FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Amy McGee

November 16, 2009 310.360.1981/amy_mcgee@sundance.org

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES 2010 SUNDANCE/NHK INTERNATIONAL

FILMMAKERS AWARD FINALISTS
Twelve Projects from Emerging Filmmakers from Four Regions: Europe, Latin
America, United States and Japan selected as finalists
Four to receive $10,000 cash award and acquisitions agreement with NHK

Los Angeles, CA - Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) today announced the
twelve finalists for the 2010 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award. In its fourteenth year, this
partnership presents an annual cash award to support new artists in international cinema and is presented to
emerging film directors from four global regions in support of their next projects. One recipient each from Europe,
Latin America, the United States, and Japan will be selected by members of an international jury. Winners will be
announced on January 28, 2010 at the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award reception at the Sundance
Film Festival. The Sundance Film Festival runs January 21-31, 2010, in and around Park City, Utah.

The winning director from each region will receive a $10,000 award and a purchase guarantee from NHK, Japan’s
largest broadcaster and one of the top five broadcasters in the world, for Japanese television broadcast rights upon
completion of their project. Additionally, each award recipient will receive ongoing support from Sundance Institute
who will work closely with the filmmakers throughout the year, providing ongoing mentorship and assistance in
seeking opportunities to finance and distribute their projects.

"We're thrilled by the quality and diversity of this year's finalists. In an exceptionally strong year, their projects stood
out because of their originality, humor and the worlds they reflect," said Alesia Weston, Associate Director of the
Sundance Feature Film Program, International.

"The Sundance/NHK Award represents our commitment to providing financial support to international filmmakers
with singular, authentic voices, and original stories to tell. We have an excellent group of finalists, and we look
forward to inviting the four winners to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and working with them throughout the
year," added Michelle Satter, Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.

Past recipients of the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers award include: Lucrecia Martel, LA CIENAGA (Argentina); Alex
Rivera, THE SLEEP DEALER (USA); Fernando Eimbcke, LAKE TAHOE (Mexico); Miranda July, ME AND YOU
AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (USA); Andrucha Waddington, THE HOUSE OF SAND (Brazil); Juan Pablo Rebella
and Pablo Stoll, WHISKY (Uruguay); Walter Salles, CENTRAL STATION (Brazil); György Pálfi, TAXIDERMIA
(Hungary); Kanji Nakajima, CLONE RETURNS HOME (Japan); and Alejandro Fernandez Almendras, HUACHO
(Chile). The 2009 recipients were: Lucile Hadzihalilovic EVOLUTION (France), Diego Lerman, CIENCIAS
MORALES (Argentina), David Riker, THE GIRL (USA), and Qurata Kenji SPEED GIRL (Japan).

The twelve finalists for the 2010 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards are:

EUROPE:

Pablo Berger / SNOWHITE (Spain) In 1920s Spain, an orphaned girl is kidnapped by a wicked stepmother but
escapes to join a troupe of dwarf matadors who help her claim her legacy as Spain's top bullfighter.

Pablo Berger was born in Bilbao and completed his MFA in Film at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts.
His debut feature and box office hit TORREMOLINOS 73 premiered at the Málaga Film Festival, winning Best Film,
Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress, and was nominated for four Goya Awards including Best Screenplay

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and Best New Director. TORREMOLINOS 73 was released in more than 50 countries and won numerous
international awards, including the New Voices/New Visions Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival. In 2007 a
Chinese remake of TORREMOLINOS 73 was also a smash hit in that country. SNOWHITE participated in the 2009
Berlinale Co-production Market and has received support from the CNC (Centre National du Cinema) and
Eurimages.

Maria Saakyan / I'M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME AKA ALAVERDY (Armenia) A neglected teenager
struggles with her blossoming sexuality and suicidal thoughts while searching for the father she has never known.

Maria Saakyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1980 and moved to Russia in 1992 where she studied film
directing and animation at VGIK, Vladimir Kobrin’s workshop. She made the experimental and animated short films
IGRA, ZOO, and LULLABY. Her 2003 degree project PROSHANIE (THE FAREWELL) was selected for the
Oberhausen, Rotterdam and Telluride Film Festivals. Her first feature MAYAK (THE LIGHTHOUSE) (2006) was
selected for competition in Rotterdam, London, Sao Paolo and many others, winning the Grand-Prix at Split Film
Festival and Best Debut at Golden Apricot Film Festival. I’M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME has been supported
by B2B, Belgrade, DAB at the Golden Apricot Film Festival and was recently selected for the Torino Film Lab
Development Program.

