“There’s no place like it.” So said filmmaker Todd Field when asked to qualify the Sundance Film Festival’s impact on his life and career. He knows the fest’s landscape well after having debuted his In The Bedroom there in 2001. Field had that magical Sundance experience most aspiring auteurs only dream about: His feature directorial debut got accepted, screened to rave reviews, got acquired by a distributor out of the festival, earned a special jury prize for actors Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson, and went on to land five Oscar nominations including one for best picture.
“I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am today without Sundance, and there are many people who would say the same,” Field explained. He was right about that, too, as we found dozens of others who agree. As part of The Hollywood Reporter’s ultimate oral history to mark the festival’s final bow in Park City, Utah, before it moves to a new home in Boulder, Colorado, we asked auteurs to sound off on how Sundance changed them. Below is a compilation of those answers featuring loving words from the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Karyn Kusama, Ed Burns, Kenneth Lonergan, Rian Johnson, Justin Lin, Sian Heder, Ryan Coogler, Chloe Zhao and more.
QUENTIN TARANTINO (Reservoir Dogs) It’s like a big film camp. A lot of money is spent to host this two to three week event of creativity [for the labs]. It’s a lot of money and a lot of people are dedicating their time to give us a chance to start off on the right foot by saying, “Hey, we see you. You’re young and starting out but we see you. We might get on your case and we might bust your balls but we see you.” I almost couldn’t believe something could be that artistically philanthropic. Thank you very much, Mr. Redford.
TODD FIELD (In the Bedroom) There’s no place like it. I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am today without Sundance, and there are many people who would say the same. In addition to Bob, Michelle Satter has done so much for the festival by championing filmmakers and really being a beacon all these years.
KARYN KUSAMA (Girlfight) Sundance completely changed my life almost overnight. I’d been working in the dark until I went there and finally got representation. To finally have people helping me to get my work made means everything. It may not necessarily get you everything you want or hope for, but it gets you closer. Sundance introduced me to this huge network of people who became allies over my lifetime.
KENNETH LONERGAN (You Can Count on Me, Manchester by the Sea) After Sundance, I flew to L.A. for meetings at every single studio. I had been making a living as a screenwriter for eight years but had never gotten a job that wasn’t a comedy because the first script I sold was Analyze This. Hollywood will only hire you for work you’ve already done. It was a weird fantasy when I arrived because studios offered me whatever I wanted. “We’re doing this, that or this. Would you like to write, rewrite and direct this?” I found it blood curdling because when you get offered to rewrite and direct something you haven’t even read shows you the degree of respect they have for that script. I was the same person I had been a week earlier but because I had won a prize in Utah, suddenly I was a big shot. This is what is known as luck. Not to knock my own movie — I think it’s wonderful and I’m very fond of it — but the fact that it led my career to line up was serendipity and not fate. My father always used to say that you have to be ready for luck, but it’s stupid not to recognize it for what it is.
EDWARD BURNS (The Brothers McMullen) When we got into the festival, the great James Schamus who works with Ted Hope, gave me a bit of advice. He said, “Eddie, look, regardless of what happens with your movie, you’re never going to be hotter than you are for those two weeks at the festival. It’s a feeding frenzy. If you have another screenplay, you should bring it because people will be inclined to buy it.” I did not have another screenplay so I immediately sat down and wrote a script for She’s the One. Since people didn’t think we would sell McMullen, I basically wrote a funnier version of the movie and replaced the older brother with a father. After Searchlight bought my movie, they asked what I wanted to do next. And I handed them my script and a week later when I went to L.A. for meetings, Searchlight greenlit She’s the One.
RIAN JOHNSON (Brick) I wouldn’t be a professional filmmaker right now if it weren’t for Sundance. There’s a discourse every year about the ebb and flow of it in certain regards — Is it more corporate? Less corporate? More sales? Less sales? — but for it to have consistently been as relevant as it has for as long as it has is extraordinary. It speaks to the programmers and the folks that keep the train on the tracks all these years.
LAUREN GREENFIELD (Thin, Queen of Versailles) In photojournalism, people are super competitive. I was in a collective called Seven and it was knives out with everyone wanting to kill each other. Sundance’s doc community is nothing like that; it’s a place where everyone supports each other, shares resources, makes suggestions for grants and crews and offers notes. It inspired me to create mini labs for all of my films to replicate the Sundance lab. I bring in old school editors and do note sessions. The dialogue has been important for my filmmaking. Sundance delivered a new revelation for what a documentary film could be. When I started, there were only two places for docs, HBO and PBS. Then came the explosion of streamers followed by a constriction. In my view, Sundance has never been more important because independent film is in crisis, maybe even a worse one than when Redford created Sundance. We need community and we need new possibilities we don’t even know about yet to be born.
JUSTIN LIN (Better Luck Tomorrow) Sundance has been a guardian angel on my whole journey as a filmmaker. It’s affected all my relationships in this business. I am far from being an indie guy now but Sundance taught me so much about making big budget movies whereas a lot of times commerce is such a big part of it, but I’m always trying to find the indie spirit in every experience.
SIAN HEDER (Tallulah, CODA) Leaving Sundance the year of Tallulah, I was on the plane with all these agents and filmmakers and my newborn and 2-year-old. I was trying to breastfeed and then my 2-year-old started throwing up. Then my son started screaming while I was trying to hold the vomit bag. I looked over at Chad Hartigan, who had a film in the festival that year, and he looked like this single, hipster filmmaker carrying an iPad with his headphones on. He looked over at me like, what a shit show lady.
