This year's Annenberg Film Fellows are:
• Kit Hui (writer/director) / A BREATH AWAY
• Cruz Angeles (co-writer/director) & Maria Topete (co-writer) / DON'T LET ME DROWN
• Jake Mahaffy (writer/director) / FREE IN DEED
• Andrew Dosunmu (director) &  Darci Picoult (writer) / MOTHER OF GEORGE
• Kirsten Johnson (writer/director) / MY HABIBI
• So Yong Kim (writer/director) / TREELESS MOUNTAIN
• Milford Thomas (co-writer/director) / UNCLOUDY DAY

The goal of the Annenberg Film Fellows Program is to identify and foster a new generation of leading film artists who have limited access to direct support for the development of new work.  The program was created in April 2004 with a $5 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation at the recommendation of trustee Charles Annenberg Weingarten. The Annenberg Film Fellows Program is a five-year initiative designed to provide a combination of stipends and mini-grants, residencies and creative support for selected participants of Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program.

"The support of the Annenberg Foundation has been crucial to the development of what has, in record time, become a collection of film projects distinguished by their freshness and originality,” said Ken Brecher, Executive Director, Sundance Institute. “The Annenberg film projects are moving to completion at record speed. If there is one theme that distinguishes all of the Annenberg Fellows it is their commitment to the highest level of storytelling."

As an Annenberg Film Fellow, each artist receives a continuum of support designed to serve their ongoing creative development. This support includes: a series of structured residencies on screenwriting, directing, film music, and film production; the guidance of mentors drawn from all creative and business areas of filmmaking; personal stipends for living expenses during intensive periods of creation; the possibility of pre-production grants for needed services (e.g. casting director, budgeting, etc.); and the possibility of completion grants to facilitate moving projects successfully through post-production.

“We're excited to provide a continuum of support for the filmmaker that recognizes financial support as critical to an artist's development,” said Michelle Satter, Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. “The Institute's two-year commitment to the Annenberg fellows is key to giving each project the resources and creative support needed to bring timely, innovative stories to the screen. We are particularly excited by this new class of fellows who have all brought their authentic voice and humanity to their unique projects.”

Annenberg Film Fellowships have provided key support to several recent and upcoming films at crucial stages in their development. These films include Hilary Brougher's STEPHANIE DALEY, which premiered in Dramatic Competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award; Alex Rivera's ground-breaking futuristic immigrant story THE SLEEP DEALER, currently in post-production; David Kaplan's innovative animated Cinderella-story set in Chinatown, YEAR OF THE FISH, currently in post-production; FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, the debut feature from Native American director Sterlin Harjo, currently in post-production; and Academy-Award nominee Taika Waititi's feature debut EAGLE VS. SHARK, due to be released by Miramax in 2007.

The 2006 Annenberg Film Fellows and their projects are:

Kit Hui (writer/director) / A BREATH AWAY
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Kit Hui immigrated to the United States at age 16.  She received her MFA from Columbia University's Graduate Film Program.  Her short film MISSING screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and she recently participated in the 2006 Hong Kong Asian Financing Film Forum (HAF) and the Cannes Résidence du Festival de Cannes with A BREATH AWAY. Kit Hui attended the 2006 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2006 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

A BREATH AWAY: As a typhoon approaches Hong Kong, the residents of a high-rise apartment explore their need for human connection, family, and cultural identity in their increasingly isolated worlds.

Cruz Angeles (co-writer/director) & Maria Topete (co-writer) / DON'T LET ME DROWN
Born in Mexico City and raised in Los Angeles, Cruz Angeles is an award-winning student filmmaker from the graduate film program at NYU.  A Bay Area native, Maria Topete began her film career while studying at U.C. Berkeley, and has collaborated as co-writer and producer on several award-winning short films.  Their project DON'T LET ME DROWN was the 2006 American winner of the Sundance/ NHK International Filmmakers Award. Both Cruz Angeles and Maria Topete attended the 2005 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2005 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

DON'T LET ME DROWN portrays a post-September 11th world overflowing with fear and hate, where two Latino teens discover that the only thing that can keep them from drowning is each other.

