After 40 years in Utah, the Sundance Institute has announced that its 2024 Directors Lab will be hosted at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.

The Directors Lab, with support from Colorado’s state arts office, will give first-time feature directors the opportunity to rehearse, shoot, and edit scenes with actors and crew through a two- to three-week filmmaking immersion experience in the wilds of Colorado.

The one-time move will accommodate construction enhancements to Sundance’s resort property in Utah.

“For more than four decades, Sundance Institute labs have brought together promising new independent storytellers with accomplished artists to develop new work and build a long-lasting, vibrant community,” Sundance said in a statement.

“In identifying a host for our Directors Lab, it was essential to find a space that was surrounded by nature for artists to create, had multiple environments for shooting, and could be an environment where artists could leave behind the distractions of everyday life and immerse themselves in their projects,” said Michelle Satter, founding senior director of artist programs at Sundance Institute.

The Stanley Hotel and Estes Park “will provide inspiring backdrops for this prestigious workshop and showcase the many resources our state offers the film industry, including the unparalleled natural beauty of filming locations,” said Colorado Film Commissioner Donald Zuckerman.

The Directors Lab is a  component of Sundance’s year-round Feature Film Program, which includes various labs that have supported many up-and-coming and now arrived filmmakers including Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino.

‘Quantum’ leap at Yellow Barn film fest

The inaugural, one-day Yellow Barn Film Festival will take place Dec. 9 at an iconic farm north of Boulder. A full day of shorts will be screened before a centerpiece screening of the completely wild and original hit of the 2022 Denver Film Festival, “Quantum Cowboys.”

That’s University of Colorado Boulder film professor (and cowboy) Geoff Marslett’s masterful labor of love that introduces moviegoers to an entirely new and wildly entertaining storytelling form while following three time-traveling drifters trekking across 1870s Arizona.

He’s assembled a mind-blowing cast that includes David Arquette and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon“); indie-music icons John Doe (“X”) and Neko Case; Broadway legend Patrick Page (he played Scar when the very first national touring production of “The Lion King” launched in Denver); Danish New Wave cinema icon Anna Karina and a whole bunch of local film actors.

Four serious (and not) shorts packages begin at 11 a.m., each loosely themed around Colorado artistry, indigenous stories and our collective relationship with the land. One fun entrant from 2012 is “The Procession,” which features Lily Tomlin and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a mother and son attending the funeral of a woman they don’t remember.

And yes, this is all happening on an historic farm at 9417 N. Foothills Highway, about a 45-minute drive from Denver. It’s the work of founders Katie McManus and Devon Wycoff.

“Founding and programming this film festival has been akin to writing a love letter to everything we love about being Coloradans,” said McManus. Info at yellowbarn.farm.

More fun news for filmgoers

If you care, you probably don’t need me to tell you that Beyoncé’s concert film, “Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé,” opens widely next Thursday (Nov. 30). Worldwide, 2.7 million saw the concert live …

Harkins Theatres is trying something fun for the adventurous moviegoer. It’s called “Harkins Secret Cinema.” Once a month, Harkins will screen a surprise new film before its official release. Ticket-buyers will know only the rating of the film beforehand, and the risk will only run them $5. Let the game begin at 7 p.m. Monday (Nov. 27) at either the Arvada or Northfield locations.

Theatre Aspen hire

Emily Zeck, who was the managing director at Theatre Aspen from 2009-13, has returned to the company in that role. Her first tenure, working alongside then-Executive Artistic Director Paige Price, was noted for getting the now 40-year professional summer company out of big financial trouble.

“When Emily and I worked together at Theatre Aspen, we embarked on a capital campaign, which neither of us had done before, right in the middle of a financial crisis,” Price told phindie.com in 2017. “But like Thelma and Louise, we jumped off the cliff, and it was very rewarding. Emily is tenacious. She does what it takes to get the job done, and her integrity is unimpeachable.”

Zeck is credited with bringing financial stability to Theatre Aspen, completing a capital campaign and construction project for the Hurst Theatre and permanent lobby, and increasing ticket sales by 30 percent.

Zeck was also the subscriptions manager for the Denver Center Theatre Company from 2013-14. In 2017, she joined Price in running the Philadelphia Theatre Company.

“As soon as I followed a professional opportunity out of Colorado, I knew I wanted to come back as soon as my career would allow,” Zeck said. “To return now with a deeper appreciation of all that Aspen has to offer, to see how much Theatre Aspen is growing and thriving – and this time to be able to share it with my family – is profoundly satisfying.”

Weekend of comedy split personalities

Last week, I had the opportunity to bring you interviews with two iconic Denver-bound comedians. Paul Reiser and Marc Maron are contemporaries but could not be more different in style or substance – although both spoke at length about their differing experiences with aging.

Reiser, who was here to tape his first televised comedy special in 30 years for upcoming national streaming, promised an appreciative University of Denver crowd right up top that he would not be uttering a single word of political or social substance.

Instead, he charmed them with his old-school universal observations on family and everyday life. Like: “At a certain age, don’t help anyone move a couch. There’s no more time to waste.” The crowd ate it up.

The vibe the next night at Comedy Works South was decidedly edgier for Maron, who danced on the razor’s edge for 90 rollercoaster minutes without a seat belt. He touched on sexual abuse, grief, anti-Semitism, you name it. Fully oblivious that a man in the back of the room collapsed at his table and had to be escorted out for medical treatment. (He was eventually OK.)

Maron puts up a good front that he’s an unapologetic tough guy – even an outright jerk, but his vast appeal is evident in his obvious, open-wounded vulnerability. His most astonishing story was discovering his sincere like-mindedness with the music of Taylor Swift while on a hike that turned into his own near-death experience.

Maron, who is 60 but considers himself emotionally 14 (practically speaking), is, in that way, a prototypical Swiftie. Maron happened upon Swift’s “Bigger than the Whole Sky” (the “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye” song) just before feeling a headrush and passing out on a steep ascent. It really is uncanny how aligned the song’s lyrics are to Maron’s own worldview: “Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness. ‘Cause it’s all over now, all out to sea.”

When Maron came to, with blood rushing out of his face and Swift’s song in his ears on repeat, Maron had an epiphany: “That’s the way to die, man.”

All in all, a riveting comedy weekend in Denver.