Case Study: Sundance : No Longer a Kid

If this is the gateway to Hollywood fame, did somebody hijack the navigator?

The Sundance Film Festival’s Santa Monica offices look as low-budget as many of the independent movies flying through the doors. A lurching elevator that might be condemned in Cuba unloads visitors into a hallway that passes for a lobby.

In one of the frenzied weeks leading up to Thursday’s festival opening, programming director Geoffrey Gilmore holds a meeting in a nearly furniture-free room because somebody seized his office in a gotta-have-a-VCR coup. As his staff sorts through videotapes submitted for the 1997 festival, it draws up indexes of tiresome trends, taping lists to the wall: films with prostitutes, films with strippers, filmmakers as protagonists. Some movies find a spot on all three tallies, and new entries turn up so frequently the count is terminated after a week.

For all the playful behavior and tattered furnishings at the edges, there is serious, undeniable power at the core--which is why Hollywood is poised to descend this week on Park City, Utah. Gilmore and his committee’s selections represent the independent film equivalent of the Heisman Trophy: instant elevation into the vanguard, a tacit prediction of scoring in the pros.

“I’ve always maintained that Sundance made us. They’re kingmakers,” says Kevin Smith, whose ultra-low-budget “Clerks” debuted in Park City in 1994. “When I came to Sundance, I was a wage slave. And then, 24 hours later, I had a filmmaking career.”

The festival showcases the best collection of American films made outside the studio system, an array of often provocative, impressive works. But Sundance’s rapid emergence as the nation’s most important film festival and marketplace threatens to overrun its organizers. A record 597 films (up from 250 in 1994) were submitted for the 18 dramatic competition and 22 American Spectrum slots.

Given those Ralph Nader-for-president odds, it’s not surprising that acquisitions executives look at the competition list as if it were the next John Grisham manuscript, for somewhere in that bunch may lurk another “Brothers McMullen,” “sex, lies, and videotape” or “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” all competition alumni.

Sundance has also become one of the best launching pads for sophisticated art films playing out of competition, and “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Shine” and “The Usual Suspects” all premiered in Park City. A few movie people now argue that Sundance rivals the Cannes Film Festival reel for reel.

“What makes Sundance more important than the other festivals is the high percentage of films there without distribution,” says Jonathan Weisgal, executive vice president of Fine Line Features. The festival has jump-started the careers of Brad Pitt (“Johnny Suede,” 1992), Ashley Judd (“Ruby in Paradise,” 1993) and Liv Tyler (“Heavy,” 1995) and directors Danny Boyle (“Shallow Grave”), Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi”) and, for better or worse, Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”).

Thanks largely to the occasional high-dollar ticket sales of Sundance’s low-budget films, the festival has been transformed in a decade from a slightly bohemian gathering of beret-topped artistes into a checkbook-flying market populated by cashmere-mufflered deal makers.

“I didn’t expect this,” says Robert Redford, whose Sundance Institute began managing the then-sleepy festival in 1985. “But the whole point of the festival is to increase opportunities for independent filmmakers. In that sense, [the deal making] is good.”

No fewer than 15 Creative Artists Agency agents--roughly an eighth of the entire agency--plan to attend a portion of the 1997 festival, which runs from Thursday to Jan. 26. Almost all of Park City’s condominiums (some costing $1,000 a night) have been booked for months, and must-have dinner reservations at Grappa, the Barking Frog, the River Horse Cafe and Zoom are all but gone. The coveted $2,000 Express Passes, which get you into any Sundance screening no matter how oversold, vanished within minutes of going on sale in November--and you need one for the festival’s first half, another for its second.

“Our agenda is business,” says Tony Safford, senior vice president of acquisitions at 20th Century Fox, who formerly programmed the festival. “I’m not going on behalf of Fox to ski and see movies that I might enjoy for my personal taste. I’m going to acquire films and meet a broad range of filmmakers.”

