Last year, Movieline kicked off a five-part series that took you inside the Sundance Labs, a famous incubator for writers, directors and new projects that has launched talents like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Is there an up-and-comer on that level in the list of new projects released today? It may be too soon to tell, but there are a couple of recognizable names there already.
Right away, I spied Sundance darling Ondi Timoner (DiG!, We Live in Public) who'll be workshopping her upcoming Robert Mapplethorpe biopic The Perfect Moment (set to star Eliza Dushku's brother Nate) at the labs. There's also comic book artist Dash Shaw (Love Eats Brains), who'll be transitioning to film with the John Cameron Mitchell-produced The Ruined Cast, a hand-drawn sci-fi project about "a disconnected family thrown into chaos when the scientist father loses the test subject of his experiment with appearance-altering technology -- who is unwittingly hiding out with his son and daughter."
The Directors Lab will run from June 1-19 and feature the following projects:
40 Days of Silence: Saodat Ismailova (writer/director), Uzbekistan
Bluebird: Lance Edmands (writer/director), USA
Drunktown's Finest: Sydney Freeland (writer/director), USA
Martha Marcy May Marlene: Sean Durkin (writer/director), USA
My Favorite Nightmare: Myna Joseph (writer/director), USA
The Perfect Moment: Ondi Timoner (director) and Bruce Goodrich (writer), USA
The Ruined Cast: Dash Shaw (writer/director), USA
Shelter: Kasem Kharsa (writer/director), Egypt/USA
Then, the Screenwriters Lab will run from June 20-25 with these scripts in development:
Aqui Y Alli (Here and There): Antonio Mendez Esparza (writer/director), Spain/USA
Nobody Walks: Ry Russo-Young (co-writer/director) and Lena Dunham (co-writer), USA
Run and Jump: Steph Green (co-writer/director) and Alibhe Keogan (co-writer), Ireland/ USA
Wolf: Bogdan Mustata (writer/director), Romania
Zero Motivation: Talya Lavie (writer/director), Israel