Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and New Frontier, as well as the installations and performances to be featured in the Festival’s New Frontier venue. The Festival takes place January 17-27 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

The 2013 edition of New Frontier will showcase films, media installations, multimedia performances, transmedia experiences and panel discussions that explore the convergence of film, art, new media technology and storytelling. 2013 will mark the seventh year of New Frontier, which will again take place at The Yard (1251 Kearns Blvd.) in Park City. Admission to the venue is free.

Although ComingSoon.net will not be attending the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, we can still be somewhat excited by the filmmakers bringing movies to the winter festival in Park City, Utah, and earlier today, the Sundance Institute announced some of the movies that will premiere in competition, including a couple from returning filmmakers who made a mark at past festivals. Returning filmmakers include Lynn Shelton (Your Sister's Sister), James Ponsoldt (Smashed) and Shane Carruth (Primer).

Oscilloscope Laboratories announced today that they have picked up the North American distribution rights for the LCD Soundsystem film Shut Up and Play the Hits, which world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, with plans to release it via one-night-only engagements in theaters across the country this summer.

Magnolia Pictures has scheduled two of its festival pick-ups for the summer with Lauren Greenfield's Sundance favorite doc The Queen of Versailles being released on July 6, and Fernando (City of God) Meirelles' globe-trotting drama 360, starring Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster, coming out a month later on August 3.

Oscilloscope Laboratories, the distribution company founded by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, picked up two movies that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jeff Orlowski's documentary Chasing Ice and the Todd Louiso comedy Hello I Must Be Going.

Last month, The Wrap reported that Sony Pictures Classics was close to picking up the distribution rights to James Ponsoldt's Smashed, the Sundance dramedy starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as an alcoholic schoolteacher trying to come to terms with her drinking problems. Today, Sony Pictures Classics has confirmed the deal, including a new plot synopsis.

The Sundance Film Festival has been over for a few days, and it's been another exciting week and a half for filmmakers, movie lovers and film writers alike as we get a taste of what's in store for the coming year. This year seemed to be much better for movies arriving at the festival looking for buyers, as according to our math, twenty-four movies were picked up for distribution during the festival proper and things certainly seemed far more positive and optimistic about the state of the industry.

That said, we saw roughly 32 films during the festival and nothing really affected us as much as last year's Incendies or Martha Marcy May Marlene, both which ended up in the Weekend Warrior's Top 10. Then again, maybe we were a bit warier of lavishing praise on the films we liked until we had a second chance to see them outside the normally-overenthusiastic festival environment.

ComingSoon.net talks to director Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil) about her new doc West of Memphis, produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, which takes a look at the case of the West Memphis 3 and new evidence discovered in the past ten years meant to fully exonerate them of the crimes they were accused of committing that put them in prison for 18 years.

Stephen Frear's Lay the Favorite, based on the memoir of the same name by Beth Raymer, has been bought by the Weinstein Company for a reported $2.2 million with plans to release it both theatrically and on VOD.

Continuing their string of Sundance pick-ups and bringing their number of purchases to four, Magnolia Pictures has acquired the U.S. distribution rights for Craig Zobel's Compliance and Ry Russo-Young's Nobody Walks as the 2012 Sundance Film Festival came to a close. Indiewire adds that Magnolia has picked up the distribution rights to Julie Delpy's comedy 2 Days in New York, her sequel to 2 Days in Paris, this one co-starring Chris Rock.