Focus Features

Since its humble beginnings in 1978, the Sundance Film Festival has grown to become the most important American film festival and one of the unmissable events of the international fest calendar (along with Berlin, Cannes and Venice). It has been the launchpad for the careers of numerous filmmakers – from the Coen brothers and Jim Jarmusch through to Brick’s Rian Johnson and Sin Nombre’s Cary Fukunaga – and has been the single biggest factor in the creation of a vibrant American independent film scene in the United States. Now, with the 2010 edition of Sundance in full swing, we look back at ten pivotal years in the exponential growth of Park City’s pride and joy.

The Sundance Film Festival did not begin life as the Sundance Film Festival, but rather as the Utah / US Film Festival. The initial event was first organized in 1978 in Salt Lake City, founded by Brigham Young University film grad Sterling Van Wagenen and John Earle of the Utah State Film Commission. (The festival’s name was an attempt to convey a balance between its focus on homegrown cinema and its relevance to the state’s moviegoers.) The threefold aim of the event was to attract filmmakers to Utah, to celebrate American film, and to promote the work of independent and regional filmmakers (i.e. those working outside the Hollywood system). At the time, Wagenen was working for Robert Redford’s Wildwood company, so he brought the actor and long-time Utah resident on board as the festival’s chairman. (Redford is often wrongly described as the founder of the festival.) In its first year, only eight films played in competition and Van Wagenen and Earle’s event ended up $40,000 in debt, however the fact that the competition films had done better at the box office than retrospective titles such as Midnight Cowboy, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Sweet Smell of Success was highly promising for future success.

1981 was a year of change at the Utah / US Film Festival. When the fest unspooled its third edition, it was in a new location and in a new time slot, leaving behind Salt Lake City in September for Park City (30 miles to the East) in January. The geographical and temporal move had been suggested by one of the festival’s board members, the late actor-director Sydney Pollack. Pollack’s contention was that holding a film festival in a ski resort in winter (traditionally a dead time for fests) would be irresistible to Hollywood types, and that they would inevitably comes in their droves. There was also further change afoot as the event’s title was changed to the United States Film and Video Festival, in order to reflect advances in cinematic technology. (Ironically, in 1981 the festival didn’t have the ability to show videos, only films!) Despite all this forward movement, the 1981 festival ended up putting the organization $100,000 in debt – in large part due to heavy snow during the fest which had impacted negatively on attendance – however the securing of loans and further funding ensured this would not be the event’s swansong.

In 1985, the festival we now know as Sundance was still operating under the title of the US Film Festival, however this was the year in which it was taken over by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. The Institute, which was founded in 1980 and began running its Sundance Institute Filmmakers/Directors Lab in 1981, had Sterling Van Wagenen as its Executive Director, so its fusion with the US Film Festival was an extremely intuitive decision. The partnership was mutually beneficial: Sundance gained greater prominence from the festival, while the fest now had the financial support to fulfill its burgeoning potential. And the 80 films on show in 1985 ably demonstrated the festival’s new direction. Joel and Ethan Coen’s neo-noir debut Blood Simple was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize. Jim Jarmusch’s breakthrough feature Stranger Than Paradise took a Special Jury Prize in the dramatic section. And Rob Epstein’s classic documentary The Times of Harvey Milk won a Special Jury Prize in the non-fiction section.

In 1989, the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic features went to Nancy Savoca’s romantic comedy True Love, and a documentary about the Apollo missions, For All Mankind, scooped both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the non-fiction category. Michael Lehmann’s cult teen movie Heathers played for the first time, there was centennial celebration of Charlie Chaplin’s birth, and a retrospective of John Cassavetes’ work. But it was the other Audience Award winner, Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape, which stole all the headlines. The movie was the breakout film of the festival, and provoked huge interest among studio acquisitions reps as well as enthusiasm from critics and audience members. Bought by Miramax, the movie delivered on its promise, winning the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival later that year and grossing an impressive $25 million at the U.S. box office. (Its budget was just over $1 million.) What’s more, the movie’s success only heightened the mystique of the festival and solidified the belief that anybody could hit the jackpot in Park City: the year before, Soderbergh had been in Park City––working as a volunteer driver.

After six years of sponsorship from the Sundance Institute (which also celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1991), the US Film Festival acknowledged the crucial role of his partner by rebranding itself as the Sundance Film Festival. The films at the 1991 festival––the first under the stewardship of Geoffrey Gilmore––revealed the emergence of a bold new generation of American indie narrative filmmakers. Writer-director Todd Haynes was the major story of the festival, with his first feature, the Jean Genet-inspired triptych of stories, Poison, winning the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic section, and raising the profile of New Queer Cinema movement. (The following year, Tom Kalin’s Swoon and Gregg Araki’s The Living End played at the festival, and B. Ruby Rich wrote her seminal “New Queer Cinema” article for Sight and Sound).Also making his debut was Richard Linklater, whose movie Slacker, a free-flowing portrait of his hometown of Austin, TX, won huge acclaim and was picked up by Orion Classics. Made for just $23,000, it inspired a spate of ultra low-budget American indies which would crop up at the festival in years to come. In addition, Hal Hartley’s sophomore feature, Trust, and John Sayles’ City of Hope played, both underlining the talent and important role of their auteurs in the “Sundance generation”.

