The Sundance Institute Founder Series: Celebrating Robert Redford’s Vision for the Sundance Institute

Michelle Satter is the Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute's Artist Programs. As a key executive of the Leadership Team, Satter has been one of the chief architects of the Institute's programs since 1981 and has created and leads all programs supporting scripted storytelling. Under Satter's tenure, the Feature Film Program has provided year-round and in-depth support to the ground-breaking and award-winning filmmakers Sean Wang (Dìdi (弟弟)), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One), Roger Ross Williams (Cassandro), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), Mounia Akl (Costa Brava, Lebanon), Radha Blank (The 40-Year-Old Version), Edson Oda (Nine Days), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men), Dee Rees (Pariah), Marielle Heller (Diary of a Teenage Girl), Gina Prince Bythewood (Love and Basketball), James Mangold (Cop Land), Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), Chloe Zhao (Songs My Brother Taught Me), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox), Robert Eggers (The Witch), Taika Waititi (Boy), Rick Famuyiwa (The Wood), Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), and Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), among many others. 

Satter also created and led the Institute's international initiatives in Latin America, Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and India, the Producing Program, and the Episodic Program. More recently, Satter founded and is charged with creative oversight and vision for Sundance Collab, a global digital storytelling and learning platform, and the Institute lead for the Sundance Artist Program Group, overseeing the Feature Film Program, Documentary Film Program, Producers Program, Episodic Program, Indigenous Program, Catalyst, and International Program. 

In recent years, Satter has been recognized with the Women in Film Business Leadership Award, the ACLU Bill of Rights Award, the Golden Eddie Award from ACE, the Horizon Award for her contribution to Female Filmmakers, the Indian Film Festival Los Angeles U.S.-based Industry Leadership Award, the MPAC Media Award, the Coral de Honneur at the Havana Film Festival, a tribute celebrating her 30 years leading the Feature Film Program at the Sundance Institute and the Giving Voice Award at the Sundance Festival Women's Leadership Luncheon. Prior to joining the Sundance Institute, Satter was a Co-Founding Partner and Program Director of ArtiCulture, Inc, responsible for producing hundreds of events in the Boston area and the Director of Public Relations for Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. Additionally, Satter co-produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary Waldo Salt, A Screenwriter's Journey. 

In 2024, Satter received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Oscar celebrating her long-term work at the Sundance Institute supporting independent storytellers who have brought meaningful change and inspiration to world audiences. She was honored this year at the Sundance Festival Gala for her long standing commitment to nurturing artists and cultivating independent film through the Sundance Labs, where visionary artists convene to develop groundbreaking projects through an in-depth creative process, for the past four decades.

Gyula Gazdag is a screenwriter and director of film, theater, and television, and is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. He has served as the Artistic Director of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab since 1997. He was a creative advisor at the Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam for more than a decade and has worked with new talent at the Script Station of the Berlinale Talents (2006-2025) and at Sarajevo Talents (2014-2023). 

His feature films include A Hungarian Fairy Tale (Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, one of the year’s 10 best films selected by the Village Voice, Best Feature Film by the Hungarian Film Critics, screened in 20 film festivals worldwide, including Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes), Stand Off (Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival), Lost Illusions (Best Screenplay Award at the Hungarian Film Week), Swap, Singing On The Treadmill, and The Whistling Cobblestone (Best First Feature by the Hungarian Film Critics). 

Gazdag has also directed documentaries, including A Poet On The Lower East Side, Hungarian Chronicles, Package Tour, The Banquet, The Resolution (cited as one of the best 100 documentaries of all time on the International Documentary Association’s list), The Selection, and The Long Distance Runner. 

Most of his films have been banned for periods in Communist Hungary, and have been denied foreign exhibition, some of them have been banned again in 2012. For the stage, Gazdag has directed Candide, The Bald Soprano, The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Tempest, Tom Jones and The Hothouse, among other plays. Gazdag was named one of the ten best film teachers in America by Daily Variety in 2010. He is one of the two recipients of the inaugural Robert Redford Luminary Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Kasi Lemmons is an award-winning director, writer, actress, and professor who has been a staple in Hollywood for nearly three decades. Her acclaimed 1997 feature directorial debut, Eve’s Bayou, was recently inducted into the National Film Registry, and is considered among the first to showcase the beauty of African American Southern culture. The film received the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and the National Board of Review bestowed her with a special first-time director award. Eve’s Bayou marked Samuel L. Jackson’s debut as a film producer and helped launch the careers of actresses Megan Good and Jurnee Smollett.

