Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is an international film festival held annually the last two weeks of January in the town of Park City, near Salt Lake City, the capital of the state of Utah., in United States.

History

It was inaugurated in 1978 under the name U. S. Film Festival of Utah, using the image of actor Robert Redford to attract studios and distributors that without his reputation would probably not have supported the initiative. The Sundance Institute Filmmakers/Directors Lab was founded in 1981 as a Redford initiative to bring together a group of friends and colleagues who would encourage and support independent filmmaking, regardless of market demands.

"We have nothing to do with distribution (...) Our work and our role is to create a space and a platform to bring new voices to the world".

Robert Redford

The Sundance Institute has brought together screenwriters and directors since its founding to develop their independent film projects, which later expanded to theater and film music. The Sundance Institute assumed in 1985 creative and administrative control of the U.S. Film Festival, which in the 1991 edition would begin to bear the name Sundance Film Festival. The festival that year included the screening of titles such as The Falcon and the Snowman, The Killing Fields, the Coen brothers' debut Blood Simple and Stranger Than Paradise. Over the years there have been movies like Hannah and Her Sisters, Hairspray (which years later would be remade in Hollywood), Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Night on Earth, the Mexican Like Water for Chocolate, Four Weddings and a Funeral, the Cuban Strawberry and Chocolate i>, the French-Brazilian Central do Brasil, The Opposite of Sex, The Blair Witch Project, The Virgin Suicides, American Psycho, Donnie Darko, Memento and Little Miss Sunshine, among others.

The name of the festival ("Sundance") comes from the character that Robert Redford himself played in 1969 in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Every year 200 films are selected to be exhibited among more than 9000 that are presented. More than 50,000 people attend the Park City, Salt Lake City, Odgen and Sundance facilities in Utah. In addition to discovering new talent through the screening of documentaries, dramas, and short films, attendees can enjoy live music performances, panel discussions with the most prominent creators and figures in the film industry, and state-of-the-art installations, among other activities.

In addition to hosting the Sundance Film Festival each year, the Sundance Institute has the following initiatives to support independent filmmakers and artists: Feature Film Program, Documentary Film Program Documentaries), Theater Program, Native American and Indigenous Program, Film Music Program, Creative Producing Initiative, Sundance Institute Archives from the Sundance Institute), the Sundance Institute Collection at UCLA, and the Alumni Initiative, as well as programs for the Utah community.