Sundance Film Festival

New Frontier represents the evolution of the Frontier section exploring the experimental world of filmmaking. New Frontier is an expanded program that includes work from artists pushing the boundaries of art by using the moving image to create new cinematic modes of storytelling. This year‘s line-up includes a program of short films and seven feature-length films from four countries.

“Building on the Sundance Film Festival tradition of experimentation and innovation, this year‘s expanded NEW FRONTIER section will present a unique platform for both filmmakers and artists using the latest media technology,” says John Cooper, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival.

The films screening in New Frontier are:

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: PIERRE HUYGHE / France (Director: Pierre Huyghe)–A presentation of short films that have rarely been screened outside of a museum or art gallery context. Huyghe is one of France’s most celebrated young artists. His multimedia installations–which are concerned with collective memory, the construction of narratives, and textures of re-enactment–have been exhibited at museums across the world including the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, and the Whitney Museums.

THE LAST DINING TABLE / South Korea (Director and Screenwriter: Gyeong-Tae Roh)–This minimal and surrealist film about irony and separation poetically explores modern social problems including pollution and environmental concerns and the collapse of family values. North American Premiere.

OFFSCREEN / Denmark (Director: Christoffer Boe; Screenwriter: Christoffer Boe, Knud Romer Jørgensen)–Actor Nicolas Bro reigns supreme in the role of Nicolas Bro – a man intent on making a film about himself. After his director friend Christoffer Boe lends him a camera, his selfmonitoring is so hair-raisingly private (and creepy!) that it becomes impossible to separate fact from fiction. North American Premiere.

PHANTOM LOVE/ U.S.A. (Director: Nina Menkes)–A surreal drama about a woman trapped within an enmeshed family, and her slow process of personal liberation. Set in Los Angeles and Rishikesh, India, the film combines fairy-tale elements with brutal black and white photography to create a powerful testament about inner transformation. World Premiere.

STRANGE CULTURE / U.S.A. (Director: Lynn Hirschman Leeson)-When artist and college professor, Steve Kurtz awoke to realize that his wife of 27 years had tragically died in her sleep, a surreal sequence of events ensued that led to his being held as a suspected terrorist. Nearly three years later the charges have not been dropped. He faces up to 20 years in prison. World Premiere.

SLIPSTREAM / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Anthony Hopkins)–A man discovers that life is random and fortune is sightless as he is thrown into a vortex where time, dreams and reality collide in an increasingly whirling Slipstream. World Premiere.

ZIDANE: A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT / France (Director: Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno)– During the course of an entire football match, seventeen super-35mm Scope format cameras were set around the playing field focusing solely on football legend Zinedine Zidane, who agreed to become the center of attention for this out-of-the-ordinary, full-length feature film. U.S. Premiere.

In addition to the films screening in New Frontier, the program includes media installations, media-based performances, and panel discussions at New Frontier on Main–a new venue located across from the Egyptian Theatre in the Main St. Mall formerly known as the Film Center. Artists whose work will be featured in the program are Paul Chan (multi-media installation), Shu Lea Cheang (interactive mobile media), Martha Colburn (multi-media installation), R. Luke Dubois (multi-media installation), Eric Dyer (multi-media installation), James Graham (multi-media installation), Ricardo Rivera and Pier Nicola D‘Amico (multi-media installation), Lincoln Schatz (interactive video art), and Travis Wilkerson (media based performance).

For an online schedule for New Frontier screenings click here.