The National Endowment For the Arts granted the money for the first Sundance Institute lab in 1982. The program's grown to help some of the biggest filmmakers working today: Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kimberly Peirce, and Darren Aronofsky, among countless independent voices. Esquire profiles just seven.
Trump's proposed budget has the entire NEA on the chopping block. Matt Miller writes:
The NEA has supported the Sundance Institute ever since, most recently giving the organization a grant of $100,000 for 2017. This is only a small portion of the NEA's $148 million budget, which also gives to thousands of other organizations. And this overall NEA budget amounts for a minuscule fraction of the federal government spending (less than a single F-22 Fighter Jet). But this support might vanish, as President Trump's proposed budget would slash funding to the NEA.
Video: Fruitvale Station, a film supported by Sundance and NEA:
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