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 Competition, Robert Redford developed a imaginative and prescient that may reshape on-screen storytelling as we all know it. Sundance opened doorways for a number of generations of filmmakers who won’t in any other case have gained entry to the film enterprise.
Redford, who died Tuesday at age 89, was already a vastly profitable actor, producer and director, having simply gained an Oscar for his directorial debut “Bizarre Individuals,” when he based the Sundance Institute as a assist system for unbiased filmmakers. His Utah property, named after his position in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child,” would develop into a haven for creativity in an idyllic setting.
Evincing a rugged, hands-on angle marked by curiosity and enthusiasm in regards to the work, Redford embodied a philosophy for Sundance that was clear from its earliest days.
“Once I began the Institute, the main studios dominated the sport, which I used to be part of,” Redford stated to The Occasions through e mail in 2021. “I needed to deal with the phrase ‘independence’ and people sidelined by the majors — supporting these sidelined by the dominant voices. To present them a voice. The intent was to not cancel or go in opposition to the studios. It wasn’t about going in opposition to the mainstream. It was about offering one other avenue and extra alternative.”
The primary of the Sundance Lab applications, which proceed in the present day, additionally launched in 1981, bringing rising filmmakers collectively within the mountains to develop tasks with the assist of extra established advisers.
The Institute would take over a small movie competition in Utah, the U.S. Movie Competition, for its 1985 version and finally rename it the Sundance Movie Competition, a showcase that may go on to introduce administrators similar to Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nia DaCosta, Taika Waititi, Gregg Araki, Damien Chazelle and numerous others whereas refashioning unbiased filmmaking right into a viable profession path.
Earlier than directing “Black Panther” and “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler went by means of the Sundance Lab originally 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 instance of tips on how to leverage success into neighborhood constructing, discovery, and empowerment,” Coogler stated in an announcement to The Occasions on Tuesday. “I’ll be eternally grateful for what he did when he empowered and supported Michelle Satter in growing the Sundance Labs. In these making an attempt occasions it hurts to lose an elder like Mr. Redford — somebody who by means of their phrases, their actions and their dedication left their business in a greater place than they discovered it.”
Chloé Zhao’s debut function “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” premiered on the competition in 2015 after she took the undertaking by means of the labs. Along with her later effort “Nomadland,” Zhao would go on to develop into the second girl — and nonetheless the one girl of colour — to win the Academy Award for steering.
“Sundance modified my life,” Zhao stated in an announcement on Tuesday. “I didn’t know anybody within the business or tips on how to get my first movie made. Being accepted into the Sundance Labs was like coming into a lush and nurturing backyard holding my tiny fragile seedling and watching it take root and develop. It was there I discovered my voice, turned part of a neighborhood I nonetheless treasure deeply in the present day.”
Satter, Sundance Institute‘s founding senior director of artist applications, was concerned for the reason that group’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 really feel like we have been a part of the dialog, a part of constructing Sundance, proper from the start,” Satter stated of Redford in a 2021 interview. “He was actually considering others’ viewpoint, all views. On the similar time, he had an actual readability of imaginative and prescient and what he needed this to be.”
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For a few years Redford was certainly the face of the movie competition, making frequent appearances and frequently talking on the opening press convention. Beginning in 2019 he diminished his public position on the competition, in tandem with the second he stepped again from performing.
The competition has gone by means of many various eras through the years, with competition administrators handing off management from Geoffrey Gilmore to John Cooper to Tabitha Jackson and present fest director Eugene Hernandez.
The competition has additionally weathered modifications within the business, as streaming platforms have upended distribution fashions. Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 drama “intercourse, lies and videotape” is usually 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 patrons might purchase motion pictures for distribution and scout new expertise.
“Earlier than Sundance, there wasn’t actually a market for brand new voices and unbiased movie in the way in which that we all know it in the present day,” stated Kent Sanderson, chief government of Bleecker Avenue, which has premiered a number of movies on the competition through the years. “The way in which Sundance helps filmmakers by giving their early works an actual platform is essential to the well being of our enterprise.”
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. Traders come to scope out movies and filmmakers look to boost cash.
“It began with Redford having this imaginative and prescient of eager to create an setting the place various approaches to filmmaking could possibly be supported and thrive,” stated Joe Pichirallo, an arts professor at NYU’s Tisch Faculty of the Arts and one of many unique executives at Searchlight Photos. “And he succeeded and it’s persevering with. Regardless that the enterprise goes by means of numerous modifications, Sundance’s significance as a mecca for unbiased movie remains to be fairly excessive.”
On the 2006 competition, “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 competition, the labs and the institute have remained a relentless by means of all of it, persevering with to incubate contemporary expertise to launch to the business.
“Redford put collectively principally a manufacturing facility of tips on how to do unbiased movies,” stated Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Photos Classics. Over time the corporate has distributed many titles that premiered at Sundance, together with “Name My by Your Identify” and “Whiplash.”
“He tailored because the panorama modified,” Bernard added of the longevity of Sundance’s affect. “And as you watched the evolution to the place it’s in the present day, it’s an incredible journey and an incredible feat that he did for the world of unbiased movie. It wouldn’t be the identical with out him.”
By all of it, Redford balanced his roles between his personal profession making and starring in motion pictures and main Sundance. Filmmaker Allison Anders, whose 1992 movie “Fuel Meals Lodging” was among the many earliest breakout titles from the Sundance Movie Competition, remembered Redford on Instagram.
“You possibly can simply have simply been the perfect wanting man to stroll into any room and stopped there and lived off of that your entire life,” Anders wrote. “You needed to assist writers and filmmakers like me who have been shut out to create characters not seen earlier than, and you probably did. You possibly can have simply been good-looking. However you nurtured us.”
The upcoming 2026 Sundance Movie Competition in January would be the final one in its longtime dwelling of Park Metropolis, Utah. The competition had beforehand introduced {that a} tribute to Redford and his imaginative and prescient of the competition could be part of that remaining bow, which is able to now carry an added emotional resonance.
Beginning in 2027, the Sundance Movie Competition 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 stated in 2021 in regards to the founding of the Institute, “I believed within the idea and since it was simply that, an idea, I anticipated and hoped that it could evolve over time. And fortunately, it has.”
Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.
