The Sundance Institute announced the inclusion of four new members to their Board of Trustees last week. Rob Epstein will be joining the board alongside Ava DuVernay, Nadine Schiff and Liesl Tommy. The Sundance Board consists of 22 members who oversee the governances of the Sundance Institute, a non-profit organization committed to advancing the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide. Check out Indie Wire's coverage of the announcement here.
The Sundance Institute's official press release can be read below.
Photo: Don Holtz
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 26, 2013
|
Media Contact:
Casey
De La Rosa
310.360.1981
|
Sundance Institute Adds Four New
Trustees
Nadine Schiff | Ava DuVernay |
Rob Epstein | Liesl Tommy
Los Angeles, CA —
Sundance Institute today announced four new members of the Institute’s Board of
Trustees: Nadine Schiff, Ava DuVernay, Rob Epstein and Liesl Tommy.
Under the guidance of President & Founder Robert Redford and in
close collaboration with Executive Director Keri Putnam, the 22-person Board is
responsible for the governance of Sundance Institute. Wally Weisman continues
as Chairman of the Board.
As a Trustee, Schiff will draw on her experience as a television
journalist and film producer to actively advance Sundance Institute’s creative
and financial support for independent artists. DuVernay, Epstein and Tommy join
the Board as Artist Trustees, who are participants from Institute programs,
including the Sundance Film Festival, artistic Labs and direct granting, who
share with the Board their perspectives and act as liaisons to other Institute
alumni.
The other business, cultural and philanthropic leaders on the
Institute’s Board are: Robert Redford, President & Founder; Wally Weisman,
Chairman of the Board; Pat Mitchell, Vice Chairman; Jeanne Donovan Fisher,
Secretary; Jack Ferraro, Treasurer; Sean Bailey; Kenneth Cole; Robert J.
Frankenberg; Mellody Hobson; Cindy Harrell Horn; Sheila Johnson; Christine
Lahti; Lyn Davis Lear; Anand Mahindra; Geoffrey K. Sands; Jim Swartz; John E.
Warnock; and Jacki Zehner. In addition, Emeritus Trustees are: Glenn Close;
Jake Eberts; Sally Field; Steven Haft; Thomas E. Rothman; and George White.
NEW TRUSTEES
Nadine
Schiff began her career as a television journalist, becoming a national
reporter for the Dan Rather CBS Evening News. Prior to that, she hosted her own
Toronto talk show, Take 30, and reported for The Journal, the flagship
newsmagazine show for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the early
1990s, Nadine was hired as VP of Michael Douglas' Sony-based Stonebridge
Entertainment and produced films such as Made
in America, Flatliners, The Wedding Dress and Live From Baghdad. For seven years,
Nadine served on the Board of the Women's Conference headed by Maria Shriver
and currently also serves on the Board of The HELP Group. Nadine has a Master's
Degree in Clinical Psychology and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch
University. She is married to Fred Rosen, former Chairman of Ticketmaster Inc.,
and has one son.
Ava
DuVernay (Artist Trustee) is a writer, producer, director and
distributor of independent film. Winner of the Best Director Award at the 2012
Sundance Film Festival and the 2013 John Cassavetes Spirit Award for her second
feature film Middle of Nowhere,
DuVernay’s directorial work also includes the critically-acclaimed dramatic
feature I Will Follow, as well as the
documentaries Venus vs, This is the Life and My Mic Sounds Nice. She is currently
prepping for directorial duties on the Dr. Martin Luther King film, Selma, for Pathe. DuVernay is founder of
AFFRM, a film distribution collective dedicated to African-American cinema.
Based in Los Angeles, she is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, as well as the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Rob
Epstein (Artist Trustee) is a film director, producer, writer and
editor. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature for the
films The Times of Harvey Milk, which
premiered at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival, and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. He recently transitioned
from non-fiction documentaries into scripted narratives, producing the biopics HOWL (2010) and Lovelace (2013), both of which premiered at the Sundance Film
Festival. Rob was a Fellow at the Sundance Institute January Screenwriters Lab
with the film HOWL and participated
as a Creative Advisor at the 2012 Composers + Documentary Lab. He has received
numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Outfest Achievement
Award. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he currently serves on the Board of
Governors. He is based in San Francisco and is a professor of film at California
College of the Arts.
Liesl
Tommy (Artist Trustee) is a theatre actor and director whose
productions have won numerous awards for directing, acting and design. She has
directed Lynn Nottage’s Ruined,
August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,
Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun
and David Mamet’s American Buffalo,
among many others. She has also taught master classes in acting, directing and
new play development at The Julliard School, Trinity Rep/Brown University, The
Strasberg Institute and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Liesl’s production of The Good Negro went through Sundance
Institute’s Theatre Lab and Liesl served as Creative Advisor to the Theatre
Program Lab on Manda (East Africa) and Stage Director’s Workshop in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia. Liesl is a native of Cape Town, South Africa and is based in
New York.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a
global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic
expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue
between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling
to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or
cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film
Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters,
producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute
has nurtured such projects as Born into
Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale
Station, Sin Nombre, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels
in America. Join Sundance
Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
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