Slacker

It’s been a long-time established fact that the Sundance Film Festival has acted as a career springboard for a number of now firmly-established directors, and throughout the years, has brought attention to many well-loved feature which may have otherwise slipped through the net. Having conquered Hollywood with his updating of the Batman myth, it’s easy to forget that Christopher Nolan’s first route into that world was due to distribution being acquired after his mind-bending thriller Memento was shown at the festival. Outside of the screening programme, the Sundance Institute even formed a training grounds of sorts for one Quentin Tarantino, who work-shopped his script for debut Reservoir Dogs there, under the tutelage of directors Terry Gilliam and Monte Hellman. Films and filmmakers have found success at Sundance through many different avenues and in unexpected ways.

Richard Linklater’s 1991 debut Slacker not only heralded the start of this idiosyncratic filmmaker’s career, but the film’s DIY-style aesthetic would inspire another newcomer to apply that vision to his first film, which itself would make waves at the festival three years later. As fans of Kevin Smith will be aware (given his propensity for endlessly talking about his formative years via his podcast empire), seeing Slacker at a theatre in New York on his 21st birthday was the impetus behind his decision to make his down-and-dirty convenience store comedy, Clerks. Smith’s self-mythologising may be difficult to stomach at times, but he undoubtedly owes his career to the creative knock-on effect of the festival.

Kevin Smith Sundance 1994

It obvious that Smith was aware of the kind of impact the festival could have on the career of a fledging filmmaker. In the January of 1989, when a 26-year-old Steven Soderbergh traipsed up those snowy hills of Utah with debut feature Sex, Lies & Videotapes under his arm, it was doubtful, however, that he would have believed this intimate and cerebral adult drama would open the doors to the kind of long and illustrious career he’s achieved since. But the film’s success was more than just a starting point for Soderbergh. It’s impact on the cinematic landscape was huge, leading to the 1990s boom in low-budget, independently-financed features, and heralding a new wave of distinctive and personal voices in cinema. Sex, Lies & Videotapes went on to win the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival of that year, beating Do the Right Thing – a film from another similarly-championed figure from the indie scene, Spike Lee.

David-Sullivan-and-Shane-Carruth-in-Primer

While Soderbergh’s subsequent career has been highly prolific, there’s one filmmaker who seems to have thrived on the lack of product, his two films having been bookended in the festival, almost a decade apart from each other. Shane Carruth’s ultra-low-budget sci-fi thriller Primer (filmed for just $7,000) managed to bag the Grand Jury Prize in 2004 and has since gained a favourable cult following. Carruth was talked about in hushed reverence for the years to follow, and the mysterious aura which had been built around him only ebbed away last year when his second feature Upstream Color premiered at the festival. Like Primer before it, the film was greeted with the same mixture of praise and perplexity, and also threw open the question if fans would have to wait yet another ten years for a film from this singular talent to be showcased at Sundance again?

But the egalitarian nature of Sundance means it’s not just the low-budget experimental films which can make an impact there. Premiering at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Little Miss Sunshine proved to be a huge breakout hit for Fox Searchlight Pictures. It caught the attention of several studios before the aforementioned indie subsidiary of 29th Century Fox swooped in, offering $10.5 million. One of the biggest deals in the history of the festival, the film would ultimately go on to make close the $60m at the domestic box office and over $40m internationally. Although Searchlight were confidant they had a genuine crowd-pleaser on their hands, it was somewhat of a gamble, given what had happened to Miramax the previous year. Paying $10m for comedy Happy, Texas, the Weinstein brothers believed they had a huge audience-friendly hit on their hands, only for it to misfire at the box office, pulling in less than $3m (failing the double the film’s meagre $1.7m original budget).

Little Miss Sunshine Sundance

Judging by the majority of the titles above, the rise of Sundance has clearly illustrated that a film’s success there is judged on so many others factors outside of the monetary aspect, and that by bringing originality and innovation to the medium is a huge achievement in itself. This has brought a career longevity to many of those filmmakers in question, but it’s also highlighted how the festival is perceived, and its continual attempts at balancing art with commerce. With Sundance London back once again next month, we’ll see if this year’s state-side offerings will continue in that vein.

Sundance London is set to screen 3 of the all-time most celebrated Sundance-discovered films Reservoir Dogs, Memento and Winter’s Bone. Ticket packages are now available visit sundance-london.com or follow @sundancefestUK