News

The Sundance Film Festival’s 2021 virtual Main Street will play host to a series of conversations about music and the movies, hosted by first-time festival partner Film Music House, with Mary J. Blige, Rufus Wainwright and Colin Stetson (pictured above) among those taking part in the streamed chats Jan. 28 through Feb. 3.

Blige will join Nova Wav and DJ Camper in a conversation on songwriting for films. Wainwright will participate in a panel on the music of the film “Rebel Hearts” with veteran music supervisor Tracy McKnight and Ariel Marx. A panel about music auteurs will feature Stetson as well as Bryce Dessner of the National and Alex Somers.

The confab’s keynote conversations will spotlight Mychael Danna, Jeff Beal, Dan Romer, Miriam Cuter and Rob Simonsen.

The full lineup of names and times for Film Music House programs can be found on Sundance’s Village site, here.

Other programs include...

Newly expanded advisor roster spans filmmaking disciplines.

Projects from South Africa, China and Turkey are among 10 selected for the 2020 Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs, which have been reconfigured as a digital event amid the pandemic lockdown.

The event will take place on Sundance Co//ab and as always is designed to connect selected filmmaker Fellows with creative advisors and industry mentors across multiple disciplines.

The Directors Lab runs from June 1-19 when filmmakers will participate in a schedule of advisor presentations, scene analysis sessions, directing exercises, one-on-one meetings, and inaugural conversations across a wide range of industry disciplines, including casting,...

Bmi is announcing its annual programs at the Sundance Film Festival, with a substantially packed composer/director panel set for the afternoon of Sunday, January 26 and a “Snowball” headlined by singer Lisa Loeb two nights later.

The Sunday “Music & Film: The Creative Process” roundtable will include nine filmmaker/scorer pairs with movies at the festival, with moderating duties handled by Sundance Institute Film Music Program director Peter Golub and Bmi’s primary liaison to the film world, VP of creative relations Doreen Ringer-Ross.

Happening at Sundance for the 22nd year, the panel will bring together composers and directors from these festival entries: “Uncle Frank” (composer Nathan Barr and director Alan Ball; “Four Good Days” (Ed Shearmur and Rodrigo García; “The Night House” (Ben Lovett and David Bruckner); “Shirley” (Tamar-kali and Josephine Decker); “Promising Young Woman” ( Anthony Willis and Emerald Fennell); “Boys State” (T. Griffin and Amanda McBaine; “Us Kids” (composer...

Movie and TV composers are in greater demand than ever for, surprisingly, new music for the concert hall.

For decades, concert commissions for film composers were few and far between. The increasing popularity of John Williams’ film music, and his visibility as conductor of the Boston Pops in the 1980s and ’90s, led to his writing a number of concert works, but Williams was, for the most part, the exception to the rule.

That is changing, some composers say, because orchestra managers are reaching the belated conclusion that film music communicates immediately to audiences, and the current trend of live-to-picture concerts of movie hits (everything from “Star Wars” to “Lord of the Rings”) is bringing in big bucks. As a result, adventurous programmers are seeking new works by established film composers in hopes that audiences have developed a thirst for similarly melodic, even exciting, music by names they recognize even...

Composer John Williams will be honored for his 60-year career by Broadcast Music Inc. (Bmi) at its 34th annual Film, TV and Visual Media Awards. The event is scheduled for May 9 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Williams will receive “a special award, bearing his name, in recognition of his incomparable status as one of the greatest film and television composers of our time,” the performance rights organization announced.

Said Bmi Vice President, Creative Doreen Ringer-Ross: “By continuing to create and add to his prolific body of work, he’s made a lasting impression on music lovers around the world, and an entire community of composers who he continues to inspire. Because of this, and for all that he has given the world of music and beyond, we felt it was appropriate to honor John with this special award.”

Williams, 86, recently received his 51st Oscar nomination, for scoring “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Newly added to this year’s festival will be a workshop for young filmmakers and film music composers.

Sundance Institute has revealed the 11 films that will form the line-up of its second festival in Hong Kong, held in association with The Metroplex, a newly opened cineplex in Kowloon Bay.

