Sundance Institute Sets Fellows For Latest Screenwriting Intensive

SPOILER ALERT: The following story reveals major plot points from the Season 1 finale of HBO’s The Gilded Age.

Film Independent has set Lanre Olabisi (A Storybook Ending), Sari Arambulo (Family Style), Sanford Jenkins (Joy and Pain), Rob Connolly (Lavender Country), Elise H. Greven (Silent Spring) and Phumi Morare (There is Salt in the Water) as the participants and projects for its 2022 Screenwriting Lab/

stars Anna Diop (“Us”) as a Senegalese immigrant nanny, piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, who is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her American Dream. Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls, Morgan Spector and Rose Decker also star. Rina Yang, a cinematographer on “Euphoria,” is also behind the camera as the DP for her first narrative feature.

Blumhouse and Prime Video have won world rights to Sundance horror-drama Nanny, we can reveal.

Angelique Jackson Sundance 2022’s top prize winner, filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu’s “Nanny,” has been acquired by Blumhouse and Prime Video.The companies jointly secured worldwide rights for the horror-drama, which premiered to rave reviews at Sundance in January, before ultimately winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, making history as the first horror film to take the festival’s top honor. Jusu is also only the second Black woman director to win the award.Written and directed by Jusu, in her feature directorial debut, “Nanny” follows a Senegalese woman named Aisha (Anna Diop) who recently immigrated to America.

Chris Willman Music WriterMiranda Lambert had a secret she was keeping when she won the entertainer of the year prize at Monday’s Academy of Country Music Awards, but she didn’t take long to let it out of the bag. Thursday the country superstar revealed she’s completed a new album, “Palomino,” her first solo effort since 2019’s “Wildcard,” for an April 29 release.Lambert wrote much of the album with songwriters Luke Dick and Jon Randall — 12 of the 15 tracks include one or both of those names in the credits — and those two writers also co-produced “Palomino” with her for the first time.

Megan Park, the director of the SXSW award winner “The Fallout,” has set her second feature film called “My Old Ass” that will be produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment and Indian Paintbrush. Park is writing and directing “My Old Ass,” which is described as a modern coming-of-age comedy, though any other plot details are being kept under wraps.

Dearest reader, “Bridgerton” season 2 is almost upon us and so, Netflix and Shondaland have dropped the official trailer and exclusive new images.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilm Movement has acquired all North American rights to two previous Ukrainian Oscar entries “Bad Roads” and “Donbass,” as well as the Sundance award-winning documentary “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange.”“Bad Roads,” which was Ukraine’s Oscar candidate last fall, marks the feature debut of playwright-turned-filmmaker, Natalya Vorozhbit. The politically minded omnibus film, which premiered at Venice in 2020, is adapted from Vorozhbit’s play and unfolds in the recently invaded Eastern region of Donbass.“Bad Roads” features four stories shedding light on life in the front-line war zone of Donbass: one man alleging to be a schoolmaster is accosted by the military at a checkpoint, two teenagers wait for their soldier boyfriends in a dilapidated town square; a journalist is held captive and gets brutally assaulted; and a young woman apologizes to an elderly couple for running over their chickens.

The Sundance Institute has selected Minhal Baig, Marion Hill, Ciara Lacy, Billy Luther, Chanelle Aponte Pearson, Mariem Pérez Riera, Jamila Wignot and Iman Zawahry for its fourth Momentum Fellowship, supporting professional development for mid-career artists from historically marginalized communities as they explore and develop their creative practice.

Focus Features will open their Sundance acquisition Brian and Charles on June 17.

Christopher Vourlias In the days before Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Danish filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont – the director of two critically acclaimed documentaries shot in the Eastern European nation – began to field messages reporting of increased hostilities in the restive eastern part of the country.The director’s feature directorial debut, “The Distant Barking of Dogs,” was filmed in the hamlet of Hnutove, a stone’s throw from the frontline of Donbass, where war has been simmering for the better part of a decade.

The Polish Film Institute is the latest international film organization to show its support for Ukraine as the war-torn country continues to be invaded by the Russian Federation. PFI has called for cultural sanctions to be imposed on Russia, in addition to the already issued political and economic sanctions that have been placed on the country.

Kris Jenner has been busy building her dream home, but one room might surprise you.

Focus Features, Peacock, and Monkeypaw Productions have set Sept. 2 as their theatrical day-and-date release date for Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. The studios picked up the movie from Daniel Kaluuya’s 59% Productions in early February out of Sundance and made it known that it would go in cinemas and on Uni’s sister streaming service Peacock.

Longtime Sundance Institute staffer Adam Piron has been named as the Director of its Indigenous Program. Piron will will lead Sundance’s engagement and investment in global Indigenous storytellers, taking over a role that Bird Runningwater left several months ago. While handling his new responsibilities, he will continue to serve as a short film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival.

Wilson Chapman editorThe Sundance Institute has announced the 13 writers selected for its 2022 Screenwriters Intensive.Now in its 10th year, the Screenwriters Intensive is an annual two-day workshop that invites emerging creatives from historically marginalized backgrounds to develop their first full-length feature film scripts under the guidance of the Institute’s Feature Film Program. The workshop is led by Michelle Satter, the founding senior director of the Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, as well as Ilyse McKimmie, the deputy director of the Feature Film Program.“We’re thrilled to be bringing together such a dynamic and memorable group of storytellers developing work with bold vision and unique, necessary perspectives,” McKimmie said in a statement.

Sarah Jessica Parker, in partnership with independent publisher Zando, will launch her own imprint that will see the publishing of four to six books over a three-year span.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaMTV Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to Ondi Timoner’s “Last Flight Home,” a moving and deeply personal portrait of family dealing with the last days of their patriarch. The documentary had several bidders and the sale was highly competitive. “Last Flight Home” was a favorite with critics after it premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: The Sundance Institute has revealed the 9 fellows and 8 projects selected for its 2021 to 2022 Episodic Program.