Sundance Film Festival holds final Park City edition and will move to Boulder
The Sundance Film Festival is holding its last edition in Park City, Utah, this week after more than 40 years in the town, and will move its future home to Boulder, Colo.; it is also the first festival since the death of founder Robert Redford. Many filmmakers and industry figures at this year’s festival reflected on Park City memories.
Ethan Hawke said, “It’s hard not to feel a disturbance in the force,” noting he first came to Sundance in 1994 as an actor in Reality Bites and returned in 1995 with Before Sunrise, a film Mr. Redford chose for opening night. Matthew Greenfield recalled bringing his first film, Star Maps, to Sundance in 1997 and selling it for $2.5 million, which he said allowed him to pursue producing full time.
Mr. Redford founded Sundance in 1985 and the Sundance Institute began in 1981; the nonprofits have positioned the festival as a leading showcase for new voices. The festival this year continues that emphasis, with roughly 60 percent of programming given to first- or second-time directors, and the event has helped launch a long roster of filmmakers and films, the piece says.
The festival has long been a commercial marketplace as well as an artistic forum: Miramax’s acquisition of Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989, all-night bidding wars for films such as Reservoir Dogs, Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine, and a 2006 record when Fox Searchlight bought Little Miss Sunshine for $10.5 million are noted.
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