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong will run from Sept 17-27 and follows last year’s Sundance Film Festival - Hong Kong Selects, which brought a series of curated Us independent films to the city for the first time. Titles this year include:

The Wolfpack, Crystal MoselleAdvantageous, Jennifer PhangCartel Land, Matthew HeinemanDope, Rick FamuyiwaJames White, Josh MondMe and Earl and the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-RejonPeople, Places, Things, Jim StrouseSongs My Brothers Taught Me, Chloé ZhaoThe End of the Tour, James PonsoldtThe Stanford Prison Experiment, Kyle Patrick AlvarezThe Witch, Robert Eggers

The Wolfpack, which won the Us Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance, will open the...

Independent artists Kris Bowers, Germaine Franco, Danielle Eva Schwob and Jeremy Turner are among the select few for this summer’s Music and Sound Design Labs held at Skywalker Ranch in northern California.

This is the third year that Skywalker Ranch will host the Music and Sound Design Labs, a joint initiative between the Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program and Feature Film and the Film Music Program and Documentary Film Program.

The Music and Sound Design Labs provide workshops and creative exercises for composers, directors and sound designers to collaborate on the process of designing a soundtrack for film.

“This year’s fellows include an outstanding group of composers whose work will deepen and enrich the experience of the diverse personal stories being told by these fiction and documentary filmmakers,” said Sundance Institute Film Music Program director Peter Golub.

“Skywalker Sound is the perfect space for composers, filmmakers and sound designers to come together to explore...

We are a couple of weeks away from the Sundance London film and music festival hitting the O2 arena in the capital. The full lineup of panels, music events and films was announced last week and we’ve decided to dive in and surface here with our picks of the festival.

As you’ll see we have chosen a number of films to keep an eye on, noted a couple of the panels and highlighted an event or two. You can find more information on all of these events right here at the Sundance London homepage or keep an eye here on HeyUGuys as we’ll be bringing you the best coverage of one of our favourite festivals.

Film – Frank

It’s hard to pass up the opportunity to see Michael Fassbender take on one of the oddest figures in the last thirty years of British popular culture. Papier Mâché...

Established in 2012, Sundance London is growing into a quiet fixture on the British film calendar -- a three-day roundup of highlights from the Sundance Film Festival lineup making their UK premiere, I'm not sure if it's built up much of a public profile -- possibly because of its less-than-central location in the vast O2 Dome -- but for the many Brit industry folk and film fanatics who can't fork out for the January trip to Park City, it's a handy catch-up, and returns for its third edition next month. The lineup was announced today -- and while many of the bigger Sundance sensations have been pinched by the programmers of the London, Edinburgh and Sheffield festivals, it's a healthy mix. Among the most notable inclusions are: "The Case Against 8," the same-sex marriage documentary that confirmed its Us release date last week; "Obvious Child," the Jenny Slate-starring feminist romantic...

Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler, comedian David Cross and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker among those set to attend the festival.Scroll down for full line-up

Sundance has revealed its programme of films and panel discussions for the third Sundance London film and music festival (April 25-27), held at the O2.

The festival will include 21 feature films and 18 short films across five sections. A total of 23 films will make their world, international, European or UK premieres and seven are by first-time feature filmmakers.

The films collectively received 12 awards when they premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and filmmakers expected to attend are Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler and Arrested Development star David Cross, who brings his directorial debut Hits.

Persepolis director Marjane Satrapi will bring the international premiere of her latest feature, The Voices, which stars Ryan Reynolds as a disturbed factory worker who hears advice from his pet dog and cat.

Us actress...

Through a new partnership, Sundance Institute and Skywalker Sound want to change the noisy conversation about music and sound design in film.Each year through their longstanding Composers Labs, Sundance invites young, gifted musicians who want to work in film composition to an intensive program facilitated by industry-established advisors (read the list of this year's composers and filmmakers here). So what's different this year? Enter Skywalker Sound. Back in June, Sundance Institute relocated their longstanding, now newly redefined Composers Labs to Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas' secluded site of filmmaking genius in Marin County, CA.  Though the documentary arm of the Composers Lab wrapped up in June, Sundance hosts its lab for narrative features through July 25, under the stewardship of Sundance film music program director Peter Golub. Sundance has held annual Composers Labs for fiction films since 1999 and for documentaries since 2005. But this is the...