ZACH BRAFF (Garden State) Sundance completely launched my whole career as a filmmaker. The badge of honor of going to Sundance in that era and getting that reaction, and then having the two biggest companies at the time co-release you because neither wants to let you go, it really set me up in a way that continues to reverberate. Garden State went on from Sundance and I won an Independent Spirit Award for best first feature, it got cited by the National Board of Review, it won a Grammy for the soundtrack, I got a Writers Guild nomination, all these things. It really shot me to a level that I wasn’t prepared for while doing Scrubs.
KIMBERLY PEIRCE (Boys Don’t Cry) Robert Redford made and supported great films. But what he really did, I think, here, is he built a refuge and the conditions for radically dangerous honesty — for wonderful, diverse, unique, difficult and compelling human stories to be made, launched and supported. He didn’t just create a festival. He created a place where artists could take moral risks, where emotional honesty was protected, where work that would challenge and move audiences could be nurtured — work that would never survive inside a purely commercial system. That restraint could be radical. And empathy could be political. Because of him — and because of Michelle Satter and because of the Sundance Institute and Festival — I became part of an artistic community for life.
RYAN COOGLER (Fruitvale Station) With [Chloé Zhao, Marielle Heller] in the lab, we felt like our lives were changing. We were all young filmmakers, but we weren’t rookies. We had been through graduate film school, made things, lived lives. Going into this last year in Utah, we were all just reflecting on Michelle Satter and the community that we formed. We still check on each other. We still talk and support each other. We still root for each other. I got to give Chloé a hug [for Hamnet], give Joachim [Trier] a hug [for Sentimental Value] and tell him what I thought of his movies. He was an advisor for us in the lab. It’s a real thing that happened to us in that place, and we carry it with us.
CHLOÉ ZHAO (Songs My Brothers Taught Me) Ryan Coogler put in a really good word for me with Nate Moore, who was a producer for Eternals. I later found out from Marvel that he really was the one saying, “You guys have got to go with Chloé. She’s amazing.” He showed up at my premiere for Hamnet in Telluride, and we were able to sit together and reflect. Marielle Heller did a Q&A for me. This past summer, David Lowery was doing a workshop at Pixar and he took a day off to come down to L.A. because I needed someone to help me with the Buffy pilot. I knew he was a huge fan, and he actually came down to help me with some second-unit stuff. Zero ego. We were all at that lab, and in a way, we didn’t know who we were yet. Today we have an identity as filmmakers so we must have influenced each other quite strongly during that time. We were the first groups to workshop each other’s scripts. To be able to call those people today and say, “Remind me who I am,” as a way to not get lost is amazing. It’s a nice harbor to always go back to as we all are sailing our ships in the waters.
KUSAMA Sundance is famous for this renegade deal-making that happens in taverns and in lines for the bus as you’re sloshing through the sleet and snow. But what gets forgotten is what an incredible film festival it is. In between all my responsibilities in showing a movie, I made it a personal mission — one that I still carry today whenever I go to a festival — to see as many movies as I can. I waited in line at 7 a.m. for the first screening of the Claire Denis film, Beau Travail, and other times I saw the restoration of Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger. The screenings are burnished in my memory because it’s a reminder of what it’s all about — the appreciation of film. As much as I’ve had all the singular Sundance experiences, I also have so many memories of watching life-changing movies.
MEGAN PARK (My Old Ass) I’ll forever take my movies to Sundance if they’ll have me. Everyone took me under their wing and supported me. I could hear people talking about my movie on Main Street and there’s so much magic and love in the air. It felt like being at the North Pole in Santa’s workshop. Everyone loves movies and it’s so beautiful. None of that icky industry bullshit. It’s a cute little quaint village where everybody actually loves movies and is there to enjoy the work and the performances. I feel so indebted to Sundance.
BURNS I met Redford’s producer, Michael Nozik, at the festival, and when I went to L.A. after Sundance for all of these meetings, I met with Michael and Redford, who became an executive producer on my next two films. For those early years in my career, Redford was a great mentor. Any advice that I needed — whether it was about acting or who to sign with — to have Redford as a guy I could call to ask for advice was huge.
JAMES WAN (Saw) I got to showcase and premiere Saw to the world at Sundance, and it was at that festival that the world got to know me as a filmmaker. It will always hold a special place in my heart. I’ve been to many other festivals around the world since then but I keep coming back. It was my very first love. I’ll always remember it for that as the festival that broke us out, and gave us our opportunity. I’ll always be grateful.
LULU WANG (The Farewell) I get so emotional about it, because people are like you had the quintessential experience, and not everyone does. During that week when I was at Sundance, I felt really sad because I thought it’s never gonna be better than this. No matter what other film I make, even if I’m at the Oscars, it’s not gonna better than this moment. And Barry [Jenkins, Wang’s husband] was like, ‘That’s 100% right. I won an Oscar and this is better.’
JOHN SAYLES (Return of the Secaucus Seven, Sunshine State, more) All the other shit kind of falls away when the lights go down and a new movie, an unknown quantity, starts to play. The biggest change is that filmmaking has become much more democratic since the beginning of the festival, partly because of technological advances, partly because Sundance put it in young people’s heads that there was a way into moviemaking that didn’t involve living in L.A. or having a relative in one of the guilds. Obviously, with so many submissions, some good movies must have been turned down by Sundance, but for American filmmakers it remains a vital platform.
PEIRCE What does Sundance mean to me? My school. My home. My mentors. My friends. My colleagues. Our history. Our cinema. Our stories. Sundance Institute and its mentors made me. I’ve had the great fortune of living with, learning from, and studying with some of the masters. I was home. Sundance taught me to be an artist. I became the director I wanted to become. And [Brandon Teena’s] story lives on in the world and here at Sundance thanks to all of you. That’s the cultural impact of Sundance: Sundance protects stories that would otherwise be erased or would never come to be — and then those stories change what the culture can see and feel.
Scott Feinberg contributed to this report.
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