Park City Utah is like a snow globe. Especially at this time of year, when the silver screens of Sundance come to this silver mining town and young filmmakers start thinking about the moment they might see their sparkle, it sparkles and shines like a fairy tale. Masu.
sian heder movies “Coda” It premiered at Sundance in 2021. The following year, it won three Oscars, including Best Picture. It doesn’t always happen that way, but Sundance has a pretty good track record of catapulting independent filmmakers into careers.
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Its alumni include Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies, and Videotape”), Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”), Christopher Nolan (“Memento”), Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”), and more. will appear. They were all introduced to audiences as well as powerful film distribution companies at an annual festival held high in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
“I think that was a big breakthrough for Sundance. Finally with these new voices, these exciting new filmmakers had a place to show what they’d actually done and potentially sell it. I did.”
She first heard about Sundance from its famous founder, Robert Redford, on the set of “The Natural.” His idea, then in its early stages, was as pure as baseball itself.
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As Redford told us in 2018, “I said, wait a minute, there are other stories. I hear other voices that aren’t being given a chance. Get their movies. A smaller story.
As such, he wanted his nonprofit Sundance Institute to be held as far away from profit-focused Hollywood as possible. So he set it up among the pines and aspens of Utah’s Provo Canyon on land he had purchased after the success of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
Close said, “When you come from the city, you’re surrounded by nature in an undeniable way,” she said. “It’s a mental thing. And I think that was very important to Bob.”
Redford said he doesn’t think the idea he started will last beyond a few years. But Sundance Institute has lasted 44 years and counting. Michelin stars are what great food is all about.
I don’t choose Sundance. Sundance chooses you.
Michelle Sutter, the institute’s founding senior director, has been by Redford’s side since 1981. “We get 3,000 scripts. We choose 12.” “That’s a small number. But there are a lot of people globally who want to tell stories. We believe in the power of storytelling.” ”
I asked, “How do you know when you’ve found a unique story or a unique talent?”
“It speaks to me,” Sutter replied. “If they don’t have a unique voice, we’re not interested.”
“And what does that mean to you, voice?”
“There’s something about the way they tell stories that doesn’t feel generic so that anyone can tell a story,” Sutter said. “But they’re bringing something from their own experience, from their own connection to storytelling that uplifts it.”
According to Satter, “A film is not complete until it reaches an audience and engages with the audience.”
Last spring, Sutter put us in Sundance’s renowned director and screenwriter lab. This time it was held in Estes Park, Colorado. One of the lab’s advisors was four-time Oscar-nominated actor-director Ed Harris.
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“It’s not about ego,” Harris said. “It’s nothing but learning and making mistakes. I love my job. It’s all about the job and I probably learn as much as anyone helps me.”
All Sundance “fellows,” as they are called, already have projects like The Hannah Gray Organs in the works and polishing up her upcoming feature film. “Feedback, like feedback, is good,” she said. “And I feel lucky to have it at a stage where I can really deepen it and hone the characters and the story.”
Casey Modderno was tweaking her Rom-Com. The aesthetic of film and film and texture and just going deep into the craft, it’s very special. ”
And then there’s Sean Wang. “This experience just changed my DNA as a filmmaker,” he said.
It was the script for his first feature film, “Diddy,” that he accepted into Sundance. For six years he tormented the film with his crew and mostly on his own. “Who won Sundance this year? Who won the Audience Award? Who won the Jury Award? What’s the next filmmaker to come out of Sundance? ” he said.
He turned out to be one of those Sundance filmmakers. Last year, “Diddy” not only won two of Sundance’s top awards. It won him a distribution contract.
Wang points out that Sundance does not fund films. “They have no financial stake in your film,” he said. “When we sell a movie, they say, ‘Great. Where’s our 10%?’ It obviously wants your movie to be a success. ”
This year, the California wildfires cast a long shadow over the festival. Michelle Sutter’s home, where we interviewed her, is now gone, as are many others.
None of these victims were forgotten in Utah last week. As Sutter told his audience, “We have lost a village, but at the end of the day, we are a village.”
As for Robert Redford, the visionary who started it all is now 88 years old. He hasn’t been here for the past three years, but his spirit remains. Independent cinema was forever changed. It’s the legacy he and others have brought to the box office bank.
Glenn Close said, “He put his money where his mouth is. And I’m in awe of that. And I salute him.”
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Story created by John Karas. Editor: Carol Ross.
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