Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival, originally launched in 1978 as the Utah/U.S. Film Festival, is an annual event dedicated to celebrating independent filmmaking. Held in Park City, Utah, the festival has evolved from showcasing classic American films and local indie projects to becoming a premier platform for international independent cinema. In 1985, the festival came under the management of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, which significantly enhanced its profile and support for filmmakers.
The festival gained notable attention in 1989 with the success of Steven Soderbergh's film "sex, lies, and videotape," marking a turning point in its commercial viability. Over the years, Sundance has unveiled many prominent films and talents, including Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, propelling them into the mainstream film industry. The festival now serves as a major marketplace, where films often attract significant bids from distributors, reflecting its importance in the cinematic landscape.
As an influential cultural event, Sundance not only highlights creative storytelling but also fosters a diverse array of voices and perspectives within the film community. Its evolution into a high-profile platform underscores both the artistic innovation and the commercial potential of independent films.
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Subject Terms
Sundance Film Festival
Identification A film festival in the United States
Place Park City, Utah
During the 1990’s, the Sundance Film Festival became the premier showcase for aspiring filmmakers and established itself as the largest independent cinema festival in the United States and as one of the leading international film festivals.
When it began in September, 1978, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the annual Sundance Film Festival was called the Utah/U.S. Film Festival. Conceived by the Utah Film Commission as a way to attract both filmmakers and tourists to the state, the original festival presented a retrospective of classic American films, panel discussions, and some independent (indie) films, works by unknown filmmakers outside the Hollywood structure. Heavily in debt, the festival was renamed the United States Film and Video Festival and moved to the ski resort of Park City for the third festival in January, 1981. In 1985, Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, founded in 1981 to help independent filmmakers, took over the management of the festival. With the new financial support, staffing, and Redford’s celebrity, the festival began to flourish and gain prominence. The 1985 festival included international films for the first time.
A turning point came in 1989 with Steven Soderbergh’s debut film, sex, lies, and videotape, which won the inaugural Audience Award (Dramatic) and received sensational promotion and press. It was the festival’s first film to become a commercial success, earning over $25 million at the box office. In 1990, the festival changed its name to the Sundance/United States Film Festival. That year’s event included Jane Campion’s feature debut, Sweetie, Michael Moore’s documentary Roger and Me, and Hal Hartley’s debut film, The Unbelievable Truth, all released the year before.
In 1991, the Sundance Institute celebrated its tenth anniversary, and the festival was renamed the Sundance Film Festival. Todd Haynes’s Poison (1991), an early independent film with gay themes, won the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic). Sundance 1992 presented Quentin Tarantino’s debut feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992), a violent heist movie that set the tone for his subsequent films. Other highlights included Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991), which starred Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury, and Errol Morris’s A Brief History of Time (1991), a documentary about physicist Stephen Hawking. Highly acclaimed films shown at the 1993 festival included Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi (1992) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Cigarettes and Coffee (1993).
By 1994, the business aspect of the festival had become obvious, as agents, attorneys, filmmakers, distribution companies, publicists, and others in the film industry crowded into Park City. The 1994 festival screened ninety feature films, including Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites, Steve James’s documentary Hoop Dreams, and Kevin Smith’s cult film Clerks (all released in 1994), which won the Sundance Filmmakers Trophy, as well as awards at the Cannes Film Festival. The huge overflow of rejected films led to the creation of Slamdance, the first of numerous alternative festivals. Sundance 1995 showed over one hundred feature films and seventy shorts. Ed Burns’s debut film The Brothers McMullen (1995) won the Grand Jury Prize.
Sundance 1996 had about 10,000 attendees and heavy snowfall of ten feet in ten days. The Grand Jury Prize winner was Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995). By 1997, the festival was generating over $20 million of direct investment into Park City. However, the huge crowds were overwhelming the facilities, and the entire telephone system crashed regularly, so the new 1,300-seat Eccles Center was built in time for Sundance 1998. Marc Levin’s Slam (1998), a prison drama about a jailed black poet, won the 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) and also the Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or prize.
The decade ended with more excitement, commercial success, and hype than ever before, with the screening of the independent horror filmThe Blair Witch Project (1999) at the 1999 festival. The film follows three Montgomery College film students who disappear in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary in October, 1994, and their footage is found a year later. It grossed over $140 million in the United States alone.
Impact
During the 1990’s, the Sundance Film Festival changed from a low-profile venue for small-budget films to become the most significant showcase for independent films. This annual ten-day event became the place where unknown film creators could become famous overnight, often with studio executives or distribution companies in a bidding war over their films. For instance, The Blair Witch Project, filmed with a budget of $35,000, sold for over $1 million after a midnight screening at Sundance.
Filmmakers whose big break came at Sundance in the 1990’s include Quentin Tarantino, Ed Burns, Kevin Smith, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Robert Rodriguez. With fame and commercial success, many Sundance filmmakers eventually became part of mainstream cinema and Hollywood. The festival itself had become a major media and marketing event by the end of the decade, but Sundance continued its commitment to showcase the world’s most creative independent films.
Bibliography
Biskind, Peter. Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Entertaining narrative of how Robert Redford, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Weinstein brothers of Miramax promoted the growth of independent American films during the 1990’s. Bibliography and index.
Craig, Benjamin. Sundance: A Festival Virgin’s Guide. London: Cinemagine Media, 2004. An indispensable and comprehensive source about the festival, including interviews and complete history and business sections. Illustrated, plus maps.
Mottram, James. The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood. New York: Faber & Faber, 2006. Portraits focusing on commercially successful directors whose first recognition came at the Sundance Film Festival during the 1990’s. Illustrated. Bibliography and index.
Smith, Lory. Party in a Box: The Story of the Sundance Film Festival. Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999. Written by one of the festival’s founders, this twenty-year retrospective includes insider stories and revelations. Illustrated. Index.
Turan, Kenneth. Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. A leading film critic provides in-depth accounts of film festivals, including a chapter on Sundance as a film festival with a business agenda. Illustrated.