Touring festival Film Forward has unveiled the titles that will be taken to communities throughout the US and around the world in 2013.

In its third year, the number of locations visited will reduce from 10 to eight in an effort to not do “more projects in a quick way,” according to Sundance Institude executive director Keri Putnam.

Although exact dates have yet to be revealed, it will be the second year the festival has be held in Imperial Valley, California; Mexicali, Mexico; and Bogota, Colombia.

China and Puerto Rico will be hosting events for a third year. The remaining locations include Maine, Washington state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Taiwan and Jordan.

The titles films slated for Film Forward cover themes of family, friendship, community and modern culture, and include:

  • Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts Of The Southern Wild;
  • Stacy Peralta’s Bones Brigade: An Autobiography;
  • Patricia Riggen’s La Misma Luna (Under The Same Moon);
  • Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice;
  • Julia Meltzer and Laura Nix’s The Light In Her Eyes;
  • Nancy Buirski’s The Loving Story;
  • Jerry Rothwell’s Town Of Runners; and
  • Musa Syeed’s Valley Of Saints.

In addition, this year’s festival will see the audience take part in screenings, workshops and discussions with film-makers in a bid to “inspire curiosity, foster dialogue, promote broader cultural understanding and enhance awareness of shared stories and values across generations, language, education and borders.”

“The goal of the programme is to build a community and explore what we share across boundaries by virtue of the subjects these stories deal with,” added Putnam.

“It’s really about generating cross cultural dialogue. We do that by choosing films that have universal themes that have the ability to travel to different cultures and generate discussions.”

Film Forward is an initiative of the Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

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