Sundance is always on the move. Skywalker and George Lucas himself are refocusing on the indies and choosing sound design as their point of entry.

Sundance Institute and Skywalker Sound recently announced that the Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound will take place at Skywalker Ranch in 2013 and 2014 and also listed the artists that will participate in the 2013 Labs. This is the first time the two organizations will collaborate to support independent filmmakers and film composers and marks a significant expansion of the Institute’s existing Composers Labs to include sound design.

The Institute has hosted its Composers Labs at Sundance Resort for fiction feature films since 1999 and documentaries since 2005, allowing composers and independent filmmakers to collaboratively explore the process of writing music for film. Fellows also participate in workshops and creative exercises under the guidance of leading film composers and film music professionals acting as Creative Advisors.

Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Hosting the Composers Labs at Skywalker Ranch allows an expansion of the program to include sound design, giving further insight into the powerful ways that sound and music can impact independent films. We are deeply grateful to the Skywalker team for working with us to provide our Fellows with the tremendous benefit of accessing this legendary facility”

Josh Lowden, General Manager of Skywalker Sound, said, “We’re very excited to formalize this relationship. Sundance Institute is virtually synonymous with independent film, and Keri and her team have done an amazing job to honor the Institute’s legacy. Twenty-five years ago Skywalker was founded by a filmmaker for filmmakers, and we have never forgotten our roots. We continue to believe in independent filmmaking, and are thrilled to deepen our relationship with the Institute by hosting these Labs at Skywalker.”

The Composers Lab for fiction feature films is a joint initiative of the Institute’s Film Music Program and Feature Film Program, and the Composers Lab for documentaries is hosted by the Film Music Program and Documentary Film Program and Fund.

Peter Golub, Director of the Sundance Institute Film Music Program, said, “Skywalker Sound is a leader in the field of post-production and sound design, and their world-class facilities offer the ideal environment for our Composers Labs. Lab fellows will have access to Skywalker’s sound designers and mixers for ongoing collaboration, as well as the state-of-the-art facility during their stay.”

Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Documentary (June 3-10) are:

Filmmakers

Director: Kirsten Johnson

A Blind Eye (U.S.) — The voice of an American camerawoman explores the nature of cinematography and what she has failed to see while filming in Afghanistan through her encounters with two Afghan teenagers. Najeeb, a one-eyed boy, struggles to hide what really haunts him, while a bold teenage girl must decide how much she will risk to be visible. A U.S. Military surveillance blimp in the sky over Kabul tracks their every move.

Director: Judith Ehrlich

Open (U.S.) — The fight for free speech in the 21st century is being fought in cyberspace, and its most dramatic story may be unfolding in Iceland. Open follows trailblazing Internet revolutionary Birgitta Jónsdóttir and three generations of digital “hacktivists” as their stories converge in the tiny island nation now poised to become the world’s first haven for freedom of information and transparency online and off.

Director: Thomas Allen Harris

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (U.S.) — A 90-minute documentary film with an innovative companion transmedia project that explores the ways black communities have used the medium of photography to construct political, aesthetic and cultural representations of themselves and their world. This will be the first film to vividly bring to life the individual photographers, photographic collectives, and anonymous and celebrated subjects, whose work has transformed the lives of African Americans through the magic and power of the camera lens.

Director: Mark Grieco

Marmato (Canada/Colombia) — A peaceful gold-mining town in rural Colombia confronts destruction by a Canadian multinational mining company.

Composers

Kathryn Bostic

Kathryn Bostic is a prolific composer, pianist and singer-songwriter. She is a recipient of several awards and fellowships including the Sundance Fellowship for Feature Film Scoring, Bmi Conducting Fellowship and the Ascap Musical Theatre Workshop. She has written for both off-Broadway and Broadway productions. Currently her score can be heard in the Mark Taper production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

Omar Fadel

Los Angeles-based composer Omar Fadel has carved out a niche fusing an eclectic palette of musical instruments and styles. He has scored numerous features films, documentaries and television shows, including Walt Disney Studios’ first ever Arabic language feature film, The United.

