U-M filmmaker’s big dreams land him in Sundance

A U-M student is hoping to make a big splash with his movie at the Sundance Film Festival.Excerpt:Sultan Sharrief is dreaming. But since he is walking around the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, he realizes that he is not asleep.The 26-year-old filmmaker and University of Michigan graduate is showing his film “Bilal’s Stand” at the renowned festival. It’s one of just eight chosen for the festival’s NEXT program, which showcases low-budget independent films by a next generation of producers and directors.”Bilal’s Stand,” which Sharrief wrote in his U-M screenwriting class, tells the semi-autobiographical story of a young man from a struggling family torn between his aspirations to attend the University of Michigan and the expectations of friends and family that he work at his family’s taxi stand.Read the rest of the story here.