FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For More Information Contact: April 23, 2007 Patrick Hubley, 435-658-3456 [email protected]

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES 13 PROJECTS FOR THE 2007 JUNE DIRECTORS AND SCREENWRITERS LABS

Lab to Support Filmmakers Telling Stories that Explore Contemporary Culture and Transcend Geographic Boundaries

Los Angeles, CA – has announced the selection of 13 projects for the annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, which will take place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 28– June 28, 2007. From the streets of Iran to the deserts of North Africa to the heart of East Los Angeles, the projects selected to participate in this year’s Labs examine the human condition and how identity is impacted by an increasingly and ever-changing global community. These Labs are the core of the Feature Film Program which was conceived to support emerging American independent directors and screenwriters.The Labs have evolved to include emerging film artists from around the world, with fellows this year from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Haiti. The Labs provide an opportunity for filmmakers to develop distinctive new work under the guidance of accomplished Creative Advisors in an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, and risk-taking.

The projects and participants selected for the June Directors Lab from May 28-June 23 are:

• THE CAVANAUGHS/John Morgan (co-writer/director) and Meg LeFauve (co-writer), U.S.A. • CIRCUMSTANCE/Maryam Keshavarz (writer/director), U.S.A./Iran • COLD SOULS/Sophie Barthes (writer/director), U.S.A. • FARMING/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (writer/director), United Kingdom/Nigeria • HAITI CHERIE/Patricia Benoit (writer/director), U.S.A./Haiti • HERE/Braden King (co-writer/director) and Dani Valent (co-writer), U.S.A./Australia • SPOONS/Eric Lahey (writer/director), U.S.A. • WATER & POWER/Richard Montoya (writer/director), U.S.A.

These fellows will be joined at the June Screenwriters Lab from June 23-28 by these participants and projects:

• DREAMING IN COLOUR / Tala Hadid (writer/director), Morocco/U.S.A. • PARIAH/Dee Rees (writer/director), U.S.A. • REFRESH, REFRESH/James Ponsoldt (writer/director), U.S.A. • THIS IS NOT A PIPE: AN IMAGE OF TREASON/J.J. Lask (writer/director), U.S.A. • UM HUSSEIN/Mohamed Al-Daradji (co-writer/director) and Jennifer Norridge (co-writer), Iraq/United Kingdom

“We are excited to champion the unique vision of each of the filmmakers selected for this year’s Lab. After 25 years of working with emerging filmmakers, I’m struck by the quality and the boldness of the work we are supporting this June,” said Michelle Satter, Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. “Each project reflects the filmmaker’s deeply personal voice, and tells a timely and poignant story that transcends geographic boundaries and adds to the examination of contemporary culture in a meaningful and often surprising way.”

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Over the course of the Directors Lab, the selected eight Fellows work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors and professional production crews, shooting and editing key scenes from their scripts. Through this intense, hands-on process, the Fellows push the boundaries of their scripts, allowing them to workshop text, collaborate with actors, and find a visual language for their film in an atmosphere where experimentation is encouraged. Directors Lab Fellows also join in the week-long Screenwriters Lab with five additional Screenwriter Fellows to participate in individualized story sessions under the guidance of established screenwriters.

Gyula Gazdag returns for his 11th year as Artistic Director of the Directors Lab, and Todd Graff returns as the Artistic Director of the Screenwriters Lab. This year’s other Creative Advisors include: Robert Redford, Jon Amiel, John August, Walter Bernstein, Joan Darling, D.V. DeVincentis, Atom Egoyan, John Gatins, Nelson George, Deena Goldstone, Keith Gordon, Robbie Greenberg, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Dylan Kidd, Fernando Leon, Aline Brosh McKenna, Peter Medak, Walter Mosley, Sandra Nettlebeck, Ron Nyswaner, Steven Poster, Howard Rodman, Susan Shilliday, Brad Silberling, Stewart Stern, Wesley Strick, Kevin Tent, Joan Tewkesbury, and Tyger Williams.

The participants and projects selected for the 2007 June Directors Lab are:

THE CAVANAUGHS / John Morgan (co-writer/director) and Meg LeFauve (co-writer), U.S.A. When the mother of a deeply evangelical family suddenly rejects motherhood, falls in love with a woman, and disavows her faith, the remaining members of the family are thrown into chaos, forcing each of them to construct new meaning for the ideas of family, love, and identity.

