Hornet has signed director/animator Julia Pott for global representation. She has turned out work for such clients as Bat for Lashes, Etsy, The Decemberists, J. Crew, Malibu Rum, Skins and Toyota. Her latest short film, Belly, set in fantastical underwater environs, is slated for a fall release. Raised in London, Pott completed her schooling at the Royal College of Art, earning a Masters in Animation. Hornet's European representation partner, Passion Pictures, will handle Pott internationally….DarrenLamb has joined Crossroads Films UK as head of digital content….B-Reel Films has a new office in London headed by the recently hired Philippa Allen as exec producer. B-Reel Films now has four offices–including L.A., NYC and Stockholm–which can work in close collaboration with digital production company B-Reel. Allen will introduce B-Reel Films as a TV commercial production company in the U.K. She comes over from Rogue Films, London….Eran Dinur has been upped to visual effects supervisor at Brainstorm Digital. He will bring his talents as a VFX supervisor to HBO's lauded series Boardwalk Empire as well as to History's new miniseries, The Men Who Built America. Dinur had been Brainstorm's digital compositing supervisor for the past year. He earlier served as senior compositor at Brainstorm and at such shops as Industrial Light+Magic Singapore and Framestore New York. He has created visual effects for high-profile movies including Iron Man, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Salt….
For Documentaries At Sundance, Oscar Nominations (and Wins) Often Follow
The Sundance Film Festival welcomed back three Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers to help kick off the annual independent film showcase in Park City, Utah.
On Thursday night at The Ray Theater, "20 Days in Mariupol" filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who won the Oscar last year, debuted his latest dispatch from Ukraine, "2000 Meters to Andriivka," a harrowing journey to the front lines of a 2023 counteroffensive. A few hours later, at the Eccles, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, who won an Oscar for "Summer of Soul" in 2022, unveiled his Sly Stone portrait, "SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genuis)." Earlier, "One Day in September" filmmaker Kevin MacDonald also showcased his film "One to One: John & Yoko," which debuted last year at the Venice Film Festival and will get an IMAX release on April 11 before hitting Max later this year.
Some critics reflected that "2000 Meters to Andriivka," a joint production between The Associated Press and PBS Frontline, was even more powerful than "20 Days in Mariupol." "SLY LIVES!" (on Hulu Feb. 13) was called "sublime" and "illuminating" in its examination of an underappreciated, shapeshifting genius.
"I've been coming here since 2000 and I thought the coolest thing you could do would be to DJ an after party," Thompson said before the screening. "I never dreamt this for my future, so this is really humbling."
It was a full-circle end to a day that began with a slate of documentary Oscar nominations all connected to the Sundance Institute in some way. Some were supported by the Institute, some debuted at the festival as recently as last year.
"Black Box Diaries," in which a Japanese filmmaker investigates her own sexual assault, had its premiere in Park City last year and was supported by the... Read More