Sundance is celebrated for the frantic bartering and schmoozing that ignite the winter resort town as soon as the first film hits the screen at the Egyptian Theater on Main Street. Acquisitions executives may duck into as many as six films a day. Movies with no theatrical distributor--and even films with little preceding chance for theatrical distribution--often emerge from Sundance with Miramax, Fine Line, Strand or some other independent attached.

At last year’s festival, “Spitfire Grill” walked off with a record $10-million distribution deal. “At the last festival, 23 movies came in with no deal in place and now have a distributor,” Gilmore says.

“You don’t find that kind of frenzy at the Toronto or Seattle film festivals,” says Russell Schwartz, president of Gramercy Pictures.

Deal making is hardly limited to the festival’s week and a half of bedlam, in which 17 films will premiere out of competition, 18 dramatic films will debut in competition and 22 new works (including some documentaries) will be shown in American Spectrum, generally reserved for first-time filmmakers. Less appreciated is the scrambling, maneuvering and cajoling set in motion long before the festival begins. The Sundance starter’s pistol is actually fired just as the motorcade of Federal Express trucks unloads crates of videocassettes at the Santa Monica offices on submission deadline day, Oct. 11.

In the weeks leading up to Sundance, phones crackle with tidbits of independent film intelligence. Sundance demands that competition films not play at any other U.S. festival beforehand, so information is scarce.

“The minute they make the announcement about what’s in the festival, that’s when the hot movies emerge. And there are going to be a lot of movies that the acquisitions people haven’t heard of,” says Ira Deutchman, who used to run Fine Line Features and is now on the other side of the acquisitions fence. His film “Kiss Me, Guido,” an “Odd Couple” comedy for the ‘90s, was accepted for the American Spectrum category and does not have a distributor.

A week before it premiered at the 1995 festival, hardly anyone besides acquisitions executives had heard of “The Brothers McMullen.” Several months later, it had grossed $11 million for Fox Searchlight, making it the year’s most profitable film relative to cost.

Says Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics: “What gets in the festival today can be worth a lot of money tomorrow.”

“There’s a pressure to move earlier and earlier in the process,” Fox’s Safford says. “We’re probably on the verge where a film will be bought sight-unseen only because it’s been selected by Sundance. That would be an awfully aggressive move.”

Agents, like acquisitions executives, comb through Sundance lists in search of the next whoever.

Says CAA’s Beth Swofford: “It used to be if you were there the first week of the festival, you had an edge. Now, you have to do your homework ahead of time. You’ll find a lot of people are signed before the festival starts.”

Unsigned directors who soar at Sundance better bring a secretary or two. When Scott Hicks returned to his Park City condo after the first screening of “Shine,” he had 35 voicemail messages. By the time he listened to them all, there were 17 more.

“Other people were stuffing cards in my pocket and coming up to me in the men’s room,” Hicks says. “Everything turned upside down. We were mobbed by every conceivable piece of the business--agents, producers, studios executives. It was absolutely insane.”

Some filmmakers resent what Sundance has become but know that avoiding the festival for personal reasons can be the equivalent of Hollywood hara-kiri. Director-writer-actor Vin Diesel submitted his film “Strays,” a look at four young men stuck in perpetual adolescence, despite worrying that Sundance’s judging standards are irrelevant.

“The mistake is a lot of filmmakers rate their achievement by whoever is on the programming committee,” Diesel says. “But they’re not filmmakers. If you really want to be competitive, go into boxing. When you’re making movies, you shouldn’t be worrying about what the five people at Sundance think. Getting into Sundance isn’t that important to me. But I’d like to be in Sundance, because I want people to see my work.”

See it they will--”Strays” was selected for competition. And Diesel will be shadowed through Park City by a CBS “48 Hours” camera crew.

Not getting into Sundance can mean last rites for a lot of movies. By Gilmore’s estimate, probably 400 or so of the films that were not accepted for 1997 will get neither theatrical nor home video releases.

“That’s a real problem,” Redford says. “The challenge now is to crack open distribution and create more breathing space for independent film.”

