found this at the spout blog, right up hwuf’s alley. but damn 5000 submissions already! that is crazy…

The Sundance Film Festival has announced that in 2010 they’ll launch a new programming sidebar called NEXT, designed to reflect the fact that “a new aesthetic enlisting low-and no-budget filmmaking techniques has been on the rise.” According to the press release sent out this morning, Sundance “staffers refer to the new section with the symbol < = > which literally translates to ‘less than equals greater than’.” That the new section is happening is not a total shock — Sundance’s John Cooper and Trevor Groth hinted that it was coming at a panel at Cannes — but I must say, the emoticon caught me by surprise.

See the press release in its entirety after the jump.

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES NEW SECTION FOR 2010 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

NEXT, CELEBRATING CREATIVITY BORN OF LIMITATION, TO SHOWCASE SIX TO EIGHT NEW FILMS SELECTED FOR INNOVATIVE, ORIGINAL WORK IN LOW- AND NO-BUDGET FILMMAKING

PARK CITY – The 2010 Sundance Film Festival will feature NEXT, a new section featuring six to eight films selected for their innovative and original work in low- and no-budget filmmaking. Festival Director John Cooper made the announcement today, citing the desire to discover and promote filmmakers forging new ways to tell their stories, limited by resources but uninhibited by creativity. Presented by the non-profit Sundance Institute, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 21 – 31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

A new aesthetic enlisting low-and no-budget filmmaking techniques has been on the rise. With NEXT, Festival programmers hope to provide a platform for these filmmakers to connect to audiences, industry and press while at the same time inviting the artists to be a part of an ever-evolving community of filmmakers working outside the system. Festival staffers refer to the new section with the symbol < = > which literally translates to “less than equals greater than”.

Said Cooper, “Programming an event as important to the cultural landscape as Sundance Film Festival, we feel a responsibility both to represent new creative developments in the field and to contextualize films for our Festival goers. Historically, we have done this quite successfully with documentary, and most recently with New Frontier, ‘saving space’ as it were, to support different trends in storytelling. We want filmmakers to feel encouraged and intrigued by this new section of the Festival. We hope to excite audiences as well as inform a budding industry already investing in new models of distribution.”

“The filmmakers who are working in this realm and who I have spoken to about this have a ‘creative impatience’ that I find invigorating,” Cooper added. “These are not just the films that have been labeled mumble core…or dogma or even guerilla. They are an emerging counter culture within our counter culture.”

As of September 1, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival has received over 4,964 applications and 3,689 films. Submissions are still being accepted. Visit www.sundance.org/submissions for more information.

via Sundance Announces New Section, Emoticon | SpoutBlog.