Robert Redford gave a history lesson about the Sundance Institute during the Sundance Film Festival’s opening-day press conference Thursday.
“Thirty years ago, I wanted to create a space where independent artists with new ideas and new voices could have a place to develop,” Redford said as he addressed journalists who attended the conference at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre and those who listened via live stream on www.sundance.org . “We started on a shoestring. I felt bad about that at the time, but as I look back I feel it was a good thing, as scary as it was. Because that has become our core keeping that shoestring idea in place.
“We are now at a point where we ask ourselves, ‘Why are we here? What’s our point?'”
The point of the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Institute hasn’t changed in all these years, Redford said.
“As things get bigger and larger and more successful, keeping (the shoestring idea) as part of our core has always felt right,” he said. “That’s why the festival has the look and feel it does today.”
What started out as a small filmmakers’ lab has become an institution that has reached the far corners of the world, Redford said.
“We’ve enabled the festival to go international and to bring these stories here from other countries,” he said. “We can see the pain and suffering from these people all over the world and see we all have a common interest.
“Their stories cross borders and cross ways of thinking and we bring them here and share them with audiences.”
As the institute and the festival grew in popularity, Redford realized they had an obligation to these new filmmakers to help them develop audiences in any way possible.
“That lead to the idea of the Sundance Channel and the Sundance Cinemas,” Redford said. “There were a series of opportunities we took advantage of. And as this has gone on, we kept asking the same questions: ‘What are we doing? ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘What is the point of all of this?’ That will always be our place.”
This year, the Sundance Institute is tapping into digital media said, executive director Keri Putman, who, with festival director John Cooper, also participated in the press conference.
“We’re also connecting with the audience through Sundance Select and our shorts on YouTube,” she said. “We will do 15 live streams throughout the festival and we are continually looking what we can do in that space.”
Sundance Select, a video-on-demand found outlet on major cable operators, launched in 2009.
The institute is also increasing public programming, Putnam said.
“We’re doing screenings and workshops all over the country,” she said. “We’re doing this in partnerships with many theaters, art-house projects and, most recently, the Ford Foundation, who has supported our documentary programs.”
In addition, the institute has joined with President Obama’s Committee of Arts and Humanities on a global project called Film Forward, which will travel to other countries in the world, Putnam said.
“We also launched a theatre lab in East Africa and most recently announced we will bring our feature-film lab to India,” she said.
As far as new Sundance Film Festival programs that are happening in the next few days, Cooper said he was especially proud of the Documentary Premieres.
“We dug deep and talked to the documentary community and created a section that mirrors the Sundance Premieres section that enriches and enhances our commitment to documentaries,” he said.
With growth, there will always be some challenges, Cooper said.
One is the fact they lost the Racquet Club screening room, which was torn down to make room for the new Park City Recreation Center in Park Meadows.
“It’s a big theatre for us,” Cooper said. “I think we’re going to feel that with the seats we lost, oddly enough, during one of our biggest years.”
Cooper also took a swipe at the opportunists who see festival-goers as captive audiences.
“I fear the ongoing ambush marketers are back,” he said. “At an event this size, it’s expected, but I wish they would contribute to independent film, or art in general, but I feel the real magic happens in the theatres and our official venues, anyway.”