Sundance turns 40: Here’s how it became the film industry’s most famous talent incubator

PARK CITY, Utah (ABC4) — The year is 1981, and Academy Award-winning actor Robert Redford has an idea.

Redford was red-hot in Hollywood as the 1980s began, winning his first Oscar for Best Director on “Ordinary People.” Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer John Nein said Redford’s idea began with what was called “the labs.”

Wirth Watching — The History of the Sundance Film Festival

“There was really an effort to really develop a group of independent storytellers through the lab process, through advisors and through honing the development of films,” said Nein. “Something that didn’t really have an outlet outside of the Hollywood system.”

The labs would become a place where independent filmmakers could work on their craft with the support of someone within Hollywood (Redford) without fighting the rigors of the Hollywood studio system, Nein said.

And thus, the Sundance Institute was formed.

“That year [1981], 10 emerging filmmakers were invited to the Sundance Resort in the mountains of Utah, where they worked with leading writers, directors, and actors to develop their original independent projects,” states the Sundance Institute’s website.

In 1983, the film “El Norte” became the Institute’s first feature produced through the labs.

“And even in those early days the mission was still the same,” said Nein. “It was the notion that there was exciting work out there that needed to be seen and needed to find an audience.”

But the Institute isn’t that well known among anyone but industry insiders. The labs needed an outlet, and in 1985, they got one, as the Sundance Institute took creative control over the U.S. Film Festival, which had been around since 1978. In 1991, the film festival took Sundance’s name, and by that time audiences were flocking to the festival, according to Nein.

“Forty percent of our program this year is first-year filmmakers, and that’s what we love,” said Nein. “And in five years from now, ten years from now, that person is going to have a body of work and make big movies.”

Sundance has launched the careers of many of America’s most creatively lauded filmmakers: Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russel, Wes Anderson, Steven Soderbergh.

Some of the most beloved hits of the last 30 years debuted at Sundance: “Reservoir Dogs,” “Sex Lies & Videotape,” “Clerks,” “The Blair Witch Project,” and “Get Out,” among dozens of others.

“Certainly, the Sundance name became internationally known as a sort of beacon for independent storytelling everywhere,” said Nein.

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