Andrei Zviagintsev / ELENA (Russia) An elderly woman who has lived with her rich husband in a large,
comfortable home tries to rescue her alcoholic son from poverty and give his family the opportunity for a better life
that she alone could not provide.

Andrei Zviagintsev graduated from The Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) where he was trained as an
actor, then worked on independent theatre projects and acted in TV series and films. In 2000 Andrei made his first
short TV fiction films as a director. His first motion picture THE RETURN was nominated for the Golden Globe after
winning the Golden Lion and the Lion of the Future for the best director’s debut at the Venice Film Festival. His
second feature film BANISHMENT premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival where Konstantin Lavronenko won
the award for Best Leading Actor Award, the first ever for a Russian actor.

LATIN AMERICA:

Amat Escalante / HELI (Mexico) In a small Mexican town, where most citizens work for an automobile assembly
plant or the local drug cartel, Heli is confronted with police corruption, drug trafficking, sexual exploitation, love, guilt
and revenge in the search for his father who has mysteriously disappeared.

Born in 1979, Amat Escalante is a self-taught filmmaker from Guanajuato, Mexico. At age 15, he began to devote
himself completely to cinema. His first feature SANGRE premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film
Festival 2005, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize. His second feature film LOS BASTARDOS also premiered in
the Official Selection Un Certain Regard Cannes in 2008 and won numerous awards including Best Film at the
Morelia, Sitges and Mar del Plata film festivals. It has been distributed worldwide, including Mexico, USA, France
and Canada.

Rodrigo Plá / LA DEMORA (THE DELAY) (Uruguay/Mexico) Maria, unable to cope with taking care of her
elderly father who is losing his memory and becoming a burden to her family, secretly abandons him in a public
square.

A cum laude graduate of Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), Rodrigo Plá has written and
directed five short films, including EL OJO EN LA NUCA, which won the Honorary Foreign Student Oscar Award.
His first feature LA ZONA won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a First Feature Film at the Venice Film Festival and
the FIPRESCI Prize at the Toronto Film Festival. His second feature DESERT WITHIN made its international debut
at the closing ceremony of Critics Week during the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, received seven Mayahuel awards at
the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2008 and was awarded with eight Ariels by the Mexican Academy of
Film Arts and Sciences.

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Manuel Nieto Zas / EL LUGAR DEL HIJO (THE MILITANT) (Uruguay) A college student involved in militant
leftist activism is faced with some difficult decisions when his father suddenly dies, leaving him in charge of their
troubled ranch and forcing him to take on the role of a middle class bourgeois.

Born in Montevideo, Manuel Nieto Zas graduated in media studies from the Catholic University of Uruguay. He
worked in TV before directing the short film NICO & PARKER. Since then, he has worked as assistant director on
25 WATTS and WHISKY by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll, LOS MUERTOS and LIVERPOOL by Lisandro
Alonso and HAMACA PARAGUAYA by Paz Encina. His first feature film LA PERRERA (THE DOGPOUND)
premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival 2006, where it won the VPRO Tiger Award. In 2008 Nieto
was selected for Cannes’ Cinefondation Residence in Paris to work on his second film project EL LUGAR DEL
HIJO.

UNITED STATES:

Benh Zeitlin / BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (USA) In the Louisiana Delta, a ferocious ten-year-old girl
refuses to evacuate her home without her dying father as the Southern Apocalypse descends upon them.

Raised by two folklorists in Queens, NY, Benh Zeitlin is a director, animator, and composer for the Court 13
coterie. Director of award-winning shorts EGG, ORIGINS OF ELECTRICITY, I GET WET and GLORY AT SEA,
Filmmaker Magazine recently named him one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Zeitlin participated in
the 2009 June Screenwriters and Directors Lab and is the recipient of a Sundance grant from the Annenberg
Foundation. He currently resides in New Orleans where he is developing two feature films and transforming
GLORY AT SEA's ship, the U.S.S Jimmy Lee, into a rolling, pop-corn making, movie projector cum Mardi-Gras float
in preparation for Carnival 2010.

So Yong Kim / FOR ELLEN (USA) When an aspiring young rock musician agrees to sign divorce papers with his
estranged wife, he discovers he is not ready to forfeit all custody of his six-year-old daughter.

FOR ELLEN is So Yong Kim’s third feature film. Her critically acclaimed second feature TREELESS MOUNTAIN,
developed with the support of the Sundance Feature Film Program Labs, was released by Oscilloscope
Laboratories and received numerous awards worldwide. Kim’s first feature, IN BETWEEN DAYS, was acclaimed by
critics and won the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival along with the International Critics’ Prize
at Berlin. Kino International and the Sundance Channel released the film. Kim has produced two films by Bradley
Rust Gray: SALT and THE EXPLODING GIRL.

