Joana Vicente has been named CEO of the Sundance Institute. She is slated to assume that role on November 1.
Vicente spent the past three years as executive director and co-head of the Toronto International Film Festival. Prior to that, she served for nearly a decade as the executive director of the not-for-profit Independent Filmmaker Project (now the Gotham Film & Media Institute).
The hiring of Vicente caps a comprehensive search by the Sundance Institute to find a successor to Keri Putnam who stepped down as CEO earlier this year after a decade of leading the Institute.
Vicente has firsthand knowledge of the deep commitment Sundance has to independent creators through programs that support artists seeking production, financing, and distribution. As the co-founder and president of Open City Films since 1994, she produced four Sundance Institute–supported lab projects and has had 13 movies debut at the Festival, including the triple-winner Three Seasons and Grand Jury Prize–winner Welcome to the Dollhouse.