At Sundance, pandemic dramas unfold on screen and off
Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Soon, the principal is heard over the loudspeaker — an announcement that would signal not just the scuttling of prom and graduation ceremonies, but, potentially, Nicks’ film. Even in an independent film world predicated on a can-do spirit, the results — including “Homeroom,” “How It Ends” and “In the Same Breath” — are often striking for their resourcefulness. It turned out, much to our amazement, that our submissions were only slightly down," said Tabitha Jackson, director of the Sundance Film Festival, on Thursday. And Wang started working with 10 cinematographers in China to capture the yawning gap between party propaganda and reality.
Hollywood power publicist and pal to stars Nanci Ryder dies
Nanci Ryder, a powerful Hollywood publicist and co-founder of BWR Public Relations who became close to such stars as Rene Zellweger and Courteney Cox, died Thursday of Lou Gehrigs disease in Los Angeles. Zellweger thanked Ryder in her best actress acceptance speech when she won the Academy Award for Judy earlier this year. Stints at Goldberg-Ehrlich Public Relations and Management and Michael Levine Public Relations followed, before she formed Nanci Ryder Public Relations in 1984, with Fox as her first client. In 1987, she co-founded the firm BWR Public Relations with Paul Baker and Larry Winokur. This spring, the firm's parent company, Burson Cohn & Wolfe, shut down BWR Public Relations, moving staffers or laying them off.