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Sundance’s Foreign Affair
International moviemakers look to Sundance for success on the world cinema circuit
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The result of these efforts became particularly clear in the early years of this decade, when notably complex international cinema premiered at the festival and gradually found new audiences. Tony Takitani, Tears of the Black Tiger and Shake Hands with the Devil all left memorable imprints—and each eventually landed American distribution deals, a feat that has become increasingly difficult even for domestic independent work.
The following year, the festival program contained movies from more than two dozen countries. The arrival of the bittersweet narrative Captain Abu Raed marked a seminal moment in cinema history, as it was the first feature produced in Jordan. James Marsh’s stunning British documentary, Man on Wire, about Philippe Petit’s famous 1974 antics atop the World Trade Center towers, won the World Cinema Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature in addition to the Audience Award. It later went on to gross nearly $3 million in the U.S. alone. The festival also featured the British documentary Young@Heart, which was distributed by Fox Searchlight.
“We look at our international program with the attitude that it should contain a certain overall balance,” says Nein. “That means in terms of the regions it represents, the diversity of the stories and aesthetics and the experience of the filmmaker.” Nevertheless, Nein insists that foreign movies aren’t programmed on the basis of their origins. “We don’t have hard rules or quotas about any of that,” he says. “Obviously, with only 16 slots, you can’t program a film from every country that submits one.”
Sundance’s programmers keep their eyes peeled. They maintain a list of movies screening all over the world and frequently touch base with people involved in international productions to minimize oversights. “Toward the final days of the selection process, we do step back and look at the overall composure of the competition to make sure that it represents a range of work and isn’t too heavily weighted in any direction,” Nein notes. Certain countries may have a greater presence than others as a result of the comparative strengths of their domestic industries—Western Europe, the United Kingdom and France tend to be particularly fecund, for example—but not to the point where, say, a Captain Abu Raed would be knocked off the short list.
The number of countries represented in this year’s program has decreased from 2008. But given that there were 153 more foreign submissions than last year’s crop, the final result was not without its diverse components.
The competition sections together contain seven films from the U.K., where the industry appears to be making a comeback. Cooper notes the inclusion of the Palestinian narrative Amreeka, directed by Cherien Dabis. Palestinian cinema has yet to garner much scrutiny on the world stage, and the movie’s female director helps single it out. “That’s a rarity we’re happy to celebrate,” Cooper says, “but we never come into the selection looking for something in particular.”
As it happens, even the festival’s opening night film, the claymation drama Mary and Max, has international stature: It hails from Australia.
Meanwhile, Sundance has to keep the local population satisfied. “Our audiences for the foreign films have been great,” Courier says. “We’re in the middle of Utah, so it’s their big opportunity to see films they might never see again.” Artists usually don’t like to hear that their work will fade away, but Cooper believes moviemakers traveling to Park City from other countries aren’t necessarily preoccupied with a sales strategy. “Most aren’t so deadset on their film breaking them into something,” he says. “They’re really thinking about expanding their careers to directing American films, as well.”
Which means Sundance, even its global capacity, ultimately serves its base. “In America, everybody knows about Sundance,” Cooper says. “The stuff comes in, we try to keep our reputation up and they trust us, so it works. The world cinema, they’re seeing more of the old school pipeline—Venice, Cannes—and we’re still figuring out our place in that.”
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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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