THE MAGIC...THE POWER OF SUNDANCE

For ten days in January, a snowy little ski-town comes alive. Park City, Utah sets the stage to celebrate the art of storytelling through independent filmmaking. Since its inception in 1978, the Sundance Film Festival, originally called the Utah/U.S. Film Festival, has grown into a $92 million a year juggernaut. The festival attracts media attention in more than 90 countries and catapulting lesser-known filmmakers into rock star orbit.

MMM: How many submissions does Sundance receive each year? DC: We get between 9,000 and 10,000 films a year to watch, but that includes 6,000 short films. It’ll be close to 10,000 movies this year. We expected fewer movies with the economic downturn, but that has not turned out to be the case. It’s become more affordable because of camera equipment. Anyone with a video recorder can make a movie, and they do—that’s the good news and the bad news. We have to go through a lot more to get the gold, and we are panning for gold all the time; so hopefully, we’ll find it.

How does Sundance select the films? We have screeners that are the “first eyes” on most of these films. They rate them on a oneto- five basis, five being the best, and pass them up to the programmers. So, every film gets watched by at least two people: one screener and one programmer. Certain programmers cover the ones and twos. Three, fours and fives get watched by all of us. Anybody can get into the Sundance Film Festival, that’s for sure, and we’ve had many filmmakers absolutely shocked because they think that you have to be connected to get in. We hope and live by the theory that the cream rises to the top. So far, that’s been true, and it’s been working. We only show 120 films in total, so we have to be really selective.

As Senior Programmer of Sundance, what does your job entail? My focus is documentary features. Basically, there are seven of us, and we all have specialty areas to hone the shortlist for. But if I love a film, I am going to give it to my colleague who I think will love it, as well. When you love something, you try to get support amongst the group. When it comes down to it, we all program everything.

How does Sundance stand out compared to other film festivals? Different film festivals are known for different things, and we are definitely known as a discovery film festival. We look for new, original voices. The film Precious (theatrical release in November 2009) won the Grand Jury Prize at our festival last year. It’s a remarkably moving film. Our new Frontier section couldn’t be more cutting edge by discovering new voices and staying on top of what is current. The Cannes Film Festival is huge, but it’s not a discovery film festival. The masters of the world come to Cannes to put out their next film, but Sundance is definitely about discovering talent. A new, original voice is so exciting when you discover one.

Tell me about the competitions we can look forward to in Sundance 2010. We have four competitions: A U.S. dramatic competition (16 films), a U.S. documentary competition (16 films), and our world cinema dramatic (12 films) and world cinema documentary competition (12 films). In addition to our Frontier section, we have a Premieres section, and one called Spotlight this year (replacing what we used to call Spectrum). Normally, films in competition have to be world premieres; however, the ones in Spotlight don’t. They are simply films we love from scouting the globe and other festivals. We’ve just introduced Next, a section of eight no-to-low budget feature films that show a unique voice. This definitely takes us back to our indie roots. We’ve always done it, but now we’re highlighting it. We also have a Midnight section containing horror movies which are so much fun!

Can established filmmakers submit their work to Sundance? Yes, established filmmakers can and do submit. The section called Premieres is specifically created for bigger name filmmakers and actors. This is an out-of-competition section. The bigger the name of the filmmaker, the more likely that film will play in our Premieres section.

Tell me about some of the greatest moments at Sundance since you started working there. It’s always really exciting to call a filmmaker and let them know their film got into the festival. Some people have been working on these films for 10 years, and you’ve just literally made their dreams come true. That’s a really, really fun part of the job. I’ve had a filmmaker pull over to the side of the road because she answered the phone in the car and was so overjoyed.

Also, meeting Al Gore was pretty exciting! (laughing) We screened An Inconvenient Truth, and that was fun for me. I was a champion of the film Man on Wire, so that was really exciting to meet Philippe Petit, too. Many of these films are so inspiring that meeting the people behind them is really great.

Tell us about one of your most memorable success stories at Sundance. A most memorable success story for me would have to be the documentary Man On Wire, which almost fell off of our list. I fought hard for that film. We showed the World Premiere, and it went on to win our Grand Jury Prize as well as taking top honors at festivals around the globe. Its success culminated in the Academy Awards for Best Documentary.

David, it sounds like you’ve got the coolest job in the world. It’s a cool job, but we’re working 15-hour days, seven days a week right now. It’s crunch-time, so it’s like a nonstop marathon. People think, “Wow, you just watch movies for a living? It’s awesome,” but it can be really grueling. It’s especially tough deciphering between really good and great.

Tell me about some of the greatest challenges that Sundance has had to overcome. The industry is changing so quickly, and the whole do-it-yourself distribution-mode is emerging. Previously, there was that brick and mortar kind of distribution model. Filmmakers would get their films financed, and then distributors would come to the festival. There’d be these big sales, and the movies went to theatres. That’s all evolving, so staying on top of it is a challenge for us. We can’t distribute films because we’re a nonprofit organization. The line between exhibition and distribution is always an issue.

We just saw the press release on Sundance Film Festival USA, and we are thrilled to hear that it’s coming to Ann Arbor! Yes, we are exited too! We think of Sundance as more of a festival for the United States and for the world than just a local festival (in Utah), and this is a perfect way to spread our tentacles across the U.S. We’ll be flying eight filmmakers to eight different cities across the United States on Thursday, January 28th to bring their films to selected theatres. Audiences will get a taste of the actual Sundance Film Festival experience in their hometown for that one day only, which makes it so special. An introduction that will play before each film with remarks from Robert Redford, and the filmmakers will have a Q&A session afterward. It’s really an exciting program.

The Michigan Theater is the biggest venue of all of the houses that we’re going to. It’s been part of our Sundance Art House Project for a long time, so we knew that we’d definitely go to Michigan. In fact, it was the first place that was an absolute when we came up with this idea for Sundance Film Festival USA. Michigan is a place where the arts are so much loved, and the people there have so much respect for it. We have such a great relationship with Russ Collins (Michigan Theater CEO), so it seems like a perfect match. This is just one more way that Sundance is staying ahead of the curve..

Share Link:

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comments