Jake Mahaffy (writer/director) / FREE IN DEED
Born and raised in Ohio, Jake Mahaffy has made a handful of short films and the feature-length WAR , which screened in the Frontier section of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.  Mahaffy studied filmmaking in Russia and co-founded the Handcranked Film collaborative in Boston in 2001. Mahaffy has received a grant from Creative Capital, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Sundance Institute's inaugural Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship for FREE IN DEED. Jake Mahaffy attended the 2005 June Screenwriters Lab and the 2006 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

FREE IN DEED: In order to tend for his own ill son, an intensely religious man secretly returns to his hometown where, years ago, his attempt at a miraculous healing became a criminal act. 

Andrew Dosunmu (director) and Darci Picoult (writer) / MOTHER OF GEORGE
Originally from Nigeria, Andrew Dosunmu has worked as a fashion creative director and photographer for international editorial magazines, having photographed the artists Outkast, Eryka Badu, and Mos Def, among others.  His documentary HOT IRONS won Best Documentary at FESPACO in Ouagaudougou and a Reel Award at the Toronto Film Festival, and he also directed several episodes of the highly-acclaimed South African television series Yizo Yizo 3.  Darci Picoult's one woman show, MY VIRGINIA, was presented in theatres and solo festivals both nationally and internationally.  Her play ANCIENT LIGHTS was workshopped at New York Theatre Workshop and read at Lincoln Center, and her newest play, JAYSON WITH A Y, recently premiered at The New Group (naked) and has been optioned by commercial producers.  Both Dosunmu and Picoult attended the 2005 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2005 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

In MOTHER OF GEORGE, a woman torn between her African culture and her new life in America struggles to please her husband and give him the son that will carry on his family's legacy.

Kirsten Johnson (writer/director) / MY HABIBI
Kirsten Johnson's most recent film, DEADLINE, (co-directed with Katy Chevigny), premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, was broadcast on NBC, and is the winner of a Thurgood Marshall Award.  Her cinematography is featured in FARENHEIT 9/11, the Academy Award-nominated ASYLUM, and the Sundance Film Festival documentaries AMERICAN STANDOFF, TWO TOWNS OF JASPER, and DERRIDA. Johnson attended the 2006 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2006 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

MY HABIBI: In post-9/11 New York, a Moroccan immigrant finds his reckless past catching up with him just as he is falling in love with an American photographer, forcing each of them to choose whom they must betray.

So Yong Kim (writer/director) / TREELESS MOUNTAIN
So Yong Kim was born and raised in Pusan, Korea, then immigrated to the United States when she was 12. She studied painting, performance, and video art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she earned her MFA. Her directorial debut IN BETWEEN DAYS premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize for independent vision, and screened at the Berlin Film Festival's International Forum in 2006, where the film won the FIPRESCI Prize. So Yong Kim attended the 2006 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2006 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

TREELESS MOUNTAIN: Left by her mother in the care of their unsympathetic aunt, five-year-old Ling must take care of her younger sister as they adjust to a harsher life in the rural countryside of South Korea.

Milford Thomas (co-writer/director) / UNCLOUDY DAY
Milford Thomas was raised in the North Alabama foothills of the Appalachians and worked as a production coordinator for Japanese television in Atlanta and Japan.  His award-winning first film, CLAIRE, is a silent featurette shot entirely on an antique 35 mm hand-crank camera which has opened several major international festivals. Milford Thomas attended the 2006 January Screenwriters Lab and the 2006 June Directors and Screenwriters Lab.

In UNCLOUDY DAY, a black and white “early talkie” fantasy, a dangerous animal spirit returns home to 1930's North Alabama, wreaking havoc on a rural community before she finds redemption and final peace through a handicapped girl's magical vocal talent.