Miles Jay

Miles Jay is a composer, contrabassist, and multi-instrumentalist with many traditional and cross over artists around the world. Supporting himself as a musician around the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa for much of the last decade, Miles has re-imagined the contrabass, adapting a wide range of melodic ornamentation to his own technique, as well as having invented and hand-built a new type of contrabass utilizing rawhide for a soundboard. Miles has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Emirates Palace Abu Dhabi, Ted, and the United Nations.

Todd Reynolds

Todd Reynolds is a long-time New York violinist for Bang on a Can, Steve Reich, Broadway, and founder of the string quartet known as Ethel. His double CD set, Outerborough, rose to "best in classical" on the Amazon classical charts of 2011. A classical violinist 'gone horribly wrong', his genre-defying and technologically savvy music and performances have been called "a charming, multi-mood extravaganza, playful like Milhaud, but hard-edged like Hendrix."

Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Feature Film (July 10-25) are:

Filmmakers

Writer/director: Miguel Calderón

Zeus (Mexico) — Sporadically employed and still living with his mother, Joel finds his only joy in falconry in the flatlands outside Mexico City, until an encounter with a down-to-earth secretary forces him to face reality.

Writer/director: Meredith Danluck

State Like Sleep (U.S.A.) — Under the surreal cloud cover of northern Europe, a young American widow reluctantly revisits her past when her mother is hospitalized in Brussels. While coping with the bleak reality of parental loss, Katherine explores her deceased husband's secret life of underground sex clubs and finds comfort in a relationship with a stranger as equally broken as she is.

Co-writer/co-director: Ian Hendrie

Co-writer/co-director: Jyson McLean

Mercy Road (U.S.A.) — Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the spiritual odyssey of a small town housewife and mother, as she becomes willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.

Writer/director: K’naan

Maanokoobiyo (Somalia/U.S.A.) — In war-torn Somalia, an artistic orphan named Maano joins the mercenary killing squad of a notorious warlord, only to discover his adoptive father and gang leader is responsible for wiping out his family.

Writer/director: Pamela Romanowsky

The Adderall Diaries (U.S.A.) — Writer Stephen Elliott reaches a low point when his estranged father resurfaces, claiming that Stephen has fabricated much of the dark childhood that that fuels his work. Adrift in the precarious grey area of memory, Stephen has to navigate the unstable terrain of truth and identity, led by two sources of inspiration: a new romance, and a murder trial that reminds him more than a little of his own story. Based on the memoir by Stephen Elliott.

Co-writer/director: Eva Weber

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (UK/Germany/U.S.A.) — Twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa discovers on the day of her father's funeral that everything she believed about her life was a lie. She flees San Francisco and travels to the Arctic Circle to uncover the secrets of her mother, who mysteriously vanished when Clarissa was fourteen. Based on the novel by Vendela Vida.

Composers

Jongnic Bontemps

Jongnic Bontemps has had the pleasure to score numerous films, including award-winning Daughter of Fortune, A Different Tree, Soaring on Invisible Wings and Saudade. Jongnic's scores incorporate ethnic instruments with organic and synthetic textures to create a unique musical world for a film. This skill has been honed through his music education at Yale University, Berklee School of Music and the University of Southern California and his collaborations with some of the top film composers. Jongnic's scores have been heard at film festivals around the world including Cannes, The Pan African Film Festival, American Black Film Festival and Run & Shoot Martha's Vineyard

Larry Goldings

Larry Goldings is a Grammy-nominated pianist, organist, composer, and arranger, whose talents have been sought-after by an impressive range of artists including James Taylor, Norah Jones, John Mayer, Sia Furler, Madeleine Peyroux, Maceo Parker, Michael Brecker, and John Scofield.

