Sundance announced the full makeup of their six jury panels this morning and it is chock full of celebrated filmmakers, actors, and cinematic luminaries. Also announced: actress Parker Posey will serve as the host of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony. Posey is in town for her starring role in Michael Walker's Price Check. The full list of jury members follows:
U.S. DOCUMENTARY JURY
Fenton Bailey
Fenton Bailey made his Sundance Film Festival debut in 1998 with the
documentary Party Monster.
He later co-wrote and co-directed a narrative version of Party Monster, which debuted at
Sundance in 2003. Fenton has gone on to produce and/or direct seven films
launched at the festival, including Inside Deep Throat and,
most recently, the Emmy®-nominated documentary Becoming Chaz. In 2010 he
produced the Emmy®-winning documentary The Last Beekeeper,
and in 2011 he produced and directed the Emmy®-nominated Wishful
Drinking.
Shari Berman
Shari Springer Berman is an Oscar- and Emmy®-nominated filmmaker.
With partner Robert Pulcini, she wrote and directed American Splendor (Grand Jury Prize, 2003 Sundance Film
Festival; FIPRESCI Award, Cannes Film Festival; Best Adapted Screenplay,
Writers Guild Awards and Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination, Academy Awards®). Cinema Verite, Berman and
Pulcini's most recent film, received nine Emmy® nominations including Best Movie,
Outstanding Directing and a win for Best Editing. Their first film, Off the Menu: The Last Days of
Chasen's, won Best Documentary Feature at the 1997 Hamptons International
Film Festival.
Heather Croall
Heather Croall is the Director for Sheffield Doc/Fest, the
premiere documentary event in the UK and regarded as one of the best
documentary events in the world. Heather was previously the director of
the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), where she developed
the innovative matchmaking pitching initiative MeetMarket.
Charles Ferguson
Charles Ferguson directed and produced Inside
Job, which won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature in
2011. His first documentary, No
End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, premiered at the
2007 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize. The film went on to
be nominated for the Oscar in 2008. Charles is the author of four books,
including High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed
and Glory in the Internet Wars and Computer Wars:
The Post-IBM World (co-authored with Charles Morris). He is
currently working on a book about the global financial crisis,
to be released by Random House in Spring 2012. Charles is the founder
and president of Representational Pictures, Inc.
Kim Roberts
Kim Roberts is an editor of feature documentaries. Her recent work includes Waiting for Superman, Food, Inc., Autism the Musical, and the
upcoming Last Call at the
Oasis. Kim won an Emmy® for Autism the Musical, her third
nomination. She has received two Eddie Award nominations from the American
Cinema Editors, and a WGA nomination. Her other films include: Oscar Nominees
and Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winners Daughter
from Danang andLong
Night's Journey into Day, Two
Days in October, The Fall
of Fujimori, Lost Boys of Sudan, Daddy
& Papa, A Hard
Straight and Splinters.
U.S. DRAMATIC JURY
Justin Lin
Justin Lin's solo directorial debut, the critically acclaimed Better
Luck Tomorrow, premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and garnered a
nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. In April 2003, the film went on to make
box office history as the highest-grossing (per-screen average) opening weekend
film for MTV Films/Paramount Pictures. In 2009, he directed Universal's Fast
& Furious, which reunited the original cast of the franchise and
sparked new life for series. Justin then directed the critically-acclaimed
fifth installment of the franchise, Fast Five, which has become one
of Universal's most financially successful movies of all time.
Anthony Mackie
Anthony Mackie is a classically trained actor who studied at the Julliard
School of Drama. His work spans the stage and screen. He was discovered after
receiving rave reviews while playing Tupac Shakur in the off-Broadway Up Against the Wind. He earned
IFP Spirit and Gotham Award nominations for his performance in Rodney Evan's Brother to Brother, which won
the Special Dramatic Jury Price at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, as well as
best feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. He also played Sgt. JT Sanborn
in Kathryn's Bigelow's The
Hurt Locker, a film that not only earned him an Independent Spirit Award
nomination, but also earned Academy Awards® for the Best Motion Picture of
the Year, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Writing.
Cliff Martinez
Cliff Martinez began as a drummer for several bands during the punk era
including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dickies. He later scored
Steven Soderbergh's first theatrical release, 1989's sex, lies, and videotape,
leading to a longstanding relationship which includes Kafka, The Limey, Traffic, Solaris and Contagion. His
credits also include Narc, The
Lincoln Lawyer and Nicolas
Refn's Drive.
