Concussion Director Stacie Passon on going from the Labs to Sundance
“IFP Narrative Lab was an immersive year long intensive that helped me focus my energy to what need to be accomplished with our film. It gave my team invaluable access to industry and thought leaders. It was inventive, cautionary, insightful and inspiring. If you’re lucky enough to be a part of this lab, as we were, it will change your entire perspective of the filmmaking process, the industry and where we all go from here.”
Since the program’s inception in 2005, the Labs have nurtured over 150 filmmakers’ inaugural films. 82% of all alumni projects are complete and have premiered at major U.S. and International film festivals. Of these completed films, 80% have had distribution outside of festivals, including theatrical release, television broadcast and DVD, VOD or digital platforms release.
All completed Labs films have played in festivals around the world, and fully half have premiered in the top U.S. and international festivals including at Berlin Hide Your Smiling Faces; Una Noche; Yelling to the Sky; Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell), IDFA (Alias Ruby Blade, The Light in Her Eyes; Smokin’ Fish; An Encounter With Simone Weil), Slamdance (Welcome to Pine Hill ; Stranger Things), Sundance (Blue Caprice; Concussion; An Oversimplification of Her Beauty; Pariah; Kinyarwanda; Restless City; The Imperialists Are Still Alive!; Tibet In Song), SXSW (Big Joy; These Birds Walk; Our Nixon; Pavilion, Welcome to the Machine, Wildness), Tribeca (Nancy, Please; Future Weather; High Tech, Low Life; Give Up Tomorrow; Our School; Stuck Between Stations), Toronto (Detroit Unleaded; The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best; The Patron Saints),and Venice (Habibi; Zero Bridge).
Beyond the festival circuit, many Lab alumni secure theatrical distribution, via traditional methods and new models. These include Pariah (Focus Features); Kinyarwanda and Restless City (AFFRM); An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Variance); These Birds Walk, Welcome to Pine Hill and The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best (Oscilloscope Laboratories); Concussion (Radius-TWC); The Imperialists Are Still Alive and Una Noche (IFC/Sundance Selects); Nancy, Please and Pavilion (Factory 25); Yelling To The Sky (MPI); Junkie Nurse (Prescreen.com); Sahkanaga (Southern Circuit Tour); Stuck Between Stations (Wreckin Hill/NECA Films); and Zero Bridge (Film Desk).
Several Lab films were broadcast on television in the U.S. and abroad, including on Al Jazeera English (Burning in the Sun), Arte (Land of Opportunity), BBC (Give Up Tomorrow), CNN (Our Nixon); Documentary Channel (Our House); The Visitors), EPIX (Fambul Tok);HBO (War Don Don), PBS (High Tech, Low Life; Herman’s House; The Light in Her Eyes; Sun Kissed; Smokin’ Fish; Mine; Between the Folds), Showtime (Good Intentions), and Sundance Channel (Sorry, Thanks).
One third of Lab directors are on to directing their 2nd project and beyond, notably including David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, starring Rooney Mara & Casey Affleck which premiered at Sundance and at Cannes Critics Week 2013, Andrew Dosunmu’s Mother of George (Sundance 2013), as well as Brian Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky’s Francine (Berlin 2012, starring Melissa Leo), Amy Siemetz’s Sun Don’t Shine (SXSW 2012), and Alex Karpovsky’s 4th feature, Red Flag (LAFF 2012) – all nominated for a 2012 Gotham Independent Film Award.
2012 Narrative Lab Alumni
Bastards of Young
Writer, Director: Josiah Signor
Producers: Robert Profusek, Ryan Silbert
Blue Caprice
Writer, Director: Alexandre Moors
Producers: Kim Jackson Stephen Tedeschi, Isen Robbins
Cantuckee
Writer, Director: Kimberly Levin
Producer: Kurt Pitzer
Editor: Francesc Sitges-Sarda
Concussion
Writer, Director: Stacie Passon
Producer: Rose Troche
Editor: Anthony Cupo
El Empantanado
Writer, Director, Editor: Felipe Echavarria
Producer: Maggie Drayton
DP: David Marcus
Go Down Death
Writer, Director: Aaron Schimberg
Producer, Editor: Vanessa McDonnell
Hide Your Smiling Faces
Writer, Director, Producer: Daniel Patrick Carbone
Producers: Matthew Petock, Zachary Shedd, Jordan Bailey Hoover
I Believe In Unicorns
Director: Leah Meyerhoff
Karaoke Girl
Writer, Director: Visra Vichit-Vadakan
Co-Producer: Samina Akbar
Editor: Perry Blackshear
The Forgotten Kingdom
Writer, Director, Editor: Andrew Mudge
Producer: TR Boyce
Executive Producer: Terry Leonard
Click Here for a Full List of Previous Narrative Alumni
2012 Documentary Lab Alumni
Alias Ruby Blade
Director: Alex Meiller
Producer: Tanya Ager Meillier
Big Joy Project: The Adventures of James Broughton
Directors, Producers: Stephen Silha, Eric Slade
Editor: Dawn Logsdon
For Thousands of Miles
Writer, Director: Mike Ambs
Production Manager: Erica Hampton
Brave New Wild
Writer, Director: Oakley Anderson-Moore
Producer: Alexander Reinhard
Lucky
Director, Producer: Laura Checkoway
Producer: Neyda Martinez
Our Nixon
Director, Producer: Penny Lane
Producer: Brian Frye
Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border
Director, Producer: Rodrigo Reyes
DP: Justin Chin
Editor: Manuel Tsingaris
Survival Prayer
Director, Producer: Benjamin Greene
Editor: P. Corwin Lamm
Composer: Michael Beharie
These Birds Walk
Directors, Producers: Bassam Tariq, Omar Mullick
Producer: Valentina Canavesio
Where God Likes to Be
Writer, Director: Nicolas Hudak
Writer, Producer: Anna Hudak
Click Here for a Full List of Previous Documentary Alumni
Only those who attended the Labs are listed in the credits section.
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