A graduate of UCLA’s MFA film directing program, John Morgan’s short films END OF A DOG and IN MEMORIAM each won UCLA’s awards for Best Screenplay, Best Direction of Actors, and Best Narrative Film. He began his career as an actor, receiving an MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University, and is a co-founder of Kitchen Dog Theater, an award-winning theater company based in Dallas, Texas.

Meg LeFauve began her film career as an executive at Jodie Foster’s Egg Pictures, where she produced films including THE BABY DANCE, which received a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Movie and a Peabody Award, and THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, winner of an IFP Spirit Award for Best First Feature. She also served as co-chair of the Graduate Producers Program at UCLA’s School of Film and Television. As a writer, LeFauve completed a month-long residency at Hedgebrook, a writer’s retreat in Seattle, where she began a novel currently making its way to publishers. THE CAVANAUGHS is her first screenplay.

CIRCUMSTANCE / Maryam Keshavarz (writer/director), U.S.A./Iran In the charged climate of today’s Iran, two girls grapple with their intense, complex relationship during a volatile adolescence.

Having grown up between Iran and the United States, Maryam Keshavarz drew on personal experience to direct her feature documentary THE COLOR OF LOVE, which screened at international festivals including Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Montreal World Film Festival and won prizes such as the International Documentary Association’s David L. Wolper Award. Her short film THE DAY I DIED screened at Clermont-Ferrand, New York Film Festival, and won two awards at the Berlin International Film Festival.

COLD SOULS / Sophie Barthes (writer/director), U.S.A. In the midst of an existential crisis, a famous American actor stumbles upon “Soul Storage”, a private lab offering New Yorkers a relief from the burden of their souls.

Born in France, Sophie Barthes grew up in the Middle East and South America. A Columbia University graduate, Barthes co-directed the short film SNOWBLINK with cinematographer Andrij Parekh and a UNICEF documentary in Yemen on women literacy programs. Her short film HAPPINESS played at the 2007 Sundance Film Festivals and in more than 40 film festivals. HAPPINESS and COLD SOULS won the NYSCA Individual Artists Grants and the Showtime Tony Cox Awards (Short and Feature categories) for Best Screenplay.

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FARMING / Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (writer/director), United Kingdom/Nigeria Abandoned by his parents, a young African boy desperately searches for love and belonging within a brutal skinhead subculture where violence becomes his only companion.

Born in England, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje earned a masters degree in law from London’s prestigious King’s College before beginning his career as an actor in the film CONGO. Since then his credits have included the films THE MUMMY RETURNS and THE BOURNE IDENTITY, as well as regular roles on the television series OZ (for which he received two NAACP Award nominations) and LOST, which won a 2006 SAG Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

HAITI CHERIE / Patricia Benoit (writer/director), U.S.A./Haiti Three refugees from Haiti wrestle with the effects of exile when they start a new life in the United States, only to find they can’t leave the ghosts of the past behind.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Patricia Benoit grew up in Queens, New York. Her documentaries about Haiti’s political turmoil include COURAGE AND PAIN, produced by Jonathan Demme, which was shown at the Walter Reade Theater in New York and the London Film Festival, and TONBE/LEVE, which was selected by the New York Film Festival, The Havana Film Festival, and the San Juan Film Festival. She also founded the Haitian Women’s Program, a community based organization in Brooklyn providing services and creating educational materials for Haitian refugees as well as HIV+ Haitian refugees detained in Guantanamo.

HERE / Braden King (co-writer/director) and Dani Valent (co-writer), U.S.A./Australia Measurement and orientation break down for a solitary American mapmaker charting the Armenian countryside when he travels with an adventurous landscape photographer visiting her homeland.

Braden King co-directed the film DUTCH HARBOR: WHERE THE SEA BREAKS ITS BACK with photographer Laura Moya, which toured internationally with live, improvised soundtrack accompaniment by the Boxhead Ensemble under the direction of composer Michael Krassner. King has directed music videos and short films for , , and Yo La Tengo, among others. He has lectured at Yale University and Bard College, and his works have been screened on HBO, the BBC, The Sundance Channel, Showtime, MTV, and Channel 4 (UK) and more.

Australian writer Dani Valent spent eight years traveling the world for guidebook publisher Lonely Planet as a researcher and writer. Her book WORLD FOOD TURKEY was short-listed for the Andre Simon Memorial Fund Book Awards in 2000, and her stories and poems have appeared in various Australian literary magazines and arts festivals. Valent currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she works as a freelance journalist, contributing regularly to Travel + Leisure (Australia) and The Age, Melbourne's daily broadsheet.

