FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2012 Media Contacts:
Sarah Eaton
310.360.1981
sarah_eaton@sundance.org
Casey De La Rosa
310.360.1981
casey_delarosa@sundance.org
PARKER POSEY TO HOST 2012 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS
CEREMONY
JURY MEMBERS ANNOUNCED
Shari Berman, Scott Burns, Charles Ferguson, Nick Fraser, Mike Judge, Justin Lin,
Anthony Mackie, Cliff Martinez, Julia Ormond, Dee Rees and Lynn Shelton Among Jurors
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the 22 members of the six juries awarding prizes
at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the host of the Awards Ceremony on January 28. The
Festival takes place January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Actress and writer Parker Posey will serve as the host of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards
Ceremony, set to take place January 28 at 7:00 p.m. MT at the Basin Recreation Field House in Park
City, Utah and live-streamed at www.sundance.org/festival. Named “Queen of the Indies” by TIME
Magazine, Posey has appeared in more than a dozen films at the Sundance Film Festival, including Party
Girl (1995), House of Yes (1997) and Broken English (2007). Posey also appears in Price Check in the
out-of-competition Premieres section at this year’s Festival.
Awards for short films will also be announced at a separate ceremony on January 24 at Park City’s
Jupiter Bowl.
Photos and extended biographies of the jurors and Awards Ceremony host, in addition to the complete
Festival lineup and schedule, are available at www.sundance.org/festival.
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 and Long 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 toeradicate 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 wrote Contagion 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.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 resurrected Beavis 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 Broke and 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.
The Sundance Film Festival
A program of the non-profit Sundance Institute, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of
the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of
Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water, and
Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative, has showcased the cinematic works of media
artists including Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Matthew Barney. The
2012 Sundance Film Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Entertainment Weekly, HP,
Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase SapphireSM; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe Systems Incorporated,
Bing™, Canon, DIRECTV, Focus Forward, a partnership between GE and CINELAN, Southwest Airlines,
Sprint and Yahoo!; Sustaining Sponsors – Bertolli® Frozen Meal Soups, FilterForGood®, a partnership
between Brita® and Nalgene®, Grey Goose® Vodka, Hilton HHonors and Waldorf Astoria Hotels &
Resorts, L’Oréal Paris, Stella Artois®, Timberland, Time Warner Inc. and YouTubeTM. Sundance Institute
recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of
Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-
day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute’s year-round programs for independent film and theatre
artists. www.sundance.org/festival
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its
artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the
Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States andaround the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent
storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized
for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into
Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am
My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter
and YouTube.
# # #
For images go to http://press.sundance.org/press.