Slumdance Film Festival

The Slumdance film festival^[1] was a film festival held in Park City, Utah in January, 1997 by founder Brian Flemming in a converted Mrs. Fields cookie factory on Main Street.^[2][3] It featured seven rooms for films, five of them being VCR rooms and one 16mm and one 35 mm room.^[4] The festival held a screening at the Silver Mine of R. D. Robb's "Don's Plum," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.^[5] It was the third largest festival in Park City for several years. The festival was in existence until 2003, when all the counterfestivals (that is, all the film festivals created as an alternative to the Sundance Film Festival) were forced out of existence by Park City officials. Other festivals forced out that year included the Nodance Film Festival and the Slamdunk Film Festival. The only festival that was allowed to stay was the Slamdance Film Festival.

Slumdance was set up like a slum, and had a mission area that served free soup, a "Tent City" which was decorated like hobo housing.^[6] The converted Slumdance space was 6000 square feet in total.^[6] A total of 150 submissions were entered by opening night, and made a press release that stated "Slumdance Stuns Movie World by Existing".^[6]

The event garnered some media attention, the parties attracted celebrities including Tim Robbins.^[7] A brief interview followed on the Sundance Channel and included questionable comments directed at Sundance mogul Robert Redford.^[7] An internet based site calling itself the "Slumdance Historical Preservation Society" confirmed that Slumdance would not occur the following year.^[7]

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