for immediate release november 16, 2009

8/14/2019 For Immediate Release November 16, 2009

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Amy McGeeNovember 16, 2009 310.360.1981/[email protected]

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES 2010 SUNDANCE/NHK INTERNATIONALFILMMAKERS AWARD FINALISTS

Twelve Projects from Emerging Filmmakers from Four Regions: Europe, LatinAmerica, United States and Japan selected as finalists

Four to receive $10,000 cash award and acquisitions agreement with NHK

Los Angeles, CA - Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) today announced thetwelve finalists for the 2010 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award. In its fourteenth year, thispartnership presents an annual cash award to support new artists in international cinema and is presented to

emerging film directors from four global regions in support of their next projects. One recipient each from Europe,Latin America, the United States, and Japan will be selected by members of an international jury. Winners will beannounced on January 28, 2010 at the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award reception at the SundanceFilm Festival. The Sundance Film Festival runs January 21-31, 2010, in and around Park City, Utah.

The winning director from each region will receive a $10,000 award and a purchase guarantee from NHK, Japanslargest broadcaster and one of the top five broadcasters in the world, for Japanese television broadcast rights uponcompletion of their project. Additionally, each award recipient will receive ongoing support from Sundance Institutewho will work closely with the filmmakers throughout the year, providing ongoing mentorship and assistance inseeking opportunities to finance and distribute their projects.

"We're thrilled by the quality and diversity of this year's finalists. In an exceptionally strong year, their projects stoodout because of their originality, humor and the worlds they reflect," said Alesia Weston, Associate Director of the

Sundance Feature Film Program, International.

"The Sundance/NHK Award represents our commitment to providing financial support to international filmmakerswith singular, authentic voices, and original stories to tell. We have an excellent group of finalists, and we lookforward to inviting the four winners to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and working with them throughout theyear," added Michelle Satter, Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.

Past recipients of the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers award include: Lucrecia Martel, LA CIENAGA (Argentina); AlexRivera, THE SLEEP DEALER (USA); Fernando Eimbcke, LAKE TAHOE (Mexico); Miranda July, ME AND YOUAND EVERYONE WE KNOW (USA); Andrucha Waddington, THE HOUSE OF SAND (Brazil); Juan Pablo Rebellaand Pablo Stoll, WHISKY (Uruguay); Walter Salles, CENTRAL STATION (Brazil); Gyrgy Plfi, TAXIDERMIA(Hungary); Kanji Nakajima, CLONE RETURNS HOME (Japan); and Alejandro Fernandez Almendras, HUACHO(Chile). The 2009 recipients were: Lucile Hadzihalilovic EVOLUTION (France), Diego Lerman, CIENCIASMORALES (Argentina), David Riker, THE GIRL (USA), and Qurata Kenji SPEED GIRL (Japan).

The twelve finalists for the 2010 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards are:

EUROPE:

Pablo Berger / SNOWHITE (Spain) In 1920s Spain, an orphaned girl is kidnapped by a wicked stepmother butescapes to join a troupe of dwarf matadors who help her claim her legacy as Spain's top bullfighter.

Pablo Berger was born in Bilbao and completed his MFA in Film at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts.His debut feature and box office hit TORREMOLINOS 73 premiered at the Mlaga Film Festival, winning Best Film,Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress, and was nominated for four Goya Awards including Best Screenplay


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and Best New Director. TORREMOLINOS 73 was released in more than 50 countries and won numerousinternational awards, including the New Voices/New Visions Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival. In 2007 aChinese remake of TORREMOLINOS 73 was also a smash hit in that country. SNOWHITE participated in the 2009Berlinale Co-production Market and has received support from the CNC (Centre National du Cinema) andEurimages.

Maria Saakyan / I'M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME AKA ALAVERDY (Armenia) A neglected teenager

struggles with her blossoming sexuality and suicidal thoughts while searching for the father she has never known.

Maria Saakyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1980 and moved to Russia in 1992 where she studied filmdirecting and animation at VGIK, Vladimir Kobrins workshop. She made the experimental and animated short filmsIGRA, ZOO, and LULLABY. Her 2003 degree project PROSHANIE (THE FAREWELL) was selected for theOberhausen, Rotterdam and Telluride Film Festivals. Her first feature MAYAK (THE LIGHTHOUSE) (2006) wasselected for competition in Rotterdam, London, Sao Paolo and many others, winning the Grand-Prix at Split FilmFestival and Best Debut at Golden Apricot Film Festival. IM GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME has been supportedby B2B, Belgrade, DAB at the Golden Apricot Film Festival and was recently selected for the Torino Film LabDevelopment Program.

