Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival helped to revolutionize the world of American independent cinema by cultivating an audience for daring and innovative films, and often catalyzing theatrical distribution deals for such films that otherwise would not have a chance for release. In 1981, actor Robert Redford, interested and concerned about the state of film in the United States, founded the Sundance Institute, an organization devoted to the support and development of emerging screenwriters and directors. Quickly turning into a fertile ground for new artists (over 300 filmmakers benefit annually from its various film, screenwriting, and cultural programs), the Institute ballooned into the high-profile Sundance Film Festival, an annual, winter event held in the quaint village of Park City, Utah, that is attended by over 10,000 people. The festival runs over a period of ten days, and screens international films, documentaries, short films, and American independent premieres—making the festival the pre-eminent showcase for American independent films in the world. Understanding the importance of encouraging the spectrum of visions that film artists have, Redford and his Institute have helped to enhance the quality of American films, along with giving an array of talented people the opportunity to develop and refine new work. The Sundance Film Festival has also helped to launch the careers of talented, eccentric actors and actresses that mirror its hip, young aesthetic, such as Lily Taylor and Parker Posey. Because of Sundance's widely publicized success stories of past participants (Quentin Tarantino/ Reservoir Dogs, Neil Labute/ In the Company of Men, and Allison Anders/ Gas, Food, Lodging, for example), and the diverse and bold style of the films it supports, the festival has attracted a great deal of attention in and out of Hollywood, making it one of the most talked about events related to the film industry.

Studios tend to pursue more commercial scripts; stories that offer the guarantee of drawing in large audiences and funds. Scripts bought by large studios are often reworked without the original writer to match the studio's market-driven vision, and not the artist's. But with Sundance and its persistent focus on risky choices that were pleasing audiences, sleek studio executives armed with cellphones and celebrities began to flood the Sundance Film Festival, giving it sudden prestige. As American audiences began to lust after such stories, studio executives became more sycophantic towards their writers and directors. Wining and dining cutting-edge filmmakers, during the course of the festival they often foster careers that prove to be long-lasting.

Films screened at Sundance started a new trend towards dramatizing stories of a darker nature. Whether it be physical violence with an edge of black humor (Quentin Tarantino), or emotional violence (Neil Labute), people were becoming more drawn to films that explored different terrain and did not necessarily have happy endings. Large studio films tend to offer easy entertainment. Even when they are sad, there can be excessive sentimentality that allows for an audience to have an emotional release and leave the theater satisfied after having had a good cry. But the new wave of films and filmmakers that Sundance was producing did not do that. Instead, they offered worlds with little solace or answers where characters were cruel to each other, as in Labute's film In the Company of Men (which premiered at Sundance in 1997, launching his independent film career), which told the story of disillusioned and bored corporate men who seduce a mute woman in their office just so they can have the satisfaction of dumping her. It is important to tell these kinds of stories, because they explore the intricate ways people relate to one another, which are often unhealthy. These films leave audiences feeling uncomfortable, and that is a new and confusing feeling, but not necessarily a bad one. There is nothing wrong with "feel-good" entertainment, but it is refreshing to have a film take chances with character, storyline, and behavior.

Sundance has even produced an "illegitimate offspring" in the form of "Slam Dance." Also in Park City, it supposedly includes films that were rejected by Sundance, as well as others, and holds its festival concurrently with Sundance's. Slam Dance, too, has caught on and now Hollywood executives have to divide their time between both festivals, always on the lookout for fresh, undiscovered talent.

Independent film's involvement with larger studios has not always been a smooth relationship. Writer/director Todd Solondz, for example, whose film debut Welcome to the Dollhouse hit big after premiering at Sundance in 1996 (it was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize), was courted by a studio that wanted to back his next film, Happiness. But when executives balked at Solondz' delicate, dark story about a tortured suburban pedophile, Solondz would not tone it down, and was promptly dropped by that studio (another studio picked up the film, and it was released and received good reviews).

For two weeks in winter, throngs of entertainment people flock to the little town of Park City, Utah, as the world watches via entertainment programs and the news, to network and buy independent films. There is no restaurant, bar, or street corner in town that is without somebody affiliated with the film industry and ready to deal.

—Sharon Yablon

Further Reading:

Anders, Allison, editor. Four Rooms: Four Friends Telling Four Stories Making One Film. New York, Miramax Books/Hyperion, 1995.

Gilroy, Frank D. I Wake Up Screaming!: Everything You Need to Know About Making Independent Films Including a Thousand Reasons Not To. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.

McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, Regan Books, 1997.