Robert Redford Launches Mobile Film Competition

NEW YORK, November 8: Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute is
teaming with the GSM Association (GSMA), whose members serve more than 2
billion mobile phone customers across the globe, to create the Sundance Film
Festival: Global Short Film Project.

The pilot project, unveiled at a press conference at the
Museum of Television & Radio in New York, has commissioned six independent
filmmakers to create five short films, of three to five minutes each, crafted
exclusively for mobile distribution. All of the filmmakers participating in the
project have screened films at the annual Sundance Film Festival. They are
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine), Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow), Maria Maggenti (Puccini For Beginners), Cory McAbee (The American Astronaut) and Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way). The Sundance Institute will exclusively premiere
the short films on the opening day of the 3GSM World Congress, which runs from
February 12 to 15 in Barcelona. The films will be available for cell phone
download during the congress for attendees, and for broader distribution
through mobile carriers immediately following the event.

"Cell phones are fast becoming the 'fourth screen'
medium, after television, cinema and computers," said Redford, Sundance
Institute’s president and founder. "We feel this experiment embodies fully
our quarter-century dedication to exploring new platforms to support wider
distribution of independent voices in filmmaking. We are excited about bringing
this opportunity to independent filmmakers and most excited to see what they
will do with it.”