Lynn Shelton
Lynn Shelton was a stage actor until attending graduate school in photography
at the School of Visual Arts, at which point she became an editor and
experimental filmmaker. Her first narrative feature as a writer/director, We Go Way Back, won the Grand
Jury Prize at Slamdance in 2006. Her second, My
Effortless Beauty, premiered at SXSW and earned her the Acura Someone to
Watch Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Humpday,
her third feature, was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film
Festival as well as the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Your Sister's Sister premiered at the 2011 Toronto Film
Festival and is playing in the out-of-competition Spotlight section at the 2012
Sundance Film Festival.
Amy Vincent
Amy Vincent is an award-winning cinematographer. She has worked with Kasi
Lemmons on Eve's Bayou, Dr. Hugo, Caveman's Valentine and with Craig Brewer on Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and the
recently released Footloose.
In addition, Amy's work has garnered prestigious awards, including the 2005
Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award for Hustle & Flow and the 2001 Women in Film Kodak
Vision Award.
WORLD DOCUMENTARY JURY
Nick Fraser
Nick Fraser has served as the Editor of Storyville since it started in 1997. After
graduating from Oxford he worked as a reporter, television producer and editor.
His publications include a biography of Eva Peron, The Voice of Modern Hatred, and The Importance of Being Eton. Storyville films have won more than 200
awards, including four Oscars, a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival
and several Griersons, Emmys® and
Peabodys.
Clara Kim
Clara Kim is Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center. She was
formerly Gallery Director & Curator at REDCAT in Los Angeles
where she organized residencies, commissions, exhibitions and publications with
international contemporary artists. She was co-curator of the international
biennial Media City Seoul 2010 and organized a global forum on independent
spaces called State of
Independence in 2011. She has
sat on juries for Creative Capital Foundation, Artadia Artist Fellowship, Los
Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award; is on
the advisory board of East of Borneo; and is the recipient of fellowships from
the Warhol Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council.
Jean-Marie Teno
Jean-Marie Teno has been producing and directing films on the colonial and
post-colonial history of Africa for over 25 years. His films are noted for
their personal and original approach to issues of race, cultural identity,
African history and contemporary politics. Teno's films have been honored at
festivals worldwide: Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Yamagata, Paris, Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Liepzig, San Francisco, and London. Teno has been a guest of the
Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at the Pacific Film Archive of the
University of California, Berkeley, a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, and
has lectured at numerous universities. He was a Visiting professor at Hampshire
College in 2009.
WORLD DRAMATIC JURY
Julia Ormond
British actress Julia Ormond received
the London Drama Critics' Award for Best Newcomer in Christopher Hampton's Faith, Hope and Charity. She
starred in the epic Legends of
the Fall, played the lead role with Harrison Ford in the film Sabrina, and starred in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
In 2010 she won a supporting actress Emmy® Award for her role in the HBO Movie Temple Grandin. She is the
Founder and President of the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking
(ASSET), which works with corporations, NGOs, government officials, and
individuals to create the systemic change needed to eradicate slavery at
source. Julia is a former United Nations Goodwill Ambassador against
Trafficking and Slavery, and the founding co-chair of Film Aid International.
She can currently be seen in the Weinstein Company's My Week with Marilyn in which she plays actress Vivien
Leigh.
Richard Pena
Richard Peña has been the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln
Center and the Director of the New York Film Festival since 1988. At the Film
Society, Peña has organized retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sacha
Guitry, Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Aldrich, Roberto Gavaldon, Ritwik Ghatak, Kira
Muratova, Youssef Chahine, Yasujiro Ozu, Carlos Saura and Amitabh Bachchan, as
well as major film series devoted to African, Swedish, Israeli, Cuban, Polish,
Hungarian, Arab, Korean, Taiwanese and Argentine cinema. He is a Professor of
Film Studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and
international cinema, and from 2006-2009 was a Visiting Professor in Spanish at
Princeton University. He is also currently the co-host of WNET/Channel 13's
weekly Reel 13.
Alexei Popogrebsky
Alexei Popogrebsky was born in 1972 in Moscow into a family of a screenwriter.
