Grad Film Shines at Sundance

The 2018 Sundance Film Festival has just wrapped up in Park City and Graduate Film was a huge part of the festivies this year with entries in almost every category and taking home some of the festival's top prizes. You can read our Chair Barbara Schock's inspiring thoughts from her visit to the festival here.

The Sundance awards were announced on Saturday and alumna Desiree Akhaven and her crew, which included alumna Sara Shaw, took home the top honor of U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic for the film The Miseducation of Cameron Post. The film had its premiere at Sundance to rave reviews from Variety, The Guardian, IndieWire, and more.

Another award winner was alumnus Reinaldo Marcus Green, who took home the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Outstanding First Feature for his film Monsters and Men. The feature not only got glowing reviews from IndieWire and Hollywood Reporter, but was also bought by Neon.

Alumna Sara Colangelo's adaptation of an Israeli film, The Kindergarten Teacher, earned her not only praise from critics at The Guardian and Hollywood Reporter, but also the Directing Award for the U.S. Dramatic category.

Dead Pigs, a film by alumna Cathy Y. Yan, won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting on Saturday. Filmmaker Magazine did an interview with alumnus Federico Cesca about his work as cinematographer on the film, which earned acclaim from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Student Nicholas Ma was the producer of the documentary feature Won’t You Be My Neighbor? about Mr. Rogers which played in the Documentary Premieres section. The doc got great reviews from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Alumnus Andrij Parekh was also interviewed by Filmmaker Magazine for his work as cinematographer on the film The Catcher Was a Spy, which premiered at Sundance.

Two of our alumnae made triumphant returns to Sundance: Debra Granik and Tamara Jenkins. Jenkins had two films on the bill. She was the co-writer of Juliet, Naked and wrote and directed the hit Private Life, which reviewers raved about in Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair. Granik came to Sundance with the feature film, Leave No Trace, which was picked up by Bleeker Street for a domestic release and Sony Worldwide Acquisitions for a foreign release. Leave No Trace was also highly lauded by reviewers, including Variety, IndieWire, and Hollywood Reporter.

Alumna Chloé Zhao had a successful showing of her film The Rider in the Spotlight section of the festival. The Rider was produced by alumna Mollye Asher and alumnus Joshua James Richards was the cinematographer. You can watch Zhao’s interview with Deadline about the film here.

Several other Grad Film students and alumni screened their work at Sundance as well:  Joshua Marston, Cole Wiley, Spike Lee, Charlotte Wells, Joy Jorgensen, Blair McClendon, Charles Rogers, Myrsini Aristidou, Stephen Winter, and Aslihan Unaldi to name a few.