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STRONG SHOWING BY CREATIVE CAPITAL FOUNDATION AT 2001 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
Festival lineup to include six grantees in four film categories and on two panels

NEW YORK, NY (January 16, 2001) – Creative Capital, the New York–based nonprofit arts foundation, announces that six of its current grantees have been invited to participate in the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, the annual premiere showcase for independent film. Three of the funded artists will screen films in the Documentary, Dramatic, and Frontier Section Competitions. The selected works are among the 106 feature films chosen from more than 3,000 entries and will be presented at the eleven-day festival in Park City, Utah, January 18–28, 2001. In addition, three grantees, as well as Creative Capital President Ruby Lerner, will be featured on panels for House of Docs and Digital Center Conferences. Finally, one more funded artist will be part of a special animation program.

Participants are: Sandi Simcha DuBowski (Trembling Before G-d, Documentary Competition); Christopher Munch (The Sleepy Time Gal, Dramatic Competition); Joanna Priestley (Surface Dive, A Celebration of Portland Animation); Barbara Hammer (History Lessons, Frontier Section and House of Docs panelist); and Alison Cornyn and Sue Johnson (Digital Center Conference panelists). Trembling Before G-d, The Sleepy Time Gal, and Surface Dive are projects directly funded by Creative Capital. Ruby Lerner remarked,"We’re so proud to have substantial representation at this major event for the independent media community." This year Lerner will participate in the Festival’s House of Docs panel, Funding for Documentary Film, Saturday, January 20, 2:30–3:30 PM.

About the Artists

Sandi DuBowski is a New York–based filmmaker and writer whose project Tomboychik (1994) won the 1994 Golden Gate Award for Best Short Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Trembling Before G-d (2000) is an unprecedented feature documentary that shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are either gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma—how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the extreme Biblical prohibitions forbidding homosexuality.

Christopher Munch is a self-taught filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles. The Sleepy Time Gal (2000) is a long-form dramatic film that concerns a remarkable woman (Jacqueline Bisset) facing death in her 50s as she longs to reconnect with a daughter (Martha Plimpton) whom she put up for adoption at birth. Taking place in a number of cities over many years, it is the third film by Munch to compete in the Sundance Dramatic Competition [the previous two being The Hours and Times (1992) and Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996)—both films were awarded prizes].

Barbara Hammer works as a producer, director, cinematographer, and editor in New York. She has produced more than 75 shorts and features including Nitrate Kisses (1992) and Tender Fictions (1995). History Lessons (2000) is an exploration of lesbian images in society. In revealing montage, Hammer juxtaposes dramatic vignettes, reminiscent of 1940s crime scene photographer WeeGee, and archival footage from narrative, medical, educational, and adult entertainment films. Hammer will be a panelist for Roundtable: Surviving and Thriving—Docs Then and Now, House of Docs, Monday, January 22, 12:00–1:00 PM.

Joanna Priestley is an internationally recognized animator living in Portland, Oregon. She has produced and directed fourteen films that have won awards in film festivals around the world. Surface Dive (2000) is a short animation inspired by a diving trip in a freshwater lake in the Yucatan. In this abstract film, Priestley combined three layers of artwork including more than 600 sculptures, 200 glass pieces, and 2,200 drawings.

Alison Cornyn and Sue Johnson are New York–based artists who are collaborating on 360 Degrees, an online participatory documentary of the American criminal justice system. They have been asked to join a discussion on the latest approaches to telling stories on the Internet. The panel entitled The New Face of Narrative on the Web, takes place on Saturday, January 20, 3:00 PM at the Sundance Digital Center Conferences, Dialogue Room.

NEW YORK, NY (January 7, 2002) – The presence of the arts foundation Creative Capital will be felt at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, an eleven-day festival highlighting American and international independent film. Nine grantees—five artists and two collaborative teams—will participate in the Film Festival that will take place January 10–20, 2002 in Park City, UT. Films by funded artists will be screened in the Frontier Section and online as part of the Sundance Online Film Festival. In addition, two grantees and Creative Capital President Ruby Lerner will take part in House of Docs.

Participants are: Bill Morrison (Decasia, Frontier Section); Chel White (Passage, Frontier Shorts); Reynold Reynolds & Patrick Jolley (Burn, Frontier Shorts); Marina Zurkow (Braingirl: Episodes 4, 5, & 8, Sundance Online Film Festival); Alison Cornyn & Sue Johnson (360degrees.org, Sundance Online Film Festival); Vicky Funari (Maquilopolis, House of Docs Works-in-Progress); and Sandi DuBowski (House of Docs panelist for Distribution Spectrum). Decasia, Burn, 360degrees.org, and Maquilopolis are projects directly funded by Creative Capital.

Ruby Lerner makes a return to the Festival’s House of Docs as a moderator for the panel Roads to New Funding, Saturday, January 12, 10:30 AM–noon.

Selected Projects
Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002, 70 min., b/w) is an experimental feature investigating the human desire to transcend mortality. Creation and decay are key themes in this film set to an original score by Michael Gordon of Bang on a Can.

Passage by Chel White (2001, 11 min., color) is making its international festival premiere at Sundance, after winning First Place (Experimental) in the 2001 Northwest Film & Video Festival last month. The short film juxtaposes underwater portraits of people with archival films of war.

The collaborative team of Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley will screen Burn (2002, 10 min., color), a film and installation project on domestic oppression in which a family continues to function as their house burns down around them. Burn is also included in the Rotterdam festival later this month.

Currently on view at The Sundance Online Film Festival are three episodes of the computer animation series Braingirl by Marina Zurkow, and 360degrees.org by Alison Cornyn and Sue Johnson, an online participatory documentary of the American criminal justice system.

Finally, at House of Docs, Vicky Funari’s Maquilopolis, an hour-long documentary in the works, is featured at House of Docs Works-in-Progress, and Sandi DuBowski will be a panelist for Distribution Spectrum, Tuesday, January 15, 2:00–4:00 PM.

About Creative Capital
Founded in January 1999, Creative Capital Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that supports individual artists pursuing innovative approaches to form and content in the fields of performing, visual, literary, and media arts, as well as in emerging arts fields. Creative Capital evolved as a response by philanthropists, arts professionals, artists, and business leaders to government cuts in funding to individual artists. Its model differs from those of traditional grantmakers in that the foundation commits to a long-term approach to working with artists. Artists in Creative Capital’s grant program have access to professional services, including assistance in fundraising, networking, marketing, and strategic planning. In addition, grantees agree to share with Creative Capital a small percentage of any profits made by the project. For more information on the 118 projects currently funded by Creative Capital Foundation, visit www.creative-capital.org.