Considering everything the Sundance Film Festival is about, its resilience—and strength—as of this writing is something of a miracle. Of late, the annual Park City-based January event has weathered, like the rest of the movie industry, significant disruptions related to the COVID pandemic, months-long strikes by actors and writers, and most recently, a deadly natural disaster. But Sundance has also long served as the meeting ground for American independent film, a sector under particular, intense threat in the era of streaming pivots, financial consolidation, and production contraction. Talk to the makers of indies and they’ll tell you—it’s hard to get these kinds of movies off the ground right now. The kinds that have long fed Sundance, and in turn Hollywood itself.
Yet for this year’s festival, which kicks off on Thursday, a little under 16,000 films were submitted for consideration. Last year, that number was just under 17,000. Sundance’s curatorial team accepts less than 2% of that list. Clearly, a lot is getting made—and based on last year’s slate, which included newly minted Golden Globe winners A Real Pain and A Different Manplenty of it is damn good. “The fact that independent artists and storytellers are still working in such a bold way and creating so much work—that there is this much for us to consider—feels almost counter-intuitive to what the broader industry is saying,” says Eugene Hernandez, entering his second year as Sundance’s festival director.
One reason why is wider world of the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit founded in 1981 by Robert Redford that mounts the festival—in addition to, increasingly, prestigious labs for filmmakers, satellite showcases around the globe, and programs aimed at bolstering financing and distribution methods in a rapidly transforming landscape. Over decades, the Institute established a feedback loop wherein major new artists are discovered, only to return to mentor and guide the next wave.
At last January’s Governors Awards, Black Panther’s Ryan Coogler and Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao presented an honorary Oscar to Michelle Satter, who’s led the Institute’s feature film program for decades. Coogler and Zhao met as participants in the 2012 Sundance Screenwriters Lab, out of which they made their first feature films. They’re now two of Hollywood’s most decorated, in-demand directors. “We are so grateful to you,” Zhao said to Satter on stage. “We wouldn’t be here without you.” Another person in their lab, Marielle Heller, has since directed Oscar nominee Can You Ever Forgive Me? and this year’s Nightbitch. She’s returning this year as a creative advisor.
“These communities are long and life-lasting,” Satter tells me. “We’re reading next drafts, giving feedback, introducing them to producers. We’re helping them find the financing to make the movie. We’re working with them on casting, helping them find their editors, DPs. I mean, all of that.”
The list of now iconic directors who started in one of these programs, took their debut feature to Sundance, and now give back by providing mentorship is too long of a list, but suffice it to say, some of your favorite directors are surely on it. Just last year, Sean Wang’s autobiographical first feature, Dìdi (弟弟)premiered in Park City after years of development with the Institute, going on to secure distribution from Focus Features, gross nearly $5 million domestically, and earn Wang major nominations from the directors’ guild, Spirit Awards, and more.
“At the heart of Sundance is this idea of discovering and being introduced to filmmakers you might not otherwise know,” Hernandez says.
The reality remains, though, that independent film is in a tough place right now. The spotlight on Sundance feels more glaring than ever, to not just continue to platform the next generation of great directors, but to expand access and create resources for them to enjoy lasting success as the breakouts before them did. There’s nothing close to a guarantee anymore. “How do you sustain someone’s career at a time when it’s pretty hard to do that? What does that look like?” Satter says. “With the pandemic and the strikes, it’s become hard. But that doesn’t stop an artist from working. It’s one of the most important moments to support artists.” Amanda Kelso, Sundance’s new acting CEO and an alum of Google and Instagram, suggests that the organization’s role is to affirm Redford’s original Sundance blueprint: “The industry around us is changing. How do we navigate that? Our mission is to focus on elevating voices, elevating artists, putting a spotlight on folks who might not otherwise have the opportunity—and connecting them with audiences.”
The festival serves in part as a vibrant market. Famously, buzzy titles up for sale used to get snatched up overnight in heated bidding wars. “Just before the lights came up, I said, ‘I’ve got to get out of here. It’s going to get ugly,’” industry veteran John Sloss once recalled of the rousing premiere for Little Miss Sunshinewhich he worked on. “I knew everyone would want it.” (It sold to Fox Searchlight for $10.5 million before grossing more than $100 million and winning two Oscars.) Now, while an obvious breakout like A Real Pain can still scramble a deal together in a day or two—the Jesse Eisenberg film also went to Searchlight—such turnarounds are now the exception, not the rule.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I actually miss the fast pace,” says Kim Yutanithe festival’s director of programming. “You’d go to sleep and then wake up—and there’s news that something has been sold, and somebody’s been signed.” Sitting beside her on a Los Angeles café patio, Hernandez concurs: “The whole ecosystem is different and the pace of it is different. And it’s weird.”
Accordingly, Sundance’s leadership emphasizes practicality in how best to move forward. “We’re trying to help people figure out how to think about a career and build a connection to a strong producer who can really help them move their work forward,” Satter says. “A lot of filmmakers don’t think about audience, they just make their movies. But we believe strongly: You have to think about audience early on.” Hernandez adds, “[Filmmakers] are looking for any tools that they can find to keep their budgets in check, and to make the work as efficient—to keep as much time for the creativity—as possible.”
Some solutions have been less widely embraced than others. Last year, a Sundance screening of Rashaad Newsome’s Being (The Digital Griot) prodded a walkout in response to the film’s interactive artificial-intelligence component, where audience members were prodded to engage with a chatbot. A few months later, the Tribeca Film Festival sparked controversy by programming shorts made with Sora, the text-to-video AI model, that were helmed by noted directors like Nikyatu Jusu (whose Nanny won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2022). The use of AI in films continues to stir debate as access to the technology expands, and as filmmakers look for budgetary and logistical shortcuts to achieving their visions.