Sundance Is Better Off Without Bringing In More Commercial Fare

In his Feb. 3 article, “Shadow Over Sundance,” Kenneth Turan decries the lack of commercial films in the dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival and beseeches the programmers to shed their outdated, anti-commercial bias.

As a festival attendee, I find it more worthwhile to see a film that might scream “obscure art film” in its program description than the studio release having its premiere at Sundance. I know I can always catch the latter in a theater. Besides, on many occasions I have found that a film shown in the dramatic competition will not be labeled commercial by distributors, yet it will show remarkable talent and alert the gathered industry types that the filmmaker is one to watch. Therefore, to program the festival with some films that could remain commercially unreleased does seem a fair approach.

In 1993, I was working as an acquisitions executive and saw a movie in the dramatic competition. Although it exhibited a tremendous amount of talent on the director’s behalf, I felt it would be difficult to market and declined distribution, as did, as I recall, most U.S. distributors. The film, “Public Access,” tied for the Grand Jury Prize that year, and its director, Bryan Singer, went on to great success with his next film, “The Usual Suspects.” I credit Sundance for introducing me to Singer’s work.

I was a producer of the film “Sunday,” which won the Grand Jury Prize in dramatic competition and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in 1997. “Sunday” was not deemed a commercial film by most distributors and did not spark a bidding war during the festival. Yet due to the critical response it received at Sundance and the awards it won there, it had a life in subsequent festivals such as Cannes and Deauville, received distribution offers and was released theatrically in the U.S. and numerous foreign territories. If Turan’s suggestion, to have the films in the premiere section compete with the films in competition, was taken, “Sunday” would have competed with such justifiable crowd-pleasers as “Chasing Amy” and might have been overlooked.

Many of the entries in the premiere section are by filmmakers who have several films under their belts already and, at times, relatively larger budgets. To pit many first-time filmmakers against these films, and to give a separate prize to a first-time filmmaker, would yield a similar prize structure to Cannes and take away from the independent spirit Sundance possesses. I imagine that Turan’s suggestion would encourage studio executives, who might want the “Sundance Winner” imprimatur on their marketing plans, to submit films that would dwarf smaller, deserving films that do not have the benefits of a large corporation financing their production and release.

Finally, Sundance is frequently criticized for the films it does not include in its festival lineup. As Sundance remains the premiere showcase for independent cinema in the United States, it is somewhat understandable that this unjust carping occurs. Filmmakers pin their hopes on the festival to such an extent that shoots are scheduled to meet Sundance deadlines, and trying to book a sound mix during the month of December is close to impossible. Due to the high volume of submissions, a few notable films are not accepted, and this creates disappointment among many filmmakers whose films might go on to great recognition upon release. To single out worthy films that were rejected by Sundance over the years, as Turan did in his article, is a pointless exercise.

I believe that the programmers of the Sundance Film Festival are doing exceptional work in an increasingly second-guessed, overly scrutinized job. In addition, I applaud Robert Redford for keeping an experimental approach to the festival that nurtures new filmmakers and allows for the rest of us to discover them.