It began with a purchase order of land within the Nineteen Sixties. Then, from that small slice of Utah and the founding of the Sundance Institute in 1981 and, later, its growth into the Sundance Movie Pageant, Robert Redford developed a imaginative and prescient that will reshape on-screen storytelling as we all know it. Sundance opened doorways for a number of generations of filmmakers who may not in any other case have gained entry to the film enterprise.
Redford, who died Tuesday at age 89, was already a massively profitable actor, producer and director, having simply gained an Oscar for his directorial debut “Ordinary People,” when he based the Sundance Institute as a help system for impartial filmmakers. His Utah property, named after his function in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” would turn into a haven for creativity in an idyllic setting.
Evincing a rugged, hands-on perspective marked by curiosity and enthusiasm in regards to the work, Redford embodied a philosophy for Sundance that was clear from its earliest days.
The primary of the Sundance Lab packages, which proceed right this moment, additionally launched in 1981, bringing rising filmmakers collectively within the mountains to develop initiatives with the help of extra established advisers.
The Institute would take over a small movie pageant in Utah, the U.S. Movie Pageant, for its 1985 version and finally rename it the Sundance Movie Pageant, a showcase that will go on to introduce administrators akin to Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nia DaCosta, Taika Waititi, Gregg Araki, Damien Chazelle and numerous others whereas refashioning impartial filmmaking right into a viable profession path.
Earlier than directing “Black Panther” and “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler went by the Sundance Lab initially of his profession and noticed his debut function “Fruitvale Station” premiere at Sundance in 2013 the place it gained each the grand jury and viewers awards.
“Mr. Redford was a shining example of how to leverage success into community building, discovery, and empowerment,” Coogler mentioned in a press release to The Occasions on Tuesday. “I’ll be forever grateful for what he did when he empowered and supported Michelle Satter in developing the Sundance Labs. In these trying times it hurts to lose an elder like Mr. Redford — someone who through their words, their actions and their commitment left their industry in a better place than they found it.”
Chloé Zhao’s debut function “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” premiered on the pageant in 2015 after she took the undertaking by the labs. Along with her later effort “Nomadland,” Zhao would go on to turn into the second girl — and nonetheless the one girl of coloration — to win the Academy Award for steering.
“Sundance changed my life,” Zhao mentioned in a press release on Tuesday. “I didn’t know anyone in the industry or how to get my first film made. Being accepted into the Sundance Labs was like entering a lush and nurturing garden holding my tiny fragile seedling and watching it take root and grow. It was there I found my voice, became a part of a community I still treasure deeply today.”
Satter, Sundance Institute‘s founding senior director of artist programs, was involved since the organization’s earliest days. Even from comparatively humble origins, Satter might already really feel there was one thing highly effective and distinctive occurring underneath Redford’s steering.
“He made us all feel like we were part of the conversation, part of building Sundance, right from the beginning,” Satter mentioned of Redford in a 2021 interview. “He was really interested in others’ point of view, all perspectives. At the same time, he had a real clarity of vision and what he wanted this to be.”
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For a few years Redford was certainly the face of the movie pageant, making frequent appearances and usually talking on the opening press convention. Beginning in 2019 he lowered his public function on the pageant, in tandem with the second he stepped again from appearing.
The pageant has gone by many various eras over time, with pageant administrators handing off management from Geoffrey Gilmore to John Cooper to Tabitha Jackson and present fest director Eugene Hernandez.
The pageant has additionally weathered adjustments within the business, as streaming platforms have upended distribution fashions. Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 drama “sex, lies and videotape” is commonly cited as a key title within the business’s discovery of the Utah occasion as a must-attend spot on their calendars, a spot the place consumers might purchase films for distribution and scout new expertise.
“Before Sundance, there wasn’t really a marketplace for new voices and independent film in the way that we know it today,” mentioned Kent Sanderson, chief government of Bleecker Road, which has premiered a number of movies on the pageant over time. “The way Sundance supports filmmakers by giving their early works a real platform is key to the health of our business.”
Over time, Sundance turned a spot not solely to amass movies but additionally to launch them, with distributors bringing movies to place in entrance of the excessive variety of media and business attendees. Buyers come to scope out movies and filmmakers look to lift cash.
“It all started with Redford having this vision of wanting to create an environment where alternative approaches to filmmaking could be supported and thrive,” mentioned Joe Pichirallo, an arts professor at NYU’s Tisch Faculty of the Arts and one of many unique executives at Searchlight Footage. “And he succeeded and it’s continuing. Even though the business is going through various changes, Sundance’s significance as a mecca for independent film is still pretty high.”
On the 2006 pageant, “Little Miss Sunshine,” directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, offered to Searchlight for what was then a record-setting $10.5 million. In 2021, Apple TV+ bought Siân Heder’s “CODA” for a record-breaking $25 million. The movie would go on to be the primary to have premiered at Sundance to win the Oscar for greatest image.
But the pageant, the labs and the institute have remained a relentless by all of it, persevering with to incubate recent expertise to launch to the business.
“Redford put together basically a factory of how to do independent films,” mentioned Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Footage Classics. Over time the corporate has distributed many titles that premiered at Sundance, together with “Call Me by Your Name” and “Whiplash.”
“He adapted as the landscape changed,” Bernard added of the longevity of Sundance’s affect. “And as you watched the evolution to where it is today, it’s an amazing journey and an amazing feat that he did for the world of independent film. It wouldn’t be the same without him.”
By all of it, Redford balanced his roles between his personal profession making and starring in films and main Sundance. Filmmaker Allison Anders, whose 1992 movie “Gas Food Lodging” was among the many earliest breakout titles from the Sundance Movie Pageant, remembered Redford on Instagram.
“You could easily have just been the best looking guy to walk into any room and stopped there and lived off of that your whole life,” Anders wrote. “You wanted to help writers and filmmakers like me who were shut out to create characters not seen before, and you did. You could have just been handsome. But you nurtured us.”
The upcoming 2026 Sundance Movie Pageant in January would be the final one in its longtime dwelling of Park Metropolis, Utah. The pageant had beforehand introduced {that a} tribute to Redford and his imaginative and prescient of the pageant can be part of that last bow, which is able to now carry an added emotional resonance.
Beginning in 2027, the Sundance Movie Pageant will unspool in in Boulder, Colo. No matter the place the occasion takes place, the legacy of what Robert Redford first conceived will stay.
As Redford himself mentioned in 2021 in regards to the founding of the Institute, “I believed in the concept and because it was just that, a concept, I expected and hoped that it would evolve over time. And happily, it has.”
Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.