He wrote and directed the award-winning films Roads
to Koktebel (2003) (with
Boris Khlebnikov), Simple
Things (2007), and How I Ended This Summer (2010), set and shot on a polar
station in the Russian Arctic and based entirely around two characters. The
film won two Silver Bears in Berlin, Gold Hugo in Chicago and Best Film at BFI
London Film Festival. Alexei is currently developing his first English-language
project, a 3D fantasy drama.
ALFRED P. SLOAN JURY
Scott Burns
Scott Burns recently wrote the screenplay for the Warner Bros. film, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The film,
starring Bradley Cooper and currently in development, is set to begin
production in early 2012 and marks Burns' fourth collaboration with Steven
Soderbergh, who will direct. He also wroteContagion and co-wrote the Academy Award®-winning Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt
Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass. As a producer, he received the Humanitas
Prize and the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America for his
Academy Award®-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He wrote
and directed HBO Films' critically acclaimed PU-239,
which was produced by Soderbergh and George Clooney. Scott also wrote The Library, a stage play based
on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School with Kennedy/Marshall producing.
He began his career in advertising and was part of the creative team
responsible for the original "Got Milk?" campaign.
Tracy Day
Tracy Day co-founded the World Science Festival in 2008 with world-renowned
physicist and best-selling author Brian Greene. She serves as CEO and oversees
the creative and programmatic offerings of the World Science Festival. She is a
four-time National News Emmy® award-winning
journalist and has produced live and documentary programming for the nation's
preeminent television news divisions for over two decades. At ABC News she was
producer for This Week with David Brinkley, editorial and field producer for
Nightline and story editor for the news magazine, Day One. Tracy has produced
documentaries, specials and live town meeting broadcasts for PBS, The Discovery
Channel, CNN, Lifetime and CNBC. In addition to Emmy® Awards, she won a Hugo Award, a 2004
Clarion Award and the CINE Golden Eagle for investigative journalism. She has
been an adjunct professor in the Leadership and the Arts program at the Sanford
Institute for Public Policy.
Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher, PhD, is a biological Anthropologist at Rutgers University. She
studies the evolution, brain systems (fMRI) and cross-cultural patterns of
romantic love, mate choice, marriage, adultery, divorce, gender differences in
the brain, personality, temperament, and business personalities. She has
written five internationally best selling books, including WHY HIM? WHY HER?; WHY WE LOVE; and ANATOMY OF LOVE. She lectures worldwide. Among her
speeches are those at the World Economic Forum at Davos, TED, United Nations,
Smithsonian, Salk Institute, Harvard Medical School and Aspen Institute. She
publishes widely in academic and lay journals. For her work in the media, Helen
received the American Anthropological Association's Distinguished Service
Award.
SHORT FILM JURY
Mike Judge
Mike Judge is the creator of Beavis
and Butt-Head for MTV and King of the Hill for FOX TV. He expanded into writing
and directing his own live-action films, Office
Space, Idiocracy and Extract.
He's done voices for South
Park and acted in Robert
Rodriguez's Spy Kids movies. Mike recently resurrectedBeavis
and Butt-Head with 12 new
shows for MTV.
Dee Rees
Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a
Sundance Institute Directing Lab Fellow. She's written and directed several
short films including the award-winning Pariah,
which screened at over 40 festivals worldwide. Her feature documentary, Eventual Salvation, premiered
on the Sundance Channel in 2009, and her debut narrative feature, Pariah, opened the U.S.
Dramatic competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Dee received a Renew
Media Arts Fellowship for her work, and recently completed an endowed residency
at Yaddo. Currently, Dee is writing an original screenplay for Focus Features
and is also in development on a new television series with HBO. Dee interned on
Spike Lee's films When The
Levees Brokeand Inside Man.
Shane Smith
Shane Smith has been a programmer, jury member and speaker at film festivals
all over the world. He is currently the Director of Public Programmes at TIFF
Bell Lightbox. He previously served as the Executive Producer, In-flight
Entertainment at Spafax Canada Inc., where he oversaw all in-flight programming
for Air Canada. He also was the Director of Programming for the digital TV
channels Movieola: The Short Film Channel and Silver Screen Classics. He was a
Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival from 2006-2010 and for six
years was the Director of the Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film
Festival. He is a former Programmer for the Inside Out Festival, a member of
the Organizing Committee of the International Short Film Conference and was
formerly on the Board of Directors of the Centre for Aboriginal Media,
presenters of the imagineNATIVE Film Festival.