EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Miller has been appointed as Festival Director for the Slamdance Film Festival, Deadline has learned.
Miller’s first festival as director will be its 30th anniversary edition taking place in January 2024. She joins Slamdance’s festival producer Michael Morin in preparation of the Park City showcase and will also lead the festival’s year-round programs, including the Screenplay Competition and exhibition events, reporting to President and Co-Founder Peter Baxter.
Miller has served Slamdance’s community as a festival programmer for over 13 years, coming to her new role following her 2020 co-founding of Slamdance’s Unstoppable, a filmmaking showcase created for and by filmmakers with visible and non-visible disabilities. She the following year produced the inaugural Slamdance Miami, which focused on emerging filmmakers from Latin America and Florida, in collaboration with Slamdance alumni and Miami’s arts leaders. During this time, Miller and Baxter created the “Slamdance Index,” an equitable entry fee system for filmmakers based on the per capita income of the country the filmmaker comes from, making Slamdance the first festival in the world to do so.
Prior to Slamdance, Miller received a PhD from the European Graduate School in media studies, involving memory, the moving image and empathy, working closely with Agnes Varda, Jean Baudrillard, Claire Denis and Atom Egoyan.
“Supporting Slamdance filmmakers has been at the forefront of Taylor’s work. Her dedication to the discovery and championing of new artists has already shaped our organization and I know she will lead our festival into the future with the greatest of commitment,” said Baxter in a statement to Deadline. “I’m thrilled Taylor Miller is Slamdance’s new Festival Director.”
Added Miller, “True talent knows no boundaries, and it is the duty of an artist-led organization like Slamdance to discover and nurture it, creating a platform where unconventional voices can thrive and shape the future of cinema. I’m deeply honored to become Slamdance’s Festival Director.”
An annual film festival founded in 1995 that is geared toward emerging artists, Slamdance takes place in Park City, UT each January over the course of a week. The 2024 edition will take place in person from January 19-25 and online on the Slamdance Channel from January 22-28, with submissions opening on May 5th.
