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Sundance’s Foreign Affair
International moviemakers look to Sundance for success on the world cinema circuit
Adam Elliot's Mary and Max (2009).
During the past two decades, Sundance has played an essential role in crafting the landscape of modern American cinema. But the widespread mythology of the Soderberghs and Tarantinos—whose careers began amid the deep freeze of mid-January gatherings in Park City—often overwhelm another key factor of the Sundance program: World cinema.
Although the program has always contained an international range of features, gradual changes to the event in recent years have allowed titles from other countries to stand on equal ground with their American counterparts. Movies from Japan, the Philippines and Germany screened at the festival in 1985, when the Sundance Institute took over the United States Film Festival, but a solid 10 years passed before the fest began giving awards to foreign entries. That was 1995, when Sundance added a jury prize in Latin cinema (Sergio Cabrera’s Eagles Don’t Hunt Flies won). Around this same time, the Institute hosted labs on several continents and developed strategies for bringing international artists to its domestic programs. “All of these activities strengthened the festival’s international relationships, and vice versa,” says senior programmer Caroline Libresco.
The first years of the new millennium brought a flurry of honors for world cinema. In 2003, a jury prize in international short moviemaking became a permanent fixture; prizes for dramatic and documentary world cinema began in 2005. Finally, in 2008, Sundance created world cinema awards for each of the categories allotted to American films, including excellence in cinematography, screenwriting and directing. “When we started the actual competition, that’s when we made our first decision for a global reach, which brought a real learning curve,” says John Cooper, Sundance’s director of festival programming.
The gradual recognition of international movies at Sundance was less the result of negligence than the product of the festival’s increased stability. “Although it has a high profile, Sundance has always been a small festival and, in truth, one that was generally associated with American film,” explains programmer John Nein.
Nein’s colleague, David Courier, echoes the sentiment: “We were defining ourselves as an American film festival,” he says. “Other countries’ stories were being told all over the world. We realized we needed to be telling those stories. The awards are beside the point.” Still, according to Nein, “the success of the competition has made it slightly easier over the years to find the type of films that we feel have a place at Sundance. It’s been fairly astonishing how quickly filmmakers in different parts of the world have become aware of the festival and want to bring their work here.”
While there hasn’t been the same frequency of breakout movies from other countries at Sundance that American entries have enjoyed, it’s not for lack of effort.
The programmers put aside a significant part of the year traveling the globe to ensure that no major festival remains off their collective radar. Regional sales agents also often arrange screenings of movies that aren’t included in the local programs. For example, while attending a festival in Thailand, midnight section programmer Trevor Groth screened a number of martial arts movies. Libresco has made numerous trips to Israel, keeping track of the burgeoning film community in the Middle East.
Unlike its American submissions, Sundance doesn’t require movies in the World Cinema competition categories to be world premieres, which broadens the range of possibilities. “We allow films to play in their countries of origin,” Nein says. “We basically divide and conquer the globe by traveling to festivals from all over the world.”
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- Comment by Crazy Vision on 9/10/11 at 12:09 pm
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This story was published in the Winter 2009 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
A Foreign Affair
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