Lucas Lechowski

Based in Los Angeles, Polish born Lucas Lechowski is a violinist/guitarist who creates music, experiments with sounds, improvises and performs. His recent film scoring credits include a 2013 Student Academy Award winner “Un mundo para Raúl” (dir. Mauro Mueller). Currently he is composing music for a two-hour NBC News television special commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, entitled "Where Were You?"

Heather McIntosh

Heather McIntosh is a cellist, bassist and composer who got her musical start playing with the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia and continued on to perform with artists such as Gnarls Barkley and Lil Wayne. Recently relocated to Los Angeles, her film credits include Compliance by Craig Zobel and The Rambler by Calvin Lee Reeder.

Vladimir Podgoretsky

Vladimir Podgoretsky started his professional career as a musical theater composer. His 2007 ballet Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) was a huge success and continues to be regularly performed in theaters throughout Moscow. Vladimir moved to the Us to become a film composer and after graduating from the UCLA film scoring program has been working with leading composers on films such as Rise of the Guardians, A Single Shot, The Eagle, Season Of the Witch and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. He has also worked on the acclaimed video game World of Warcraft and the ABC TV series Revenge.

Mac Quayle

A resident of Topanga Canyon, California, Mac Quayle has written music for over 20 films and television shows and accumulated a long list of credits as a music producer, dance remixer and multi-instrumentalist, including a Grammy nomination for producing Donna Summer. His music is heard in films such as the Indian documentary Beyond Grace and the Irish drama A Belfast Story and some of his collaborations as an additional composer appear in Drive, Spring Breakers and Only God Forgives.

The Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound are made possible by Bmi, Time Warner Foundation, and the Film Music Foundation.

Sundance Institute

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Skywalker Sound

Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd, is one of the largest, most versatile full-service audio post-production companies in the industry. Skywalker Sound offers comprehensive post-production services and utilizes the talents of Academy Award®-winning sound professionals working on sound design, editorial, Foley and re-recording mixes as a team. This provides filmmakers the most efficient model available for the audio post-production process. More information is available at www.skysound.com.

Lucasfilm Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Skywalker Sound, the Skywalker Sound logo, Star Wars and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2013 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Sundance Institute has announced that its Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound will take place at the Skywalker Ranch in 2013 and 2014. Also announced are the names of the artists who will participate in the 2013 labs. Full list below. Since 1999 (for feature films) and 2005 (for documentaries), the labs have allowed composers and indie filmmakers to collaboratively explore the process of writing music for film. This includes workshops and creative exercises under the guidance of leading film composers as mentors. Peter Golub, director of the Sundance Institute Music Program said that Skywalker Sound will provide "world-class facilities offering an ideal environment for the Composer Labs."Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Documentary (June 3-10) are: Filmmakers Director: Kirsten Johnson A Blind Eye (U.S.) — The voice of an American camerawoman explores the nature of cinematography and what she has failed to...

The Sundance Institute pairs together four documentary projects and composers to participate in the tenth annual Composers + Documentary Lab, which takes place at their Utah resort October 26 - November 1. The Lab, which focuses on the role of music and sound design in docs, is part of the Institute’s Documentary Film Program and Fund (Dfp) and Film Music Program. Among this year's advisors are Rob Epstein ("Howl," "Celluloid Closet"), Vivien Hillgrove ("In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee") and Dfp Director Cara Mertes, as well as music editor Adam Smalley and composers Todd Boekelheide ("Blessed is the Match"), Miriam Cutler and Film Music Program Director Peter Golub ("Wordplay," "These Amazing Shadows"). Director of the Film Music Program Peter Golub says: “Composers for documentaries face unique challenges yet there are few opportunities for them to work with documentarians and focus specifically on...

The Sundance Institute has named six fellows to participate in their 2012 Feature Film Composers Lab at the Sundance Resort in Utah. The Lab, running July 25 - August 8, is produced by Si's Film Music Program in conjunction with their Feature Film Program. Fellows attend workshops and participate in creative exercises with leading composers and film music pros while gaining first-hand experience collaborating with filmmakers from the Feature Film Program. Si's Keri Putnam says the lab "is an example of how our programs collaborate, for the benefit of artists." Music Program director Peter Golub adds that "The diversity of artists selected promises to build an exciting community in the retreat-like setting of our Lab – a community that will shine through in the work produced here." The six chosen composers are listed below: Mike Raznick is a Los Angeles based composer with hundreds of credits spanning video games, film, television as well...

