EXCLUSIVE: As the Sundance Film Festival is set to kick off its last hurrah in Park City, the legacy of its Institute is set to be explored in a new docuseries.
Hulu has greenlit a three-part series, from Searchlight Television, telling the story of the Sundance Institute, which has seen attendances from the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Chloé Zhao, Ryan Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ava DuVernay, Alfonso Cuarón and Darren Aronofsky.
The untitled project has its own veritable feast of filmmakers involved with Coogler, A Star Is Born producer Lynette Howell Taylor, who is President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Icarus producer Mark Monroe among the executive producers.
Braden King, whose own road movie Here was developed at the 2007 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs before premiering at the 2011 festival, will direct.
The series will “chronicle the legacy of the Sundance Institute, tracing the story of the creative incubator that shaped many of the most influential filmmakers of our time”.
The three-part will draw on decades of never-before-seen archival footage and look at the cultural impact of the Institute, which was founded by Robert Redford in 1981. It will trace the ways that the likes of Coogler, Anderson, Zhao and Tarantino found their creative freedom thanks to the organization.
It is exec produced by Howell Taylor for 51 Entertainment, King for Truckstop Media, Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Kelli Buchanan for Proximity Media, Carly Hugo and Matthew Parker for Loveless and Monroe, who also writes. Sundance’s Michelle Satter, Amy Redford and John Cooper serve as consulting producers.
Searchlight Television is the television arm of Searchlight Pictures, which is behind series such as The Dropout and Elizabeth Meriwether’s upcoming thriller series Furious for Hulu.
King is represented by Granderson Des Rochers and Washington Square Films.