While the 1994 Sundance Film Festival had screenings of high-profile, glossier movies – such as two High Grant movies, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Sirens – the year very much belonged to low budget filmmakers. Many of the movies to emerge from the festival were made on a shoestring budget: David O. Russell’s darkly funny take on incest, Spanking the Monkey, Rose Troche’s spunky lesbian romcom, Go Fish, and Kevin Smith’s foul-mouthed slacker comedy Clerks. (The latter two were even in black-and-white!) Smith’s film, a debut feature made for around $27,000 (funded on a string of maxed out credit cards) won the Filmmakers Trophy (voted for by fellow directors) at the festival and walked away with a distribution deal from Miramax. Like Slacker three years before, its success continued after Park City: it played at Cannes later that year, grossed over $3 million at the U/S. box office, and launched Smith as a fresh new voice in U.S. indie cinema.

The 1996 edition of the Sundance Film Festival was all about extremes: big crowds, deep snow, and lots of deals being done. The 10,000 people who flocked there that year was a record, as was the snowfall – a (literally) staggering 10 feet fell over the course of the festival’s 10 days. An increasingly large number of those attendees were looking for the next sensation of the festival, a film that could be picked up relatively cheap and then break out in the way that movies like Clerks had in 1994. Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein, the most passionate pursuer of potential acquisitions, famously got into a fistfight with producer Jon Taplin over the feelgood biopic of Australian pianist David Helfgott, Shine, one of the buzz titles of 1996, after another distributor got the rights to the movie ahead of Miramax. (You can read more about that incident here.) The big winner in ’96 was Welcome to the Dollhouse, Todd Solondz’s caustically comic portrayal of the perils of adolescence which took home the Grand Jury Prize, while Leon Gast’s Ali/Foreman documentary When We Were Kings (Special Jury Prize) and Big Night, the culinary drama co-directed by actors Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci (Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award), also stood out among the films on show that year.

Every so often, one particular film dominates at Sundance: it happened with Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape in 1989, and again with Kevin Smith’s Clerks in 1994. Both times, cinephiles were excited by the movies’ bold new approaches, while the buyers became even more motivated to go to great lengths to discover the next such breakout movie. And then in 1999, there was The Blair Witch Project. When it first played at the 1999 festival, the fake found footage movie about three doomed hikers had numerous audience believing that what they were watching was real, and even those who realized it was fiction were terrified. Made by debutant directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick for around $22,000, it caused an acquisitions war in Park City which was won by Artisan, who paid over $1 million for distribution rights. Released that summer with a savvy marketing campaign, it grossed $140 Stateside, plus another $100 million plus worldwide. Blair Witch will always been the first thing people remember of Sundance ’99 however, ironically it was a film about a low-budget horror flick, Chris Smith’s funny and poignant doc American Movie, which was the other breakout movie of the year, winning the Grand Jury Prize in the non-fiction and then enjoying (more modest) box office success later in the year.

In 2002, the Winter Olympics in nearby Salt Lake City forced the festival to change its dates and in 2003 the attendance of high profiles celebrities unattached to any movie at the festival stole the spotlight somewhat. But after those disruptions and distractions, 2004 returned things to normal with what might be called a “classic” Sundance year. Which is to say, the movies – good, low-budget movies – were the focus of attention. The two Grand Jury Prize winners that year were both labors of love: Shane Carruth’s sci-fi puzzler Primer overcame its meager financial means (Carruth wrote, directed, produced, scored, cast, edited, sound designed and played the lead role) with ingenious inventiveness and narrative dexterity; and Ondi Timoner’s doc DiG, about the bands the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, was made over the course of seven years, with Timoner acting as director, editor, producer and fundraiser on the project. Other high profile winners in 2004 were Joshua Marston’s Columbia-set drama Maria Full of Grace (Audience Award: Dramatic) and Morgan Spurlock’s stomach-turning doc on McDonald’s, Super Size Me (Documentary Directing Award). However, the movie that was closest to home, geographically speaking, proved the most successful on the national stage. Napoleon Dynamite, which was picked up by Fox Searchlight and went on to earn $44 million at the box office, was directed by Jared Hess, a resident of nearby Salt Lake City. 

If we’re looking at the years that shaped the festival, how about this year? Yes, the festival is not even half-finished as I write this, but there is good reason to pick 2010.
Part of the mystique of the Sundance Film Festival is that every time January rolls around, attendees start getting excited about returning to Park City. Regardless of how any given year’s line-up may look on paper in advance of the festival, it always has the potential to be revelatory and game-changing. Plus, this year is the start of a new regime at Sundance. In 2009, Geoffrey Gilmore stood down as head of the festival after close to two decades in charge, and so this first festival of the new decade is a fresh start for Sundance. Incoming festival director of the festival, John Cooper – who has worked for the festival since 1989 – has stressed his focus on old school values and backed up his talk with the introduction of Next, a programming strand for features with a budget under $500,000. In addition, 2010 is the first year for the Sundance USA program, which takes certain films from the festival on tour around the country, and a collaboration with YouTube which sees a selection of films premiering online at the same time as at Park City.