SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

The 'Sundance Film Festival' is a film festival in the United States and ranks alongside the Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto film festivals for importance.
It is the largest independent cinema festival in the U.S. [1] Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is the premier showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival comprises competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, and a group of non-competitive showcase sections, including the Sundance Online Film Festival.

Contents

Info

History

Naming

See also

External links

Info

The festival has changed over the decades from a low-profile venue for small-budget, independent creators from outside the Hollywood system to a media extravaganza for Hollywood celebrity actors, directors from studios that are subsidiaries of the major studios, paparazzi, and luxury-goods company sponsors giving gifts to the attendees. In recent years the festival has strived to distance itself from these distractions, and in 2007 handed out buttons to all film-makers that read, "Focus on Film."

History

Sundance was started in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of films made outside the Hollywood system, commonly known as independent films.
Over the following years several factors helped propel the growth of Utah/US Film Festival. First was the involvement of actor Robert Redford. Redford, a Utah resident, became the festival's inaugural chairman and having his name associated with Sundance gave the festival great attention.
Second, the festival moved from September to January. The move from late summer to mid-winter was reportedly done on the advice of Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, who suggested that running a film festival in a ski resort during winter would draw more attention from Hollywood.
Management of the festival was taken over by the Sundance Institute, a non-profit organization, in 1985, and in 1991 the festival was officially renamed the ''Sundance Film Festival''. Many famous independent filmmakers, including Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, James Wan and Jim Jarmusch had their big break at Sundance. It is also responsible for bringing wider attention to films such as ''Saw'', ''The Blair Witch Project'', ''Better Luck Tomorrow'', ''Primer'', ''Reservoir Dogs'', ''El Mariachi'', ''Clerks'', ''Sex, lies, and videotape'', and ''Napoleon Dynamite''.
Corporate America has taken notice of the festival by setting up independent marketing operations during the festival. This has not pleased the Sundance Film Festival, who have tried various ways to encourage brands to officially sponsor the festival, instead of creating their own marketing event. The festival has also (controversially, in some circles) become a press event for celebrities.
Starting in 2006, the Sundance Institute has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on a special series of film screenings, performances, panel discussions, and special events bringing the institute's activities and the festival's programming to New York City. [2]

Naming

The Sundance Film Festival was named by Robert Redford after his character The Sundance Kid from the movie ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'', probably because this is his favorite character among those he played. [3]

See also

★ 2008 Sundance Film Festival

★ 2007 Sundance Film Festival

★ 2006 Sundance Film Festival

★ List of Sundance Film Festival award winners

★ List of Sundance Film Festival selections

★ Sundance Channel

External links

★ The Sundance Institute

★ Sundance – A Festival Virgin's Guide - resources and information for festival attendees.

★ Deconstructing Sundance - website using Bayesian analysis to predict how well films that play at the Festival will perform.

★ UKHotMovies.com Sundance Film Festival: A Lowdown - history and background to the festival referred to as 'Cannes in the snow'

★ The Queer Lounge - provides information on the films with gay and lesbian content at the Sundance Film Festival as well as a hospitality area during the festival

★ [4] - GreenCine report on Sundance 2005

★ Joel Heller's "Docs That Inspire" Blog and Podcast Coverage of Sundance 2007 Documentaries & Panels

★ IMDb Biography of Robert Redford

★ Festival Film Sundance - news, articles, interesting information

★ EyeForFilm.co.uk at Sundance - Diaries, news and reviews from 2005-2007