Sundance Film Festival

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The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival in the United States, and ranks alongside the Cannes, France, Venice, Italy, Berlin, Germany, and Toronto, Canada festivals as one of the most prestigious in the world. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the U.S. [1] Held annually 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.

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The festival has morphed 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, camera-toting paparazzi, and luxury-goods company sponsors giving "swag" gifts to the elite attendees. In recent years the festival has strived to distance itself from these distractions, and in 2007 handed out buttons to all filmmakers that read, "Focus on Film."

[edit] History

Sundance 2002
Sundance 2002

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, El Mariachi, Clerks, sex, lies, and videotape, and Napoleon Dynamite.

Within the last ten years, corporate America has also 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]

[edit] 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]

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