Sun Valley Film Festival Lineup Announced; Ted ...

The Sun Valley Film Festival has announced this year’s lineup

Published Time: 06.02.2024 - 23:31:20 Modified Time: 06.02.2024 - 23:31:20

The Sun Valley Film Festival has announced this year’s lineup. Running from Feb. 28 to March 3, the 13th annual event will screen 20 narrative and documentary features, 37 shorts and three episodics. The festival will also honor Ted Hope with the Pioneer Award presented by Variety and Julia Cox with the High Scribe Award, joining previous Vision Award honorees Annette Bening and David O. Russell.

“Ezra,” directed by Tony Goldwyn, will be the opening night film, which stars Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne and Robert DeNiro. The closing night film is the documentary “Sugarcane,” directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie.

“This year’s lineup spotlights exciting narrative programming and vital feature documentaries, both sprawling in scope and determined in the very best of contemporary cinema,” SVFF founder Teddy Grennan and SVFF director Candice Pate said in a joint statement. “The Sun Valley Film Festival remains committed to a diverse experience for our Sun Valley audience, establishing a community for cinematic conversation in our snowy Shangri-La, a place for critical commentary, lively parties, and flourishing works from master filmmakers.”

Hope will receive the Pioneer Award presented by Variety, which recognizes an industry innovator. As a producer on over 70 films, Hope’s films have received 25 Oscar nominations and six wins. This honor will be celebrated at the festival’s Pioneer Party on March 1. On March 3, Hope will receive the award and participate in a coffee talk moderated by Variety. Cox, the screenwriter of “Nyad,” will receive the High Scribe Award as part of the Festival’s Screenwriters Lab on March 2.

Bening and Russell will be honored at the Vision Dinner on March 1 and discuss their career achievements during coffee talks. Additionally, Russell will participate in a screening and Q&A of “American Hustle” on March 2, and Bening will participate in a special screening of the short “Ten Thousand Mile Bridge” on Feb. 29.

The festival will also host a panel on March 1 titled “AI in Service of Storytelling,” presented in partnership with the nonprofit Artificial Intelligence Los Angeles.

For additional information on the festival and the full lineup, visit sunvalleyfilmfestival.org.

Spike Lee to be Honored With American Socie -

The Producers : Oscar-Nominated Producer,...

ty of Cinematographers Board of Governors Awards

The American Society of Cinematographers will honor Spike Lee with its Board of Governors Award at the 38th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards Gala on March 3 at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif.

The ASC Board of Governors Award is given to collaborators who are “champions for directors of photography and the visual art form.” Lee was chosen for his “significant and indelible contributions to cinema.”

“Spike Lee is one of the most brilliant filmmakers of our time and the social impact of his work is immeasurable,” Shelly Johnson, ASC president, said in a statement. “This award celebrates his respect for the partnership between director and cinematographer, and how two people unite to tell a visual story in a way that can only be recognized as that of collaboration.”

Over his three-decade-spanning career, Lee has directed and produced over 30 films, starting with “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986), which Lee premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and earned him the Prix de la Jeunesse Award. Lee would then go on to receive an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay for 1989’s “Do the Right Thing.” In 2019, “BlacKkKlansman” earned Lee an Oscar for best adapted screenplay and nominations for best picture and best Director.

Outside of filmmaking, Lee is a faculty member at NYU’s Tisch School of Graduate Film Program, where, in addition to being a tenured professor, was recently appointed artistic director in 2022. Lee has also provided grants to NYU student productions via his Spike Lee Production Fund. Since its inception in 1989, 92 students have been awarded grants of $1 million.

Previous recipients of the ASC Board of Governors include Viola Davis, Sofia Coppola, Jeff Bridges, Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Ridley Scott, Barbra Streisand, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Christopher Nolan, Morgan Freeman, Francis Ford Coppola, Sally Field, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, among others.