Unraveling Sundance

Every year, the Sundance Film Festival inadvertently determines
the fate of independent film in the U.S. more than any other
cinematic event. More selective than a black-tie mixer or Harvard
Law, it embodies a mysterious aura, a quality of myth, the stuff of
legend.

But there is more to Sundance than an increasingly selective
slate of films hoping to grab positive press and big-name
distributors. There is a heart to Sundance, an inherent identity as
a festival of creative minds, which often exists behind a curtain
of teetering prestige and cinematic politics.

This year’s festival, which runs from Jan. 19 to Jan. 29
in Park City, Utah, features four feature-length competitive
categories, five specialty classes and a shorts program. Exactly
1,004 American and 936 international features were considered for
the 2006 festival, in addition to the 760 American and 448
international documentaries. Only 120 films were selected.
Similarly, 73 shorts were selected out of 4,700 submissions.

Caroline Libresco, a 2001 alumna of UCLA’s MFA producing
program, is one of the five festival programmers responsible for
narrowing the field from over 3,000 to just over 100.

According to Libresco, every film accepted into the festival has
been watched at least twice before being brought to general vote.
First the film is covered (summarized and rated) by a pre-screener,
and then it filters its way up to the programmers.

With help from three associate programmers, and a staff
organized by genre or category, the programmers shape the
ideological mainframe for the entire festival.

“As programmers, we have the entire festival program in
mind,” Libresco said. “We see all the films. Nobody
else is going to see all the films.”

Due to Sundance’s ever-growing program size, it is
impossible for festival-goers to see every film.

But Libresco and her fellow programmers are acutely aware of the
carefully planned makeup within each category and of the festival
as a whole.

“The program fulfills a lot of different mandates, needs
and missions of what we are trying to do. Within each competition
we are looking at the balance. … We find a real diversity of
topic and style,” she said. “There’s a delicate
art to programming.”

But Sundance is more than just a lineup of simultaneous film
screenings. Once the films are selected, the construction of the
festival is hardly over.

John Nein, Sundance associate programmer and a recent UCLA
alumnus, helps to coordinate the many panels and seminars held
throughout the festival. Sundance strives to give filmmakers,
scholars and the press access to each other in an open, creative
environment.

“You are not just sitting in a theater watching a film;
you are being included in the community involved in making that
film,” Nein said. “You have an atmosphere more
inclusive of the filmmaking process.”

According to Nein, writers, directors and actors chat about
their work, composers perform and discuss their scores, and
documentary subjects discuss their experiences.

“The filmmakers (say) one of the greatest things about the
festival is meeting other filmmakers,” said Libresco.
“It becomes a place where artists become invigorated.
(Festivals are) contagious.”

Besides the official Sundance-sponsored panels and discussions,
Park City itself becomes an open forum for the conversing of
creativity. Sundance puts on receptions for specific awards and
programs, such as for the Sundance/NHK International Film Award,
which Nein said is “to support the development of filmmakers
and their work … (and) must be separated from the efforts of
outside companies.”

Other festivals such as Slamdance and Glamdance run in the same
area simultaneously and offer alternatively themed programming.
These festivals bring even more artists to the same area at the
same time.

According to Libresco, because the Sundance Institute is a
nonprofit organization, the Sundance Film Festival relies very
heavily on its “very loyal and generous group of
sponsors.” The festival’s sponsors give support to
Sundance and in return receive visibility and access to the
enriching market of Sundance attendees.

“It’s a wonderful symbiotic relationship,”
Libresco said. “It’s positive, and it’s
tastefully carried out.”

For example, Volkswagen provides cars for transport throughout
Park City. Adobe Systems Incorporated, which has sponsored this
year’s Sundance Shorts Program, and other sponsors host
parties to help market themselves, as well as to provide a network
for what has become known as “schmoozing.” Along with
official Sundance events and other festival happenings, each night
of Sundance offers dozens of privately and corporately hosted
social gatherings at venues around Park City. Even the UCLA School
of Theater, Film and Television hosts an annual reception
there.

But advertisers not linked to Sundance also take advantage of
the festival crowd.

“Because Sundance has become such a success, there are so
many people who want to take advantage and utilize the energy of
the festival for their own gain. Ambush marketers just show up
without supporting (the institute),” Libresco said.
“It’s a shame.”

Either way, filmmakers such as UCLA MFA Directing Candidate Rani
DeMuth are given the opportunity to meet and greet at these social
events. DeMuth’s short film “The Double” will be
screened at a parallel festival program, the Angelus Awards, in
Park City during Sundance.

DeMuth plans to take a natural approach during her social
interactions at film gatherings.

“I consider “˜schmoozing’ (as) trying to
impress people. I prefer to meet people naturally,” she
said.

“I feel much more comfortable meeting people after they
have seen my film. This way they can make judgments based on my
work, rather than what I say about my work.”

The fusion of film art and the filmmaker’s discussion of
his or her art, in a variety of settings, is what separates
Sundance from any other film experience.

Recently, Sundance has been criticized most notably as
over-commercialized, as leaning more and more toward the mainstream
market, and as containing films of interest to distributors and
filmmakers of interest to potential producers.

Film artists seem to disagree. “(I) will not be
aggressively hunting down distributors, producers, etc.”
DeMuth said.

Instead, she is interested in discussing her work and learning
what she can.

“We’re walking a line. We’re very much trying
to walk the line between the commercial and the artistic,”
said Geoff Gilmore, longtime festival director and UCLA alumnus who
also teaches in the UCLA Producers Program, in a previous interview
with the Daily Bruin.

“(Independent filmmakers) make films because they are the
kind of films directors, writers and producers want to make ““
not because they are commercially driven.”

That line has been blurred by the industry’s increasing
acceptance of independent cinema.

“If the industry expands its notion of what is viable
commercially, so be it,” said Libresco. “We are a
festival of discovery.”

Thus from the selection and screenings, to panels and parties,
the heart of Sundance lies in its unwavering dedication to the
artists of the cinema.

“It’s a festival of films, but it’s really a
festival of people and ideas, emotion and catharsis. All kinds of
positive things can come out of that,” said Libresco.
“There’s a ferment in the town of Park City.
We’re just trying to speak about art.”

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