Sundance: more than just stars

When the Sundance Institute’s president, Robert Redford,
gave a welcoming speech for this year’s festival on Jan. 16,
he stated that Sundance was created to thwart commercial pressures
on artists. Yet, Redford added, it has become a very commercial
place to come.

As UCLA alumnus, professor and Sundance Film Festival director
Geoffrey Gilmore describes it, Sundance is a “bridge between
the art and commercial world.”

“We have always had a commercial side to us,”
Gilmore said. “If that meant that we program with an eye to
the commercial side “¦ that would be inaccurate. I have never
not shown a film because I did not think it could sell.”

Whether a safe haven for American indies or a mainstream sellout
to Hollywood, the Sundance Film Festival, which ended on Sunday, is
big enough to accommodate diverse experiences.

Traditional star watching has become a major reason to get into
sold-out screenings, which requires standing in lines hours in
advance. This year’s star actors and directors, included Al
Pacino, Oliver Stone, Morgan Freeman and Jessica Lange. A tribute
to Holly Hunter celebrated her career. Hunter was in both the
festival’s opening premiere, “Levity,” written
and directed by UCLA alumnus Ed Solomon, and
“Thirteen,” which won alumna Catherine Hardwicke a best
directing award. Hardwicke’s film got picked up by Fox
Searchlight.

But stars weren’t everything, and the documentaries, which
may never be shown outside the festival circuit, provided a more
low-key aspect to the festival. Winning best documentary was
“Capturing the Friedmans,” an engaging portrait of a
family shattered when the father and the youngest son are charged
with pedophilia.

The diversity is also evident in Sundance’s World Cinema
Documentary section this year, which indicates a move away from the
festival’s typical U.S.-centrism.

“A third of our whole festival (this year) was
international, although that is not our focus,” Gilmore
said.

Filmmakers found a variety of methods for getting their films
known. This year’s shortest short was the 90-second
“Earthquake,” which had a mini 8-by-5-inch publicity
kit and a bonus half-inch pin advertising the film.

Breaking with screening and publicity conventions, the creators
of the animated film “The Big Abandoned Refrigerator
Adventure” brought the cast (i.e. dolls) to a festival
reception and played their film on a portable DVD player, an
example of technology providing artistic freedom.

Even the 1,500 festival volunteers were more than helping hands.
Volunteer Shaun Parker came from Wisconsin to star gaze, see films,
make connections, and go to parties.

“The parties are a whole other subculture of
Sundance,” Parker said. “There are the official parties
which tend to be very mainstream. … It is the private parties
that you have to get into where the real fun is. “¦ But you
have to know somebody to get in, a lot of name tossing.”

But Sundance wasn’t the only game in town. The growing
number of submissions means a higher rejection rate, and
Sundance’s increasing high profile status has alienated some.
Playing off the Sundance label, festivals such as Slamdance (also
in Park City, Utah), Tromadance, Slamdunk and Shedance keep the
indie spirit alive, even as they pay homage to the festival which
remains the symbol of American indie filmmaking.