Andrew MacLean / ON THE ICE (USA) On the snow-covered arctic tundra, at the top of the world in Barrow,
Alaska, two Iñuit teenagers try to get away with murder.

Andrew Okpeaha MacLean is an Iñupiaq filmmaker born and raised in Alaska. As a short film, SIKUMI (ON THE
ICE) premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking and went on
to many other awards at festivals around the world. He is a recipient of a United States Artists Rasmuson
Fellowship, the John H. Johnson Film Award, and the 2007-2008 Riese Award, among other honors. Maclean
participated in the 2009 June Screenwriters and Directors Lab and is the recipient of a Sundance grant from the
Annenberg Foundation. MacLean holds his MFA in film directing from NYU.

JAPAN:

Tamako Hioki / NO WOMAN NO CRY (Japan) A 30-year-old woman employed at a factory in the outskirts of
town leads a quiet mundane life, but she gradually begins to feel a sense of community among her co-workers
when she starts noticing their small kindnesses.

Tamako Hioki started making films while a member of the Film Club at Waseda University. Her first film, the 8mm
TAMAKO NO HANASHI won the grand prize at the Tokyo Student Film Festival and the Special Audience Prize at
the 20th PIA Film Festival. She was a member of the inaugural class of a university-business partnership with
Waseda University and PIA Corporation. She has worked as an assistant director and has made the short and
medium length films TANPEN SHOSETSU, NATSUFUKU, and AME-NO HI-WA SHOGANI.

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Ryo Nakajima / SLEEPING BEAUTY (Japan) A patient in a vegetative state receives cutting-edge deep brain
stimulation treatment, enabling the attending nurse to see the patient's memories and discover her secret.

Ryo Nakajima made his first feature THIS WORLD OF OURS, which led him to join Stardust Pictures in 2007 as a
director. This film won the Special Jury Prize, Technical Achievement Award, and the Best Entertainment Award at
the Pia Film Festival. It played in 11 international film festivals in 2007 including Vancouver and Rotterdam and
won the Best New Director Award in the New York Asian Film Festival. His commercial feature debut, RISE UP,
starring Kento Hayashi and Rio Yamashita will open in theaters in November 2009.

Daisuke Yamaoka / THE WONDERFUL LIVES AT ASAHIGAOKA (Japan) A young woman’s suicide attempt
leaves her in a coma but stirs up the lives of the people around her in the sleepy riverside town of Asahigaoka.

Daisuke Yamaoka worked for production companies before completing LOST GIRL in 2007. LOST GIRL was
released in 2009 and exhibited in Shibuya’s Eurospace Theater and screened at the Dresden International Film
Festival in Germany. MIKA AND SEIJUN screened at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival,
Austin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and won the Toru Murakami Award at the Yamagata International
Movie Festival. His film DEATH: THE ONLY CURE FOR IDIOTS from Kanagawa University was a runner-up in the
Kanagawa Film Concours Grand Prize.

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is Japan’s largest broadcaster. Since 1925, it has continued to offer fair,
impartial reporting and high quality programs, earning the viewers’ trust as the nation’s sole public broadcaster.
Through its five 24-hour TV channels (two terrestrial/three satellite) and three radio channels, NHK provides
programs of all genres from news and education to sports and entertainment, and serves as the hub of Japanese
visual culture. NHK’s arts and entertainment satellite channel, which was introduced in 1989, broadcasts more than
600 high quality international films each year. In order to contribute to the development of film culture and the
promotion of cultural exchange, NHK is devoted to supporting burgeoning filmmakers who have the potential to
guide the industry’s future development. Along with the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award, NHK also
produces the Asian Film Festival, which offers opportunities to emerging film directors in Asia.

Since 1981, the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program (FFP) has supported more than 450 independent
filmmakers whose distinctive, singular work has engaged audiences worldwide. Program staff fully embrace the
unique vision of each filmmaker, encouraging a rigorous creative process with a focus on original and deeply
personal storytelling. Each year, up to 25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and around the world participate in a
year-round continuum of support which can include the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Film Composers Lab,
Creative Producing Summit, Creative Producing Lab, ongoing creative and strategic advice, significant production
and postproduction resources, a rough-cut screening initiative, a Screenplay Reading Series, and direct financial
support through project-specific grants and artist fellowships. In many cases, the Institute has helped the Program’s
fellows attach producers and talent, secure financing, and assemble other significant resources to move their
projects toward production and presentation.

Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development
of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally
recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers,
playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring
Awakening, Boys Don't Cry, Sin Nombre, Born into Brothels and Trouble the Water. www.sundance.org.

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