Animator Emily Hubley has been selected by the Sundance Institute as one of the five filmmakers of the first "class" of Annenberg Film Fellows. As the first participants in the newly established Annenberg Film Fellows Program, the filmmakers will receive extended support over a two-year period to facilitate the creation of their current projects. The other fellows include Aditya Assarat, Sterlin Harjo, Kazuo Ohno and Alex Rivera.
"These five film artists embody the very spirit of the Sundance Institute -- fresh, imaginative and diverse," said Ken Brecher, exec director of the Sundance Institute. "As the first recipients of the new Annenberg Film Fellowships, these talented filmmakers will be able to draw from the resources of the Sundance Institute and Feature Film Program while focusing on advancing and producing their work at this critical moment in their creative process."
"Sundance is one of the few places where emerging filmmakers can come to develop their craft as writers and directors as they work on their first feature film project," said Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. "The Annenberg grant helps us to significantly expand the ways in which we are able to support emerging filmmakers. The Feature Film Program's resource of residencies, ongoing creative and business support, and contributed production services will now include the ability to provide financial support in the form of assistance grants at critical stages in a film's development."
Hubley, the daughter of legendary animators John and Faith Hubley, will produce THE TOE TACTIC, which follows a young woman's search for her wallet through an animated and live-action world that is haunted by her dead father, populated by living objects and flawed individuals, and manipulated by a pack of capricious dogs.
New York City native Hubley is a graduate of Hampshire College and is a Sundance Institute Filmmaker Lab alumna, having participated in the 2003 Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs and the June 2002 Screenwriters Lab. She provided the art and animated segments for John Cameron Mitchell's HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH and her animated films have won awards at film festivals around the world, aired on the Sundance Channel, and screened in numerous programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Created in April 2004 by a $5 million grant from The Annenberg Foundation to the Sundance Institute, the Annenberg Film Fellows Program is a five-year initiative designed to provide a combination of personal stipends, residencies and creative support for selected participants in Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program. Each year, the Program supports up to five participants or alumni of the Feature Film Program over a two-year period, as they partake in the different aspects of the Institute's Feature Film Program, including the Filmmakers Lab and the January and June Screenwriters Lab, as well as the Film Music Lab, the Producers Conference, Screenplay Readings and ongoing creative and business support.
Founded by publisher, diplomat and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg in 1989, The Annenberg Foundation exists to advance the public well-being through improved communication. As the principal means of achieving its goal, the Foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge. The Annenberg Foundation has offices in St. Davids, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California.
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is dedicated to the development of artists of independent vision and the exhibition of their new work. Sundance Institute conducts national and international labs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers, writers and theater artists. The annual Sundance Film Festival, a major program of Sundance Institute, is held each January and is considered the premier showcase for American and international independent film. For more information, visit www.sundance.org.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