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE FEATURE FILM PROGRAM
The Annenberg Film Fellows Program is part of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, a year-round Program dedicated to supporting artist development and the advancement of distinctive, singular independent projects.  Each year, 20-25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and abroad participate in the Program which includes the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Composers Lab, Independent Producers Conference, ongoing creative and strategic advice, the post-production initiative and direct artist support through project-specific mini-grants and fellowships.  In many cases, the Institute has helped the Program's fellows attach producers and talent, securing financing and assemble other significant resources to move their projects toward production and presentation.  The Feature Film Program also presents the Screenplay Reading Series, in Los Angeles and New York, which provides a valuable opportunity for Fellows to hear their scripts read aloud by a full selection of professionally –cast actors.

In the past several years, the Feature Film Program has supported the work of numerous emerging independent filmmakers, including Dito Montiel's A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, winner of the Directing Award and a Special Jury Prize for Best Ensemble Performance at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, to be released by First Look this September; Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's HALF NELSON, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, opened the New Directors/New Films festival at MoMA, and will be released theatrically by ThinkFilm in August; and Hany Abu-Assad's PARADISE NOW, which won this year's Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.  In addition, several Feature Film Program projects received their premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival, including RED ROAD, written and directed by U.K. native Andrea Arnold, last year's Academy Award winner for Best Narrative Short Film; and Catalin Mitulescu's THE WAY I SPENT THE END OF THE WORLD and Györgi Pálfi's TAXIDERMIA, both winners of the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award.  These filmmakers are the latest in a long line of distinctive voices whose early work has been supported by the Feature Film Program, including Miranda July (ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW), Josh Marston (MARIA FULL OF GRACE), Debra Granik (DOWN TO THE BONE), Kimberly Peirce (BOYS DON'T CRY), Paul Thomas Anderson (HARD EIGHT), Tony Bui (THREE SEASONS), John Cameron Mitchell (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH), Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie (SMOKE SIGNALS), Darren Aronofsky (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM), Tamara Jenkins (SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS), Nicole Holofcener (WALKING AND TALKING), Walter Salles (CENTRAL STATION), Quentin Tarantino (RESERVOIR DOGS) and many more.

THE ANNENBERG FOUNDATION
The Annenberg Foundation exists to advance the public well-being through improved communication.  As the principal means of achieving its goal, the Foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.  The Annenberg Foundation has offices in Radnor, PA and Los Angeles, CA.  www.annenbergfoundation.org

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE
Dedicated year-round to the development of artists of independent vision and to the exhibition of their new work, Sundance Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006.  Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, the Institute has grown into an internationally recognized resource for thousands of independent artists through its Film Festival and artistic development programs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers, playwrights and theatre artists. The original values of independence, creative risk-taking, and discovery continue to define and guide the work of Sundance Institute, both with US artists and, increasingly, with artists from other regions of the world. 

The programs of Sundance Institute include the annual Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City each January and considered the premier U.S. showcase for American and international independent film. The Institute supports nonfiction filmmakers through the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program by providing year-round support through the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and a series of programs that encourage the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling and promote the exhibition of documentary films to increasingly broader audiences. The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program is a year-round program dedicated to supporting artist development and the advancement of distinctive, singular independent projects.  Each year 20-25 emerging filmmakers from the U.S. and abroad participate in the program which includes the Screenwriters and Filmmakers Labs, ongoing creative and practical advice, the post-production project, and financial support through fellowship opportunities.  The Sundance Institute Theatre Program is committed to invigorating the national theatre movement with original and creative work and to nurturing the diversity of artistic expression among theatre artists. The Sundance Institute Film Music Program is dedicated to supporting the development of emerging film composers, as well as impacting the ways in which independent filmmakers approach music in their films. The Institute also maintains The Sundance Collection at UCLA, a unique archive of independent film.  www.sundance.org