SPOONS / Eric Lahey (writer/director), U.S.A. After years of struggling with addiction, a father reunites with his son, and the two men realize that no matter how far you move from the present, you never live that far away from the past.

Eric Lahey received his BFA in Film from the California Institute of the Arts. In 2005, his first feature documentary THE CENTURY PLAZA world premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. That same year he received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a video propagating education reform in Oregon. Most recently Lahey has worked as the director of photography for Alex Hammond’s documentary on Haitian street kids in Cap Haitian. He has also illustrated a dark children’s story about the extermination of the human race by animals, called THE ANIMAL MUTINY and his artwork can be seen throughout ’s ELEPHANT.

WATER & POWER / Richard Montoya (writer/director), U.S.A. Twin brothers nicknamed “Water” and “Power” from the Eastside streets of Los Angeles rise through the city’s political and police ranks to become players in a complex and dangerous web of the powerful and courrupt of Los Angeles.

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Richard Montoya is a founding member of Culture Clash, a performance trio that has been creating works for the national stage since 1984. WATER & POWER, which was presented in the 2006 season at the Center Theater Group/Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, is an official submission for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Drama. CHAVEZ RAVINE, IN HELL and WATER & POWER represent a trilogy of works committed to exploring the Chicano experience in Southern California. New works for the stage include PALESTINE/NEW MEXICO and 32 COFFINS; both plays explore narratives of the ongoing Iraqi civil war. Montoya is an actor and Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles.

The participants and projects joining them at the 2007 June Screenwriters Lab are:

DREAMING IN COLOUR / Tala Hadid (writer/director), Morocco/U.S.A. From North Africa to the bleak winter landscapes of Northern France, three refugees struggle to find their place in a world without borders.

Born in London, Tala Hadid splits her time between New York and Morocco. Trained as a painter, she made her first film while at Brown University studying Fine Art and Philosophy. In 2005, Hadid completed her thesis film, TES CHEVEUX NOIRS IHSAN. The film won the Cinecolor/Kodak Prize and a Student Academy Award, and has screened at numerous film festivals around the world, including the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Panorama Best Short Film Award. Hadid’s work has screened at MoMA, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C, L’Institut du monde Arabe in Paris and the Photographer’s Gallery in London.

PARIAH / Dee Rees (writer/director), U.S.A. A Bronx lesbian teenager juggles multiple identities to avoid rejection from friends and family, but pressure from home, school, and within corrodes the line between her dual personas with explosive consequences.

A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Dee Rees is an MFA candidate at NYU’s graduate film program and has written and directed several short films including ORANGE BOW, which screened at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. Her most recent short film, PARIAH, on which her screenplay is based, won the 2007 Spike Lee Post-Production fellowship and the 2007 Frameline Film & Video Completion Grant and will premiere at the upcoming 2007 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. Rees is currently in post-production on the feature documentary EVENTUAL SALVATION, which she produced and directed on location in Monrovia, Liberia.

REFRESH, REFRESH / James Ponsoldt (writer/director), U.S.A. Three teenage boys in the high desert of central Oregon battle heartbreak and explore the redemptive power of violence when their Marine reservist fathers are called to duty in Iraq. REFRESH, REFRESH is based on the short story by Benjamin Percy.

James Ponsoldt was born and raised in Athens, Georgia, received a BA in English from Yale, and an MFA in directing from Columbia University's Graduate Film Program. His short films have played at festivals worldwide, including Tribeca, Clermont-Ferrand, Seattle, Edinburgh, and Palm Springs, among others. Ponsoldt’s first feature, OFF THE BLACK, starred Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, and Trevor Morgan, premiered at the 2006 , and was theatrically distributed by THINKFilm.

THIS IS NOT A PIPE: AN IMAGE OF TREASON / JJ Lask (writer/director), U.S.A. Like the trees that grow in the worst dirt on the streets of New York City, a father and daughter struggle to blossom over the half century from prohibition to Woodstock.

JJ Lask, a native New Yorker, never made it past the ninth grade, but to his credit he spent five years there. Lask went on to become a successful film editor, winning numerous editing awards including the Clio, AICE, AICP, London International Arts and Cannes Lions. He has worked with directors Lance Accord, Errol Morris, Noam Murro and Todd Phillips. In 2002, Lask released his debut novel, ON THE ROAD WITH JUDAS; in 2007, he made his directorial debut with the film adaptation of the novel, which premiered in Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

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UM HUSSEIN / Mohamed Al-Daradji (co-writer/director) and Jennifer Norridge (co-writer), Iraq/United Kingdom Twelve years after a soldier is captured by Saddam’s Republican Guards, his mother and son retrace his journey across Iraq in their quest to bring him home.