January 24, 2012 – Sundance Film Festival – Submarine Entertainment announced today that it has sold all foreign rights to Katie Aselton’s film Black Rock to Elle Driver. The deal was negotiated by David Koh, Josh Braun & Dan Braun of Submarine Entertainment on behalf of the Producers and Director and Adeline Fontan Tessaur of Elle Driver. Black Rock was Directed by Katie Aselton. Executive Produced by Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass. Produced by Adele Romanski. Co-Produced by Mary Budd. Cinematography by Hillary Spera. Edited by Jacob Vaughan. Composed by Peter Golub. Ld Entertainment will release theatrically later this year domestically. The film screens again Wednesday, January 25th at Midnight at the Egyptian Theater at the Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight Section. Described as a mix between Deliverance and Thelma and Louise, the film focuses on three female friends who set aside their personal issues and organize a girls getaway weekend on a...

Ice-T To Headline .A Celebration Of Music In Film.

At 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Free Tickets to be Distributed via Twitter @sundancefestnow and @finallevel

Event Hosted By Sundance Institute Film Music Program

Sundance Institute today announced that Ice-t and hip hop icons Chuck D (Public Enemy) and Grandmaster Caz will perform at .A Celebration of Music in Film. on January 21 at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. .A Celebration of Music in Film,. one of the most anticipated music events at the annual Festival, this year celebrates Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap, by director Ice-t, co-director Andy Baybutt and producer Paul Toogood.

The event takes place Saturday, January 21, 8:30 p.m. at the Sundance Music Café. A limited number of free tickets to the event will be available to Festival credential holders (21 and up) via Twitter @sundancefestnow and Ice-t.s feed @finallevel. Additionally, the event will be live streamed at www.

It's been a busy year for The Wheeler Boys writer/director Philip G. Flores. Since winning Film Independent's Netflix Find Your Voice competition last year, Flores has been on quite a ride going from script to screen in less than 12 months.  Flores, an alumni of Film Independent's Screenwriters Lab, sat down with Film Independent Director of Talent Development Josh Welsh to talk about The Wheeler Boys and its upcoming world premiere later this month at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

 

By Josh Welsh 

 

 

 

You've been extremely busy since we last interviewed you, just before the Screenwriters Lab began.  It's a broad question, but how have these last months been for you?

 

Making this film has been the most incredible experience of my life. It's been amazing to see a story you've been dreaming up in your head forever comes to life, first on set, and now during the post-production process.

NEW YORK -- Donovan, Terence Blanchard, Ron Sexsmith, Jill Sobule and Simon Townshend are some of the artists bringing music to next month's Sundance Film Festival, where organizers will hold a series of concerts and related panels.

Film directors Justin Theroux (Dedication), Tom DiCillo (Delirious), Andrew Wagner (Starting Out in the Evening) and Mike Chaill (King of California) will participate in a round-table discussion Jan. 24 with such composers as Blanchard, Peter Golub, Adam Hollander, Dave Robbins and Anton Sanko on the creative process of film scoring.

Later that day, Victor Krauss, Keb Mo, Michael Penn and Blanchard will perform in a special music showcase.

The special music events, sponsored by Sundance Institute's Film Music Program and music publisher BMI, also will include the "Sundance Celebrates Music and Film" and Film2Music, exploring the cinematic and music mediums.

In what has become a Sundance tradition, the fest's Music Cafe will host afternoon performances programmed by ASCAP, featuring such artists as Sobule with Julia Sweeney, A Fine Frenzy, Sexsmith, Donovan and Townshend throughout the festival.

NEW YORK -- Donovan, Terence Blanchard, Ron Sexsmith, Jill Sobule and Simon Townshend are some of the artists bringing music to next month's Sundance Film Festival, where organizers will hold a series of concerts and related panels.