Andrei Zviagintsev / ELENA (Russia) An elderly woman who has lived with her rich husband in a large,comfortable home tries to rescue her alcoholic son from poverty and give his family the opportunity for a better lifethat she alone could not provide.

Andrei Zviagintsev graduated from The Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) where he was trained as anactor, then worked on independent theatre projects and acted in TV series and films. In 2000 Andrei made his firstshort TV fiction films as a director. His first motion picture THE RETURN was nominated for the Golden Globe afterwinning the Golden Lion and the Lion of the Future for the best directors debut at the Venice Film Festival. Hissecond feature film BANISHMENT premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival where Konstantin Lavronenko wonthe award for Best Leading Actor Award, the first ever for a Russian actor.

LATIN AMERICA:

Amat Escalante / HELI (Mexico) In a small Mexican town, where most citizens work for an automobile assemblyplant or the local drug cartel, Heli is confronted with police corruption, drug trafficking, sexual exploitation, love, guilt

and revenge in the search for his father who has mysteriously disappeared.

Born in 1979, Amat Escalante is a self-taught filmmaker from Guanajuato, Mexico. At age 15, he began to devotehimself completely to cinema. His first feature SANGRE premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes FilmFestival 2005, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize. His second feature film LOS BASTARDOS also premiered inthe Official Selection Un Certain Regard Cannes in 2008 and won numerous awards including Best Film at theMorelia, Sitges and Mar del Plata film festivals. It has been distributed worldwide, including Mexico, USA, Franceand Canada.

Rodrigo Pl / LA DEMORA (THE DELAY) (Uruguay/Mexico) Maria, unable to cope with taking care of herelderly father who is losing his memory and becoming a burden to her family, secretly abandons him in a publicsquare.

A cum laude graduate of Mexicos Centro de Capacitacin Cinematogrfica (CCC), Rodrigo Pl has written anddirected five short films, including EL OJO EN LA NUCA, which won the Honorary Foreign Student Oscar Award.His first feature LA ZONA won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a First Feature Film at the Venice Film Festival andthe FIPRESCI Prize at the Toronto Film Festival. His second feature DESERT WITHIN made its international debutat the closing ceremony of Critics Week during the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, received seven Mayahuel awards atthe Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2008 and was awarded with eight Ariels by the Mexican Academy ofFilm Arts and Sciences.


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Manuel Nieto Zas / EL LUGAR DEL HIJO (THE MILITANT) (Uruguay) A college student involved in militantleftist activism is faced with some difficult decisions when his father suddenly dies, leaving him in charge of theirtroubled ranch and forcing him to take on the role of a middle class bourgeois.

Born in Montevideo, Manuel Nieto Zas graduated in media studies from the Catholic University of Uruguay. He

worked in TV before directing the short film NICO & PARKER. Since then, he has worked as assistant director on25 WATTS and WHISKY by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll, LOS MUERTOS and LIVERPOOL by LisandroAlonso and HAMACA PARAGUAYA by Paz Encina. His first feature film LA PERRERA (THE DOGPOUND)premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival 2006, where it won the VPRO Tiger Award. In 2008 Nietowas selected for Cannes Cinefondation Residence in Paris to work on his second film project EL LUGAR DELHIJO.

UNITED STATES:

Benh Zeitlin / BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (USA) In the Louisiana Delta, a ferocious ten-year-old girlrefuses to evacuate her home without her dying father as the Southern Apocalypse descends upon them.

Raised by two folklorists in Queens, NY, Benh Zeitlin is a director, animator, and composer for the Court 13

coterie. Director of award-winning shorts EGG, ORIGINS OF ELECTRICITY, I GET WET and GLORY AT SEA,Filmmaker Magazine recently named him one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Zeitlin participated inthe 2009 June Screenwriters and Directors Lab and is the recipient of a Sundance grant from the AnnenbergFoundation. He currently resides in New Orleans where he is developing two feature films and transformingGLORY AT SEA's ship, the U.S.S Jimmy Lee, into a rolling, pop-corn making, movie projector cum Mardi-Gras floatin preparation for Carnival 2010.

So Yong Kim / FOR ELLEN (USA) When an aspiring young rock musician agrees to sign divorce papers with hisestranged wife, he discovers he is not ready to forfeit all custody of his six-year-old daughter.

FOR ELLEN is So Yong Kims third feature film. Her critically acclaimed second feature TREELESS MOUNTAIN,developed with the support of the Sundance Feature Film Program Labs, was released by OscilloscopeLaboratories and received numerous awards worldwide. Kims first feature, IN BETWEEN DAYS, was acclaimed by

critics and won the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival along with the International Critics Prizeat Berlin. Kino International and the Sundance Channel released the film. Kim has produced two films by BradleyRust Gray: SALT and THE EXPLODING GIRL.

