, and from 2008-2014 was Executive Director of Indie Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. He has served on festival juries including SXSW, Atlanta, Nashville, Oxford, RiverRun, and the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy. He was last on the Slamdance narrative features jury in 2008.
Julie La'Bassiere became CEO of BAFTA New York in June 2015. Prior to joining the BAFTA New York team, La’Bassiere founded Tall Bird Marketing & Strategy – a strategic brand, marketing and indie film distribution consultancy for filmmakers and content creators. As a senior strategist, British-born La’Bassiere has been at the forefront of innovative 360° entertainment brand strategy and marketing for the past 2 decades. La’Bassiere was the Head of Marketing for FilmBuff where she oversaw Title PR, Marketing and Theatrical Distribution Strategy for all films. La’Bassiere was the Director of Marketing & Industry for Tribeca Enterprises, where she oversaw the industry program at Tribeca Film Festival as well as brand marketing initiatives for Tribeca Film. La’Bassiere holds a degree in Educational Anthropology from Stanford.
Documentary Shorts and Features Jury:
Vanessa Hope started her film career in China while teaching a graduate course on law and society at People's University and completing her PhD at Columbia University. Fluent in Chinese, she has produced multiple films in China, including Wang Quanan's The Story Of Ermei, Chantal Akerman's Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai, and her own short films- China In Three Words and China Connection: Jerry. She directed and produced a web series for NYU's U.S.-Asia Law Institute called Law, Life & Asia. Her U.S. producing credits include the Oscar short-listed feature documentary William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe. Vanessa's feature documentary directorial debut, All Eyes And Ears, premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival
Steve Yu is a documentary filmmaker and digital marketing consultant with a passion for capturing inspiring stories on film. His past success creating viral video shorts have garnered over 100 million views on social media, and his first documentary feature, The Resurrection of Jake The Snake, a film that chronicles an attempt to save the lives of two broken-down professional wrestlers (Jake The Snake Roberts and Scott Hall), premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2015. After multiple acquisition offers, Steve and his team chose to self-distribute, partnering with Slamdance Presents for multiple sold-out theatrical event screenings, and an early 2016 VOD release using the Distribber business model. Steve is currently working on several inspirational projects including another feature doc.
Skizz Cyzyk is a filmmaker, musician, and film festival careerist Skizz Cyzyk has held positions at MicroCineFest, Maryland Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival, and serves on juries and advisory boards at many other festivals, including Slamdance (20 years as projectionist; 13 years on advisory board; 8 non-consecutive years on the jury). He is a board member for Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and performs music with Go Pills, The Jennifers, Garage Sale, Half Japanese and Mink Stole & Her Wonderful Band.
Experimental and Anarchy Jury:
Jack Sargeant has numerous books including Against Control, Deathtripping: The Extreme Underground and Naked Lens: Beat Cinema (like Deathtripping now in its third English language edition). His forthcoming book Flesh and Excess: On Underground Film is due for publication in late 2015. He has written on film and underground culture for numerous anthologies and journals, and has written introductions for books by Lydia Lunch, photographer Romain Slocombe and artist Joe Coleman, among others. He writes a regular column for FilmInk, and has written for The Wire, Xochi 23, Fortean Times, World Art, Real Time, Metro and many other publications. His writings have also appeared in the booklets accompanying numerous DVDs in the USA and UK.
He has frequently appeared as a documentary interviewee in films including Blank City, The Advocate For Fagdom and Llik Your Idols. In addition to writing, Sargeant has lectured on underground film and culture, beat culture, William Burroughs and many other topics across the world. Sargeant is also Program Director for the Revelation Perth International Film Festival, which takes place annually in Western Australia. He has curated numerous film and art events across the globe.
Dekker Dreyer is a filmmaker and video artist. As chief creative officer at immersive media studio Clever Fox he oversees branded and original content made for virtual reality devices. Previously, Dekker was with Participant Media where he was on the launch team for their television network Pivot and headed special projects that married new technology with storytelling. In 2005 he founded Illusion On Demand, a cable VOD network where he produced original scripted and unscripted series and oversaw all acquisitions. Dekker is also the host of the Movie Cult vodcast and live show series and the creator of the touring festival Anime After Dark celebrating the best in Japanese animation.
Wally Chung is a filmmaker-animator living in New York. Originally from the Midwest, he grew up drawing ninjas, swords, and places for ninjas to fight. He started making weird animations and music in high school and college. It was not until after graduate school that he started screening his films at festivals, including his animated short, The Eater, which was well received on the festival circuit and also screened at Slamdance in 2013. He won a few awards at some of these festivals, including the Spirit of Slamdance Award in 2015. He is currently in pre-production for his first animated feature.