Film directors Justin Theroux (Dedication), Tom DiCillo (Delirious), Andrew Wagner (Starting Out in the Evening) and Mike Chaill (King of California) will participate in a round-table discussion Jan. 24 with such composers as Blanchard, Peter Golub, Adam Hollander, Dave Robbins and Anton Sanko on the creative process of film scoring.

Later that day, Victor Krauss, Keb Mo, Michael Penn and Blanchard will perform in a special music showcase.

The special music events, sponsored by Sundance Institute's Film Music Program and music publisher BMI, also will include the "Sundance Celebrates Music and Film" and Film2Music, exploring the cinematic and music mediums.

In what has become a Sundance tradition, the fest's Music Cafe will host afternoon performances by such artists as Sobule with Julia Sweeney, A Fine Frenzy, Sexsmith, Donovan and Townshend throughout the festival.

PARK CITY - Eight-letter word for the award this Sundance documentary entrant will likely win.

AUDIENCE.

You don't have to finish the N.Y. Times Saturday crossword puzzle in under three minutes like some of us (just kidding) to enjoy this witty ditty about the importance of crossword puzzles. A welcome respite from the high-issue entrants in the Documentary Competition here - Gaza Strip, Death Penalty - that generally bark out at you as "important issue," "Wordplay is a delightful diversion.

In this frothy amusement, filmmaker Patrick Creadon focuses on "The New York Times" crossword puzzle editor William Shortz and the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, he hosts in Stamford, Conn, Shortz designed his own major at Indiana University, dubbing it "enigmatology" because even as a teen he knew that crossword puzzles were his life.

While puzzles are not most peoples' lives, they are truly an essential part. "Wordplay" goes up/down and across on the varied reasons why more than 50 million Americans do a crossword puzzle every week. Filmmaker Patrick Creadon not only fills in the empty spaces but arranges the blocks in such a way that unveils not only the puzzles' addictive pleasures but its origins and aesthetics

Centering on the Competition, Creadon rolls out the long line of different-folks who sharpen their pencils, click their pens or partake in whatever personal ritual applies to their crossword "approach." It's a pleasurable and, sometimes, maddening part of their lives. There is no such thing as a "crossword puzzle"-type, as some might expect. True, there are compulsive nerds who grind away at crossword puzzles like taking an SAT, but the range of aficionados is a wonderfully puzzling cross of lines - class, age, personality. However, those in the math professions and music have their brains wired in such a way as to generally lead the pack.

Smartly mixing puzzle construction arcana with idiosyncratic personal asides, Creadon unspools insider puzzle facts with idiosyncratic asides. He presents a wide range of exuberant puzzle-heads who offer commentary: filmmaker Ken Burns, piano man Joe Delfin, ex-President Bill Clinton, Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina, The Indigo Girls, and "The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, among many others. Each expounds on the particular appeals, pleasures and lessons they enjoy from their daily crossword rituals. Clinton exudes that he tries to start at core places where he knows the answers and builds from there, likening it to diplomacy and political problem solving.

While it's smart, "Wordplay" is not too serious about itself. Under filmmaker Patrick Creadon's sharp approach, the technical contributions are graceful, particularly composer Peter Golub's zesty, sounds which are perfect counter-point to any big illuminations on why these doggone things are so fun and addictive.

WORDPLAY

O'Malley Creadon Prods.

Director/Director of photography

Producer:Christine O'Malley

Music: Peter Golub

Editor: Doug Blush

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 90 minutes...

BMI, the U.S. performing rights organization representing more than 300,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, will host its third annual Songwriters Snowball and Composer/Director round-table at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Titled "Music & Film: The Creative Process," the round-table will be held Jan. 26 and be moderated by BMI vp film/TV relations Doreen Ringer Ross. The panel will feature various composers and directors, including Kevin Bacon, director of Loverboy and Losing Chase, and Michael Bacon, composer on the same two films; George S. Clinton, composer for A Dirty Shame and Austin Powers; Rodrigo Garcia, director of Nine Lives and Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her; and Peter Golub, composer for The Laramie Project and director of Sundance Composers Lab.