Lemmons’ sophomore feature, The Caveman's Valentine, opened the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, while her third film, Talk to Me, earned the 2008 NAACP Image Award for outstanding directing. She also adapted Langston Hughes’ musical Black Nativity for the big screen in 2013.

Her 2019 opus, Harriet, is a deeply resonant and powerful drama based on the life of American icon Harriet Tubman. Starring Cynthia Erivo in the titular role, Harriet earned two Oscar nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, and ten NAACP Award nominations. In addition to her directing on Harriet, Lemmons most recently executive produced the Netflix limited series Self Made starring Octavia Spencer and directed two episodes. Self Made earned 3 NAACP Image Awards.

Her sixth film, I Wanna Dance With Somebody starring Naomie Ackie, opened Christmas ’22 and thoughtfully tackles the triumphs and the struggles of the superstar Whitney Houston. The film soared to become the number one most-watched movie on Netflix on its debut weekend.

As an actress, Lemmons appeared in notable films such as Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, John Woo’s Hard Target, Rusty Cundieff's Fear of a Black Hat, and Spike Lee’s School Daze.

Lemmons has worked extensively as a mentor and educator and currently serves as an Arts Professor in the Graduate Film Department at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has shared her passion for writing and teaching with institutions across the world, including Yale University, MIT, USC, UCLA, AFI, Los Angeles Film School, and The University Pristina Film School in Kosovo. Lemmons holds an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters from Salem State College. She has served on the board of Film Independent since 2004.

Along with Academy-Award nominated composer Terrence Blanchard, Lemmons added librettist to her formidable body of work, creating the stage adaptation of Charles Blow’s New York Times bestselling memoir Fire Shut up in My Bones for the Opera Theater of Saint Louis. Fire Shut Up In My Bones opened The Metropolitan Opera’s 2021–22 season, the first by an African-American composer and librettist ever performed at The Met. Fire Shut Up in My Bones went on to win a Grammy for Best Opera Recording. 

Rick Famuyiwa is an alumnus of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Sundance Institute's Screenwriters and Directors Labs. His movie Dope premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Special Jury Prize for Editing, and screened at the Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight. 

Famuyiwa is currently executive producing Season 2 of The Chi for Showtime and directed two episodes of The Mandalorian for Disney+. He is also developing the feature film adaptations of the graphic novel, Black Hole, and the New York Times bestselling book, Children of Blood and Bone.

Marielle Heller is a director, writer, actor, and producer. Her directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, premiered at Sundance in 2015 and earned the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Most recently, Heller wrote and directed Nightbitch (2024), starring Amy Adams and based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder.

Previously, Heller directed Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), both of which earned Academy Award nominations for their respective stars—Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, and Tom Hanks. Most recently as an actor, Heller co-starred as Alma Wheatley in the Emmy-winning series The Queen’s Gambit (2020). Heller’s film and television production company, Defiant By Nature, was established in 2019. Its first project was her filmed version of Heidi Schreck’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play What the Constitution Means to Me (2020). As a producer, Heller most recently executive produced Sundance Labs alum Hasan Hadi’s directorial debut The President’s Cake (2025). 

Heller was a 2012 Sundance Fellow at the Screenwriters and Directors Labs.

Katherine "Kat" Street is an LA-based award-winning filmmaker and Philadelphia native. A cinephile at heart, she writes female-driven stories with complex (oftentimes damaged) main characters, centered around self-discovery, self-love, and belonging.

She has written numerous short-form projects, including original shorts, pilots, and features. She wrote and directed the dramatic short film “Cycles,” which received festival recognition in both acting and best romantic short. She also created her award-winning flagship web series "The New Adult,” which is currently streaming on Kweli TV.

Kat is a Stowe Story Lab SAGIndie Fellow and a participant in the BlackMagic Collective Emerging Filmmakers Initiative. In 2021, she founded the Black Film Challenge, a project that showcases filmmakers of African descent and the movies they create.

She earned her BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a concentration in Cinematography and has literary representation with Yak Yak Mgmt.