Peachy the Magazine January / February 2014 | Page 58

Sundance
every legitimate success, such as Precious, there seemed to be lame offerings such as Joel Schumacher’s Twelve,
which featured 50 Cent and Chace
Crawford of Gossip Girl fame. And the
problem was not just
the lackluster film
You end up
selections—the festiwith parties and
val was becoming a
celebrities and
scenester event and
Paris Hilton
the screenings were
and that’s not us. often being overshadowed by the festival’s
Sundance has
social trappings.
nothing to do
Hollywood A-listers
with any of that.
strutted from one
lavish fête to another,
ushered from red carpet premieres
to over-the-top after-parties, fawning
entourage in tow. “It kind of engulfed
what we did,” Redford admitted. “You
end up with parties and celebrities and
Paris Hilton and that’s not us. Sundance
has nothing to do with any of that.”
Even so, it was not until the economic
crisis of 2008 that the festival seemed to
make legitimate efforts to reform itself
and return to its roots. An era of frenetic
excess with the lure of easy money came
to a screeching halt and Sundance was
forced to retrench. A new festival director, John Cooper, was hired and there
seemed to be a whole new look and
attitude in Park City. The celebrity
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cow-towing abated and the festival once
again seemed to be primarily about film.
A branch of the festival called “Next”
was created along the lines of Slamdance
to show the low-budget works of firsttime directors. In 2012, critics applauded
the selections offered at Sundance as
it returned to its “focus on taking risks
and addressing the kind of challenging,
philosophical questions Hollywood
movies usually avoid.”
That being said, the criticism Sundance
now faces is that it may be stretching
itself too thin. It has just begun an
annual festival in London and has an
offshoot in L.A. as well. “To me London feels like the latest skirmish in a
battle to be the leading brand for a type
of American film,” said Eugene Hernandez, the director of digital strategy
at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
“Sundance had to get to London before
Robert De Niro did.”
That assessment may not be quite fair
as Sundance has been staging minifestivals abroad for more than twenty
years. Redford dismisses the notion
that Sundance is feeling pressure to
burnish its brand. “We can go anyplace and maintain our integrity…
We are mission-driven; we are not
brand-driven,” he said. “I always seize
up when people say ‘brand.’ I don’t
want to be Starbucks.” n