Some movies fail the Sundance entrance exam and still sail into theaters. Consider “Swingers,” the cocktail-circuit comedy rejected for Sundance in 1996. “The outcome, with all due respect to Sundance: Thank God we didn’t get in,” says the film’s co-producer, Nicole Shay LaLoggia, who believes “Swingers” might have been lost in the Sundance chaos and not attracted a good distribution deal. “If it didn’t play well at Sundance, we would have been screwed.” Trying to re-create a Sundance frenzy in Los Angeles, the film’s makers showed it to distributors in February, warning them they would have one shot to make a bid. By midnight, Miramax made a bid. A week later, “Swingers” had a $5-million deal.

There are about 24 million reasons why Sundance has become so powerful. That’s how many dollars Steven Soderbergh’s “sex, lies, and videotape” took in after making its debut at Sundance in 1989. That film is the Continental Divide in Sundance’s history: Before it, independent films drained into a lost world of marginal works, artistic barks with no financial bite. After “sex, lies, and videotape,” independent films started flowing to box-office riches.

Before “sex, lies, and videotape” it “was difficult to get films. It was difficult to get premieres. It was hell getting the cooperation of Park City,” says Safford, who programmed Sundance through its transition years 1986-1990. “It wasn’t until the ’89 festival’s screening of ‘sex, lies, and videotape’ that the festival was suddenly launched into national and international prominence. People would then ask me, ‘So what’s the next “sex, lies, and videotape”?’ ”

In 1985, 75 reporters and critics showed up to trudge through the snow and slush, and the festival sold some 15,000 tickets. By 1991, the number of journalists swelled to 125, and ticket sales surpassed 35,000. At last year’s festival, there were 475 media representatives and 90,000 tickets sold.

Redford frets over “the limousines, splash and magazine covers” and the “carnivorous acquisitions executives with drool in the corner of their mouths.” More and more festival visitors, he says, are focused on economics, not aesthetics: “The word ‘buzz’ really pisses me off. I would rather see films have a gentler play-out. I hate to see films have that kind of pressure.”

Nevertheless, Sundance can make or break a movie. Films that already have distribution can rocket into the pop culture zeitgeist. Previously unknown and unwanted movies can ride a wave of emotion and attention.

“Spitfire Grill” might not have made it into theaters had it not caught that extraordinary Sundance fever. An acquisitions screening in Memphis months before Sundance yielded only halfhearted nibbles. At Sundance, the film played to standing ovations, winning the audience award, and Castle Rock shelled out $10 million.

“Maybe the [acquisitions executives] looked at the reaction and said, ‘Yeah, but this is Memphis,’ ” says the film’s writer and director, Lee David Zlotoff. “When it got such an enormous response at Sundance, people said, ‘Oh, we always loved this film!’ What all of those executives thought was unmarketable last week was now the movie they have to have. Go figure.”

Sometimes, Sundance hype can be deceiving.

“I was fooled by ‘Amongst Friends,’ ” says Deutchman, who bought the Rob Weiss film after it played at the 1993 festival. “It played really well at Sundance--and the film was a disaster.”

Still, by the time the festival starts, acquisitions executives have pens poised over their checkbooks.

“If it’s for sale, somebody will buy it, because you gotta come back with a movie. Your job is on the line if you don’t come back with a movie,” says Sony Classics’ Bernard.

“You used to have time to ponder,” says Bingham Ray, co-managing executive of October Films. “Now you have to see the movie and react.”

For that very reason, an increasing number of filmmakers will not show their movies before Sundance, even if the films are finished; they want to cash in on the Sundance multiplier.

“I’ve had over a dozen sales agents say to me, ‘I’d set up a screening, but we’re waiting for Sundance,’ ” says Adam Rogers of Cinepix Film Properties, distributors of Sundance graduates “Heavy,” “Hype” and “Angel Baby.”