Andrew MacLean / ON THE ICE (USA) On the snow-covered arctic tundra, at the top of the world in Barrow,Alaska, two Iuit teenagers try to get away with murder.

Andrew Okpeaha MacLeanis an Iupiaq filmmaker born and raised in Alaska. As a short film, SIKUMI (ON THEICE) premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking and went onto many other awards at festivals around the world. He is a recipient of a United States Artists RasmusonFellowship, the John H. Johnson Film Award, and the 2007-2008 Riese Award, among other honors. Macleanparticipated in the 2009 June Screenwriters and Directors Lab and is the recipient of a Sundance grant from theAnnenberg Foundation. MacLean holds his MFA in film directing from NYU.

JAPAN:

Tamako Hioki / NO WOMAN NO CRY (Japan) A 30-year-old woman employed at a factory in the outskirts oftown leads a quiet mundane life, but she gradually begins to feel a sense of community among her co-workerswhen she starts noticing their small kindnesses.

Tamako Hioki started making films while a member of the Film Club at Waseda University. Her first film, the 8mmTAMAKO NO HANASHI won the grand prize at the Tokyo Student Film Festival and the Special Audience Prize atthe 20th PIA Film Festival. She was a member of the inaugural class of a university-business partnership withWaseda University and PIA Corporation. She has worked as an assistant director and has made the short andmedium length films TANPEN SHOSETSU, NATSUFUKU, and AME-NO HI-WA SHOGANI.


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Ryo Nakajima / SLEEPING BEAUTY (Japan) A patient in a vegetative state receives cutting-edge deep brainstimulation treatment, enabling the attending nurse to see the patient's memories and discover her secret.

Ryo Nakajima made his first feature THIS WORLD OF OURS, which led him to join Stardust Pictures in 2007 as adirector. This film won the Special Jury Prize, Technical Achievement Award, and the Best Entertainment Award atthe Pia Film Festival. It played in 11 international film festivals in 2007 including Vancouver and Rotterdam andwon the Best New Director Award in the New York Asian Film Festival. His commercial feature debut, RISE UP,

starring Kento Hayashi and Rio Yamashita will open in theaters in November 2009.

Daisuke Yamaoka / THE WONDERFUL LIVES AT ASAHIGAOKA (Japan) A young womans suicide attemptleaves her in a coma but stirs up the lives of the people around her in the sleepy riverside town of Asahigaoka.

Daisuke Yamaoka worked for production companies before completing LOST GIRL in 2007. LOST GIRL wasreleased in 2009 and exhibited in Shibuyas Eurospace Theater and screened at the Dresden International FilmFestival in Germany. MIKA AND SEIJUN screened at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival,Austin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and won the Toru Murakami Award at the Yamagata InternationalMovie Festival. His film DEATH: THE ONLY CURE FOR IDIOTS from Kanagawa University was a runner-up in theKanagawa Film Concours Grand Prize.

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is Japans largest broadcaster. Since 1925, it has continued to offer fair,

impartial reporting and high quality programs, earning the viewers trust as the nations sole public broadcaster.Through its five 24-hour TV channels (two terrestrial/three satellite) and three radio channels, NHK providesprograms of all genres from news and education to sports and entertainment, and serves as the hub of Japanesevisual culture. NHKs arts and entertainment satellite channel, which was introduced in 1989, broadcasts more than600 high quality international films each year. In order to contribute to the development of film culture and thepromotion of cultural exchange, NHK is devoted to supporting burgeoning filmmakers who have the potential toguide the industrys future development. Along with the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award, NHK alsoproduces the Asian Film Festival, which offers opportunities to emerging film directors in Asia.

Since 1981, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP) has supported more than 450 independentfilmmakers whose distinctive, singular work has engaged audiences worldwide. Program staff fully embrace theunique vision of each filmmaker, encouraging a rigorous creative process with a focus on original and deeplypersonal storytelling. Each year, up to 25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and around the world participate in ayear-round continuum of support which can include the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Film Composers Lab,Creative Producing Summit, Creative Producing Lab, ongoing creative and strategic advice, significant productionand postproduction resources, a rough-cut screening initiative, a Screenplay Reading Series, and direct financialsupport through project-specific grants and artist fellowships. In many cases, the Institute has helped the Programsfellows attach producers and talent, secure financing, and assemble other significant resources to move theirprojects toward production and presentation.

Sundance InstituteFounded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the developmentof original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationallyrecognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers,playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, SpringAwakening, Boys Don't Cry, Sin Nombre, Born into Brothelsand Trouble the Water. www.sundance.org.

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