So watching their success on the competition and subsequently on the Academy Awards, [meant something] as a result of I affiliate it with my first 12 months too. John Carney, who now has made so many movies and has such a improbable profession, it was actually his breakthrough second. And in a bizarre method, for me, it was my earliest second in programming.
Actually, I keep in mind going to Galway and realizing that no one had advised me what I used to be purported to do if I favored a film. So whereas watching this film, I keep in mind sitting subsequent to the late Bingham Ray, and saying, ‘Yeah, I don’t know however this film was actually good. I assume I ought to do one thing about that?’ And he stated, ‘Let me introduce you to the producer,’ who he and [filmmaker Eamonn Bowles] knew. However I didn’t even know what I used to be purported to do, so there was a method during which that was a really early reminiscence for me.
That is going to be the primary Sundance with out Robert Redford, in addition to the final in Park Metropolis. Does it really feel totally different this 12 months?
I feel we had been planning for a competition that celebrates the historical past of the competition in Park Metropolis, after which when Redford handed away it turned additionally a method of honoring his legacy, and people two issues went hand-in-hand in a form of stunning method. And one of many causes for that’s as a result of Redford all the time put the artist ahead, all the time wished the story of the competition to be the story of the artists who have been a part of it, and that was clearly true of the labs as properly, and every thing that the Sundance Institute does by way of its artist packages.
So in a bizarre method, what we had been planning round repertory screenings and artist talks, and gathering our neighborhood for this competition, was the end result of 43 years in Park Metropolis. All of these issues have been issues that we had been excited about. And when Bob handed away, they turned very a lot a mirrored image of honoring his imaginative and prescient and his legacy. I’ve stated a couple of occasions that legacy is the place we work day-after-day. It’s our workplace. So I feel the notion of carrying it ahead into the longer term is one thing that all of us really feel very strongly about.
And there’s a transparent imaginative and prescient for that. We all know what this place is about and we all know what he constructed, so I feel the ways in which we’re celebrating that on the competition, we have now a complete second half of packages that basically mirror the legacy of the competition: screenings of Little Miss Sunshine, Mysterious Pores and skin, and Noticed, and Half Nelson, American Dream, Cronos, which we added to this system. Now we have artist talks with necessary alumni, individuals whose careers have actually flourished or been launched at Sundance. So that every one looks like the best technique to honor Redford’s legacy and likewise the historical past of the competition.
