Slamdance Selects Jury Members for 21st Annual Film Festival

Festival also unveils finalists for brand new micro-shorts competition

21st Annual Slamdance Film Festival artwork

Slamdance Film Festival has selected the documentary, narrative and shorts competition jury members for its upcoming 21st anniversary festival, running in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 23 to Jan. 29.

Narrative feature jury members including filmmaker Todd Looby, trinidad+tobago film festival Creative Director Emilie Upczak, and Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber. Documentary jury members are producer-director Josh Leake and filmmakers Paige Williams and Bryan Storkel.

The jury members for the narrative and animation shorts include actor-filmmaker Sarah Cornell, Blacklist screenwriter Rory Haines and Elle Schneider, who works as a director and cinematographer for fashion films. The festival’s experimental and anarchy shorts jury members are Seed&Spark’s Director of Content and Chief Creative Officer Eve Cohen; director, cinematographer and James Beard award winner Laura Merians and Dan Brawley, the Executive Director of the Cucalorus Film Festival.

Slamdance’s Digital Bolex-sponsored micro-short competition titled Fearless Filmmaking: Art on Your Own Terms will take place on Monday, Jan. 26. The program will include Bright Ideas magazine’s tribute to the classic Jean-Luc Godard film “Alphaville,” which, as TheWrap exclusively reported, is in the process of being remade.

Here is the full list of finalists:

ALPHAVILLE: A REMIX – James Kaelan (USA)
Lemmy Caution seduces himself in this shot-for-shot feminist remix of Jean-Luc Godard‘s lo-fi science fiction masterpiece starring Caitlin FitzGerald.

COURTESAN – Misti Boland and Jeremy Osbern (USA)*
Two strangers meet on Christmas night… for sex and the exchange of money.

REDUX20 – Paul Rachman (USA)*
An experimental doc that steps into the spiraling frenetic journey of actor and artist Jason Cairns with whom the director worked 20 years ago on the film Drive Baby Drive.

THE PERILOUS FIGHT – Nedra McClyde (USA)*
A father wrestles with the decision to allow his young son to enter the world without him.

THE CHARACTER STUDY – Luke Pelizzari (Canada)
When an actor takes his character off the set and into his everyday life, he learns a valuable lesson about pretending to be something you’re (definitely) not.

JKTV – Elle Schneider (USA)
A documentary exploring the work of webcam artist Joey Kim.

ISOBEL – Marie Jamora (USA/Philippines)*
Isobel lives in the Philippines and has been acting and painting since she was four — now at the age of twelve, through conversation and archival footage, we see a portrait of her growing up.

THE DAMMED – Fernando Frias (Mexico)*
Ulises Zarazua has an American Passport but lives in Mexico city; I have a Mexican passport and live in New York. He made a song. I made a video.

COMING TO – Lindsey Haun (USA)
A man wakes up in a Koreatown hallway, naked except for a cock ring and frilly scarf.

FINGER GUNS – Bryan Chojnowski (USA)
Eve moves back to her hometown and it totally sucks, so Jack is going to make her smile — even if it kills them.

LOVE & I – Heather Kasprzak (USA)
A true story about a young woman who sets out to find the father she hasn’t seen in 30 years.

SALT WOUND – Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (USA)*
A collage of four artists creating and purging with some dirt, dolls, a blanket and a goldfish.

AQUARIUM – Ben McCrea (USA)
A couple drive to the beach to say their final goodbye – one does not return.

AN UNEXPECTED FAREWELL – Fredrik Ekholm (Sweden)
A desperate man comes across a golden frame, which takes him on an unexpected journey.

PASSPORT – Lisa Demaine (USA)
Off on a bender, a Hollywood legend escapes an unhappy film set only to discover there’s no escaping your own myth.

As TheWrap previously reported, the judges for the Bolex micro-shorts competition, a brand new category at this year’s festival, include “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alum Amber Benson and director Todd Berger (“It’s a Disaster”).

21st Slamdance Film Festival will be held at the Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City, from Jan. 23 to Jan. 29.

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