Born in Baghdad, Mohamed Al-Daradji received MA degrees in Cinematography and Directing at Leeds Metropolitan Northern Film School. He has served as director of photography for numerous films, music videos and commercials and has directed two short films. His feature directorial debut, AHLAAM, has screened at over 70 international film festivals, picking up 17 awards. Al-Daradji is currently in post-production with the feature documentary SHOOTING IN IRAQ.

Jennifer Norridge is originally from Leeds, England, where she returned in 2003 after completing her BA (Hons) degree in history at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She turned to screenwriting after entering the “Young Writers’ Festival” at the Royal Court Theatre. After completing a series of story workshops for Yorkshire Television’s EMMERDALE, she entered the MA screenwriting program at Leeds Metropolitan University, where she has also recently taught at the undergraduate level.

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program receives major support from The Annenberg Foundation, The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and T he National Endowment for the Arts. Sundance Institute also gratefully acknowledges the generous assistance provided by John August, Directors Guild of America, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, Richard LaGravenese, Christopher McQuarrie, NHK, The Cissy Patterson Foundation, SAGIndie /Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild of America, west for their support of Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program would like to thank the following companies for their recent contributions to the 2007 Director’s Lab: Avid Technology, Inc., Canon Broadcast and Communications Division, Deluxe Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Company, Microsoft, Pacific Title and Art Studio, Inc., Panavision Film and Digital Imaging, and Sony Electronics, Inc. Sundance Institute also recognizes the generous support provided by its Board of Trustees and by contributors to the Sundance Alumni and Filmmaker Fellowship Fund.

Sundance Institute Feature Film Program The June Directors and Screenwriters Labs are part of the Sundance Institute’s year-round Feature Film Program, which is dedicated to supporting artist development and the advancement of distinctive, singular independent projects. Program staff fully embrace the unique vision of each filmmaker, encouraging a rigorous creative process with a focus on original and deeply personal storytelling. Each year, 20-25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and abroad participate in a continuum of support which includes the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Composers Lab, Independent Producers Conference, ongoing creative and strategic advice, significant production and post- production resources, a rough-cut screening initiative, a Screenplay Reading Series, and direct financial support through project-specific grants and artist fellowships. In many cases, the Institute has helped the Program’s fellows attach producers and talent, secure financing, and assemble other significant resources to move their projects toward production and presentation.

In the past several years, the Feature Film Program has supported the work of numerous emerging independent filmmakers, including Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s HALF NELSON, for which lead actor Ryan Gosling received an Academy Award nomination and Gosling and co-star Shareeka Epps won Independent Spirit Awards; Andrea Arnold’s RED ROAD, which swept the major categories at the Scottish BAFTA Awards, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and garnered the British Newcomer of the Year Award from the London Film Critics Circle; Dror Shaul’s SWEET MUD, which won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was the co-winner of the Israeli Film Academy’s Best Picture Award; and Sterlin Harjo’s FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, which premiered in Dramatic Competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize for Tamara Podemski’s performance. These filmmakers are the latest in a long line of distinctive voices

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Various films supported by the Labs have recently had their premieres either through theatrical release or at festivals worldwide. Lab films currently in theatres include STEPHANIE DALEY, written and directed by Hilary Brougher and starring Tilda Swinton and Amber Tamblyn, distributed by Regent Releasing, as well as Cam Archer’s WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN, now in theatres courtesy of IFC Films and available “on demand” through IFC’s First Take. Both Taika Waititi’s EAGLE VS. SHARK and Goran Dukic’s WRISTCUTTERS will be released this summer (by Miramax and After Dark, respectively.)

Sundance Institute Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is dedicated to the development of artists of independent vision and the exhibition of their new work. Since its inception, the Institute has grown into an internationally recognized resource for filmmakers and other artists. Sundance Institute conducts national and international labs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers, writers and theatre artists. The annual Sundance Film Festival, a major program of Sundance Institute, is held each January and is considered the premier showcase for American and international independent film. The Institute supports non-fiction filmmakers through the Documentary Film Program by providing year-round support through the Sundance Documentary Fund and a series of programs that nurture their growth, encourage the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling and promote the exhibition of documentary films to a broader audience. Through the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, the Institute is committed to invigorating the national theatre movement with original and creative work and to nurturing the diversity of artistic expression among theatre artists. The Institute also maintains The Sundance Collection at UCLA, a unique archive of independent film.

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