Acquisitions executives are particularly interested in three Sundance competition films that very few people will get to see until their first festival screenings: “Hurricane,” writer-director Morgan J. Freeman’s coming-of-age tale set in Manhattan; “The Clockwatchers,” a comedy about the workplace by sisters Jill (co-writer) and Karen (co-writer and director) Sprecher; and “Arresting Gena,” Hannah Weyer’s adolescence drama.

People are not just searching for new films. They are hunting out new filmmakers.

“The industry has changed,” says Robert Newman, an agent at International Creative Management who specializes in independent film directors joining the mainstream. “Cutting-edge cinema is being embraced on a worldwide level, and audiences hunger for bold storytellers. You’re seeing a greater willingness to go with people who have a fresher point of view. I mean, you have Jean-Pierre Jeunet doing ‘Alien 4.’ This is the same guy who made ‘Delicatessen’ and ‘City of Lost Children.’ ”

To pick out new talent, the Sundance programming committee must first pick out the right films.

“No selection committee hits the nail on the head 100% of the time,” but Gilmore has a great track record, Cinepix’s Rogers says.

Says Marcus Hu of Strand Releasing: “I think the selection committee has a lot of taste--but that doesn’t mean they have commercial taste.”

Various conspiracy theories abound about how Gilmore picks his films--that certain agents have a vote, that Gilmore watches only five minutes of a movie before tossing it, that anything with Steve Buscemi is automatically accepted.

It’s clear Gilmore has a fondness for certain filmmakers--such as Greg Araki (“The Living End”), Christopher Munch (“Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day”) and Victor Nunez (“Ruby in Paradise”). “Clerks’ ” Smith and “Slackers’ ” Richard Linklater will be back in January with new films.

There are also more premieres of marginal, lightweight and instantly forgettable studio films (“If Lucy Fell” in 1996, “Miami Rhapsody” in 1995, making for a Sarah Jessica Parker exacta). Still, the competition and the new American Spectrum section remain relatively innovative and daring: Where else but Sundance would they have trumpeted the $14,000 “American Job”?

As for the conspiracy theories, Gilmore says that they’re inevitable. And rubbish.

“No one’s ever going to trust me. They think, ‘Obviously, he’s making decisions based on some sort of pressure,’ ” Gilmore says, adding that he scrupulously avoids outside agitation. “People really do pressure you--it’s been agents, it’s been producers, it’s been actors, it’s been friends. But at the end of this term, I’ve got 50 new friends and 500 new enemies. Every year we have a lot of angry, powerful people in town.”

Although the festival’s artistic goal may not have changed dramatically, its business role certainly has. There are some hidden benefits, however: Even if a compelling film doesn’t get picked up for acquisition, a narrow-minded producer who wouldn’t have dared visit Park City three years ago might realize a “good” story doesn’t necessarily have to follow a “Die Hard in a [Fill in the Blank]” formula.

“Diversity is the point in all of this,” Redford says. “It’s about individual visions and individual points of view and keeping them intact so they are not shredded in the studio system. We’re going to have to mind the store and work a little harder to make sure it remains a festival for filmmakers--where you can make connections and meet people.”

Adds Gilmore: “If we ever get to the position where we did not show a film at Sundance because it had no commercial prospects, that would be the day I step down--we all step down.”

Others fear that the hunger for deals has supplanted a thirst for discovery.

“This all-or-nothing psychosis is damaging,” Ray says. “You cannot really enjoy films for sheer entertainment, sheer escapism. If it’s not there in 25 minutes, the instinct is, ‘Let’s get out of here and see what’s on Screen 2.’ ”

And some worry that the multimillion-dollar acquisition and marketing expenditures on movies like “Shine” and “Spitfire Grill” will set unrealistic expectations for future independent films.

“Sundance used to be a convention for filmmakers. That’s not the case anymore. It’s about deal making,” says Sony Classics’ Bernard. “The pureness of what the place started out to be is gone.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What’s Inside * Many film festivals don’t exist to fill a cinematic gap. They’re booster shots for the local economy. Page 43

* The AFI Fest is not nearly the event the world’s movie capital deserves, but it is on track to getting there. Page 49