Sundance Film Festival: Famously relaxed — except for a record-breaking deal or two

Founded in 1978 by Robert Redford, the annual Sundance Film Festival is a celebration of the most exciting independent cinema and the dawn of a new year of movies.

Robert Redford at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Founded in 1978 by Robert Redford and based in Park City, Utah in the middle of the northern winter, the annual Sundance Film Festival is a celebration of the most exciting independent cinema and the dawn of a new year of movies.

Famously relaxed — only at Sundance will you find Ethan Hawke or Kristen Stewart en route to a screening in a puffer jacket; the biggest premiere venue is a high school auditorium — Sundance has always been renowned for its ability to crown the next big thing. It is the festival that unearthed Jordan Peele’s Get Out, showed the dramatic side to Awkwafina in The Farewell and anointed Timothee Chalamet as the internet’s boyfriend in Call Me By Your Name.

This year, instead of crowding the streets of a ski resort, Sundance is taking over your lounge room. With the festival pivoting to digital because of the pandemic, critics, producers and ticketholders alike have been able to skip the famously long queues — Sundance has a reputation — and settle into their couch for an afternoon of cinema. And with a line-up that includes the directorial debut of two major actresses — Robin Wright’s elegant drama Land, and Passing, starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson and directed by Rebecca Hall — the festival’s ability to draw star power and its nose for quality are undiminished.

The thrill of unearthing fresh talent, high in the hills of snow-dusted Park City, remains strong, too. Sundance has a reputation: it’s where tiny independent films are purchased by big film companies for eye-watering sums.

In 2019, Amazon bought Mindy Kaling’s Late Night for $US13m. Last year, Andy Samberg’s romantic comedy Palm Springs was sold to Hulu for $US17.5m. Sundance might be confined to lounge rooms and laptops this year but already a film has set a new record for deals. CODA, a coming-of-age movie about a young woman growing up with deaf parents based on a popular French film called The Belier Family, was snapped up by Apple for $US25m ($32.6m).

Even virtually, Sundance’s reputation for transforming a small film into a household name is intact.

And this year there’s an added string to its bow: because coronavirus has pushed back awards season, shifting the Oscars from this month to April, films released before February 28 are eligible for the 2021 Academy Awards.

With the festival offering up much-lauded and very buzzy productions including Judas and the Black Messiah, a politically charged Fred Hampton biopic starring Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, and crowd-pleasing fare such as the Valerie Taylor documentary Playing with Sharks, anything is still possible when it comes to the Oscars.