Columbia, NYU To Make Big Showing at Sundance
When the Sundance Film Festival kicks off next week, Columbia University and New York University will be keeping watch.
Both schools have record-breaking years at the annual 10-day festival in Utah. Columbia students and alumni have written, directed, or produced 16 films this year, while NYU is showcasing 20 films.
This feat has come to the attention of the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that about 10% of all short films in the festival came from the film division of Columbia's School of the Arts. Columbia students or alumni directed three of the 16 films in the main feature dramatic competition.
NYU likewise is breaking its record at Sundance. The school's total includes 20 films by directors from the Tisch School's Kanbar Institute of Film & Television among its record-setting 96 alumni, faculty, and students representing 57 films with NYU-related directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, actors, editors, art directors, and music and costume designers.
Inaugurated with the help of actor-director Robert Redford, Sundance ranks alongside Cannes, Berlin and Toronto, the most renowned venues for showing independent film. The festival takes place in Park City, Utah, and runs this year from January 18 to 28.
NYU's and Columbia's film programs are among the top ranked in the country. Columbia's School of the Arts, which is a graduate MFA program, is much smaller than NYU's program, which has, in addition to its graduate students, about 1,100 undergraduate film majors.
The acting dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia, Daniel Kleinman, said Columbia did so well at Sundance because "we teach film as a storytelling medium."
A 2006 graduate of the School of the Arts, Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa, said the film industry has become much more aware of Columbia's presence. His short film "Salt Kiss," about two old friends who meet on New Year's Eve on a secluded island near Rio de Janeiro, is screening this year at Sundance.
Each school is holding a party at the festival.
