There is a faraway land that independent filmmakers dream of. It is a land of untold (six-figure) riches. It is a land of ice palaces and pleasantly guffawing Hollywood bigwigs. It is a land where the manicpixiedreamgirl roams free. It is Utah. Welcome to the Sundance Film Festival.
Sundance is the uncontested champion of independent film competitions. Founded by Robert Redford (the original Sundance Kid, hence the iconic name), the festival takes place in Park City, Utah every winter. The festival was originally called the Utah Film Festival and took place in the height of summer, when Utah is about as interesting as the Book of Mormon, but was rebranded and moved to winter on the advice of the late Sydney Pollock, who sagely noticed that the movers and shakers of Hollywood would be more interested in the film festival if they could use it as an excuse for a skiing holiday.
Sundance has cemented its position as one of the most important film festivals in the world: whilst Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Berlin are still the go-to prestige events, Sundance is a showcase for films financed outside of the studio system. Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky all got their big breaks at the festival and, as a result, the queues of independent filmmakers lining up to follow suit are miles long. In 2012 there were in excess of 10,000 feature films submitted, with only 200 films programmed, which works out as a one in 50 shot at getting in. Apparently that slim chance is worth the $100 entry fee.
But whilst the festival is something of a gladiatorial arena for indie filmmakers, for the discerning cinephile it’s a veritable bordello of unheard treasures. Last year’s top winners in the Documentary and Dramatic awards, The House I Live In and Beasts of the Southern Wild, have both been nominated for Oscars. Other recent hits at the festival include Lee Daniels’s slightly nauseating social chore Precious; the greatest hillbilly Western of all time, Winter’s Bone; and 2012’s unnerving but electric Martha Marcy May Marlene. Not a bad selection of films to get to see, especially given the fact that the distributors will all be in the audiences in Park City, like circling sharks waiting to snap up a commercially viable indie hit, so these films won’t be in cinemas for another year or so.
The 2013 Sundance promises to be every bit as intriguing. Given that Redford’s experimental Sundance London project at the 02 has been a massive critical and commercial failure, you probably won’t be bothering to watch these films for a while (unless you’re planning to hotfoot it to Utah and bail on 3rd week). Matthew McConaughey’s Mud is being pushed for acting prizes already, whilst Before Midnight (the sequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset) is hot property and currently without a distributor. I think Park Chan-Wook’s Stoker looks dynamite, whilst there’s also some good buzz surrounding The East, starring Brit Marling and Ellen Page. And, if worse comes to worst, you can always fix your attention on Kill Your Darlings, which stars Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg (looking strangely like Dan from Gossip Girl).
Sundance is a film festival that holds enormous power in the industry and, therefore, gets a huge number of column inches devoted to it. But it deserves every one of them, because it’s the single biggest platform for indie films and manages to level the playing field somewhat. So, Sundance, have a few more inches, courtesy of Cherwell.