Narrative and Animation Short Jury:
Steve Montal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Caucho Technology. He has collaborated with over 100 film festivals serving as board member, programmer, jury, organizer and panelist. Montal developed the AFI Docs Film Festival. His producing credits include "Viva Terra Viva," a television concert for UNICEF that was broadcast to over 100 countries. Montal was the founding associate dean of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking. He also launched the Graduate Producers Program at Chapman University and served on the faculty of San Diego State University. He wrote the “Film Festivals and Markets” chapter of The Movie Business Book and has written for Animation Journal and Variety.
Ina Pira joined the Montclair Film Festival as Senior Programmer in November 2014. She is also the Programmer and Program Manager at the Hamptons International Film Festival in East Hampton, NY (2012-2015). In addition to her film programming duties Ina has helped manage and select scripts for the 14th Annual Hamptons Screenwriters Lab and other year-round programs. Her programming experience also includes the 2014 Sarasota Film Festival. In addition to festivals, Ina has worked as a freelance editor and research assistant on feature length documentaries. Prior to her work in film, Ina has enjoyed work as a professional photographer, photo editor, and union organizer.
Mark Shapiro diverse marketing and communications career has taken him across the United States, working in brand development, advertising, public relations, film production and writing for companies including Nike, Town & Country Magazine and Upper Deck. In 2007, he joined LAIKA, where he manages brand strategies, including the marketing efforts for LAIKA’s corporate identity as well as the company’s feature films. A native of Seattle, Mark attended Emerson College in Boston and received his Bachelor of Arts in English from The Colorado College in Colorado Springs. He also completed education studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.
2016 Digital Bolex Fearless Filmmaking selections:
Tracking Alewives for the Passamaquoddy - Kurt Lancaster, USA (World Premiere)
Sketches - Savannah Rogers, USA (World Premiere)
God Wrest His Soul - JT Seaton, USA (World Premiere)
Charades - Jimmy Nguyen, USA (World Premiere)
Small Talk - Hilary Campbell, USA (World Premiere)
Sun Valley - Sasha Gransjean, USA (World Premiere)
Devin Fair is King - Skizz Cyzyk, USA (World Premiere)
B+A - Connor Rickman, USA (World Premiere)
Girl with a Moustache - Vanja Svilicic, Croatia (North American Premiere)
Eyes of the City - Luke Randall, Australia (World Premiere)
Glenda - Puppett, USA (World Premiere)
You Will Find A Way - AJ Molle, USA (World Premiere)
Sans Titre - Eva Pervolovici, Romania/France (North American Premiere)
The Treeples - Sarah Nolen, USA (World Premiere, Women Cinematographer's Grant Recipient)
The 2016 Slamdance Film Festival will take place from January 22nd - 28th, 2016 in Park City, Utah at the Treasure Mountain Inn, located at 255 Main Street, Park City, UT 84060.
All Access/Industry, Local's, and Student Festival Passes are available now online. Individual tickets will be available starting December 28th. To purchase, click here: http://showcase.slamdance.com/Passes-and-Tickets
Film stills & behind the scenes videos are available for press use only and can be downloaded below:
Digital Bolex Film Stills: http://tinyurl.com/j7ypg2f
Jury Film Stills: http://tinyurl.com/gs3tupz
About Digital Bolex:
The Digital Bolex D16, the world's only 16mm digital cinema camera, is the camera of choice for many film-loving and aesthetically minded filmmakers working in Hollywood and on independent sets. A robust cinema tool affordable even for emerging filmmakers, the D16 camera is currently in use on ABC’s Scandal and NBC’s Empire, and shot segments of 2015 festival favorites Brand: A Second Coming and Can You Dig This?, winner of the LA Muse section of the 2015 LA Film Festival, in addition to major commercials for brands like Capital One, Subaru, Coca Cola, Pepsi, AirBnB, and more.
About Slamdance:
Slamdance is a community, a year-round experience, and a statement. Established by a wild bunch of filmmakers in 1995 who were tired of relying on a large oblique system to showcase their work, Slamdance is an ongoing experiment that has proven, year after year, when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, the independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves.
Slamdance alums are responsible for the programming and organization of the following year’s festival. With a variety of backgrounds, interests, and talents, but with no individual filmmaker’s vote meaning more than another’s, Slamdance’s programming and organizing committees have been able to stay close to the heart of low budget and do-it-yourself filmmaking. In this way, Slamdance continues to grow and exemplify its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.
Notable Slamdance alumni who first gained notice at the festival include: Christopher Nolan (Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (World War Z), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Anthony & Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin), Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Lynn Shelton (Humpday) and Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have accumulated over $11.5 billion in the Box Office to date.
In addition to the festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing audience with several year-round activities. These include the popular Slamdance Screenplay Competition, traveling On The Road screening events, the Anarchy Workshop for student filmmakers, and The ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club, and a monthly cinema club partnership with ArcLight Cinemas based out of the ArcLight Hollywood, with two screenings and filmmaker Q&A’s each month at: