Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's the start of a new month, which means it's time to start reading our February Get Lit with All Of It book club pick. It is the novel The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. It was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. It explores a group of friends who lean on each other to help navigate the wilderness of young adulthood. Angela Flournoy will be our guest for our Get Lit event on Monday, February 23rd, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.

Thanks to our lovely partners at the New York Public Library, New Yorkers can borrow unlimited e-copies of the novel to read along with us. To grab tickets and to borrow your copy, head to wnyc.org/getlit. Tickets are free, and they tend to go quickly, so reserve yours now at wnyc.org/getlit. That's wnyc.org/getlit, and we will have a musical guest to announce very shortly. That's in the future. Now, let's get this hour started with Sundance. This year marks a big turning point for the Sundance Film Festival, which just wrapped this weekend in Park City, Utah.

It is the first festival without the founder, Robert Redford, who died last year at the age of 89. Redford founded the Sundance Institute in 1980 with the goal of developing and encouraging new voices in American cinema. It was also the last year of Sundance in Utah. In 2027, the festival will head to Boulder, Colorado. Sundance has changed the landscape of American filmmaking, helping launching the careers of visionary directors like Richard Linklater, Chloé Zhao, Quentin Tarantino, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Coogler, Wes Anderson, and so many more.

Director Todd Field told The Hollywood Reporter, "I wouldn't be the filmmaker I am today without Sundance, and there are many people who would say the same." But what will the future of the festival hold? At this pivotal turning point, The Hollywood Reporter decided to compile an oral history of the Sundance Film Festival. The piece is titled, The Ultimate Sundance Oral History: "Screaming, Crying and Almost Throwing Up." Joining me now to discuss the piece and the history of the festival are David Canfield and Mia Galuppo, senior entertainment reporters at The Hollywood Reporter. It's nice to meet both of you.

Mia Galuppo: Thank you so much for having us.

David Canfield: Happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you ever been to the Sundance Film Festival, either as part of the industry or a film lover? What memories do you have attending? What hopes do you have for the move as to Boulder next year? Give us a call with your Sundance memories. Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Okay, Mia, I'm going to ask you to do a little bit of history. What was the original intention of Sundance when it started, when Robert Redford dreamt of?

Mia Galuppo: Yes. Even before Robert Redford came in on everything in Utah, the Sundance Film Festival was the US Film Festival. This was a film festival in Utah that was meant to screen and program independent films, which at the time, in the '70s, were not a big deal in America. Independent filmmaking was definitely more of a European endeavor. The studio system was the only way to really, really make films and get them seen in America.

The smaller regional film festival started and then got the attention of Robert Redford, who was really passionate about filmmaking and having filmmakers be able to tell their own stories, the types of filmmakers who had been ignored by the traditional studio system. He partnered up with the US Film Festival, which then eventually became the Sundance Film Festival, and moved to Park City, Utah. The Sundance Institute was established not as a film festival, but as a laboratory. It was a place where chosen filmmakers would go to Sundance, Utah, with Redford during the summer.

It was 10 projects that were chosen initially out of 100 scripts that were sent. These projects would then get workshopped and with the hope of them eventually becoming feature films, and eventually a pipeline was created where those films would then screen at the newly named Sundance Film Festival. It's hard to overstate how important Robert Redford was to independent American filmmaking.

Alison Stewart: David, yes, listen to this clip I want to play for you. It's from Sterlin Harjo. I interviewed him on the show, and he spoke about what Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute meant to him and to other indigenous filmmakers. Let's listen.

Sterlin Harjo: I mean, I wouldn't be sitting here without Robert Redford and his vision. Literally, not just independent film, but he fought for indigenous voices in cinema to tell their stories. He knew Chief Dan George, and he was basically like, I think that Native people should be able to tell their own stories and be empowered to do so. He didn't just say that. He played the long game with the institute of trying to support indigenous voices, and he did.

One of the people that worked for the Sundance Institute was Bird Runningwater, who came and spoke at the University of Oklahoma and found me and brought me into the fold, and then I became part of this sort of Sundance family. I'm a direct result of Redford's vision.

Alison Stewart: David, what did the directors you spoke with, the people you spoke with for this oral history, tell you about Robert Redford's role?

David Canfield: Oh my goodness. For these filmmakers, regardless of the level of personal interaction that they had with Robert Redford, in some cases, it was extensive. It's been over decades. In some cases, it was a few meetings. To what Mia was saying, his entire purpose for developing this festival, for raising all kinds of voices, for establishing a kind of home ground for American independent film, was transformational, foundational. It helped establish what the American independent cinema scene could look like.

To them, he was not only a guiding light, but somebody who was incredibly generous with his time, who understood the difficulty of getting films made and the difficulty, particularly for certain maybe underrepresented groups, of getting their movies made. I think Sterlin speaks really beautifully to that, and that was a priority for him. Regardless of the filmmakers we spoke to, whether it was somebody like Ryan Coogler, Chloé Zhao, Quentin Tarantino, people from all different kinds of backgrounds, he was the figure. He was somebody to whom they could all look in different ways.

Alison Stewart: Mia, you touched on this in your first answer, but I want to tease it out a little bit. What did the independent film landscape look like prior to Sundance?

Mia Galuppo: Yes, it was relatively non-existent. The thing is the Hollywood unions didn't have contracts that included independent film at the time, so a lot of union people couldn't work on independent productions. That ecosystem just did not exist in America. It was the studio system or bust at that point. If you weren't a filmmaker that the studios saw as someone that they wanted to work with, could be lucrative, then you were largely ignored at that point. Even up into until the '90s, the independent American film system was really held together by duct tape and a prayer for the large part.

Once the '90s came, that kind of came the initial heyday for independent filmmaking, and Sundance was the place to go in order to show your independent film. Talking in this oral history, Kevin Smith talked about getting into Sundance at 23 years old with Clerks. He'd tell people, "Oh, I'm going to the Sundance Film Festival." They would go, "What's that?"

Alison Stewart: Wow. David, Filmmaker Justin Lin said, "Sundance presented like a meritocracy. It was hope and opportunity." Was that something you heard from other filmmakers as well?

David Canfield: Absolutely. The entire notion of getting into Sundance, we have Clint Bentley, the director of Train Dreams, say getting a rejection for a short was considered a stepping stone. It became a point where every single point toward getting into Sundance, getting into the competition, whether with a short or ultimately a feature, was a sign of progress. Because of the, especially at that time, very refined, rigorous methods for selection, for judging, it became a real bar for every filmmaker to clear.

You had these systems with the artistic labs, which we can certainly talk a little bit more about, and this sort of feedback loop of the way that Sundance started training filmmakers who then were accepted into the festival with films that they developed there. All of that sort of fed into this feeling that if you were a new filmmaker, a new American filmmaker, and you wanted to come out, guns blazing, with a big opening, Sundance was the place to do it.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Tell me a little bit more about the labs. You mentioned it.

David Canfield: Yes. I think that this year's Oscar lineup for Best Director is actually a great sort of example of what these labs can produce. Redford and the co-founder, Michelle Satter, who remains with the organization, spearheaded these small collectives where they would select young filmmakers out of schools, developing scripts to essentially work together, and come out of these labs with something ready to get made. That would not guarantee admission into the festival, but it would certainly set them on the path to creating something that was not only artistically viable, but commercially viable.

This year's directing lineup features Ryan Coogler and Chloé Zhao. A little over a decade ago, both of them were in the lab together with their films that they were developing, Songs My Brother Taught Me in Chloé Zhao's case, and Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, both films of which went on to get accepted by Sundance, incredible critical success. They are now both, of course, Oscar nominees. A third person in that directing category, Joachim Trier, who directed the film Sentimental Value, was actually an advisor to them way back then.

He was considered an early mentor, especially to Ryan Coogler. He worked on Fruitvale Station. He viewed cuts. Flash forward, 10 plus years later, I spotted Ryan Coogler in Telluride attending the world premiere of Hamnet. Another filmmaker in their group was David Lowery, filmmaker who helped Chloé Zhao on her upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot. These kinds of relationships fostered this incredible sense of community, which is something that all the filmmakers we talked to spoke of feeling on the ground at Sundance every single year.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Mia Galuppo and David Canfield, senior entertainment writers for The Hollywood Reporter. We're discussing their piece, The Ultimate Sundance Oral History in honor of its last year of the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the first festival without founder Robert Redford. Next year, the festival heads to Boulder, Colorado. Listeners, we'd like to hear from you. Have you ever attended the Sundance Film Festival? What are your memories of attending the festival? What do you hope for the future of it? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC.

Mia, in recent years, the festival has been a good place for female filmmakers. Ava DuVernay, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Siân Heder, who won Best Picture for CODA. What did female filmmakers tell you about the festival? Was it a welcoming place for their work? Was it still Hollywood as usual? What do you think?

Mia Galuppo: No, it definitely was a welcoming place for their work. It was a place where they were able to screen their movies when the studio system was really seemed intent on keeping them out. Time and again, Sundance has over-indexed on female filmmakers, usually in the US Dramatic competition lineup. Half of those films are being directed by female filmmakers that then go on to have successful careers directing studio films, directing TV. It was a proving ground.

It's a place where they are able to say, "We are able to do this. Give us an opportunity," and they were actually able to get that opportunity from Sundance in a way that traditional Hollywood wasn't able to advocate for them. It also was a place that was incredibly welcoming for female filmmakers in terms of being working mothers.

In our oral history, Siân Heder and Marielle Heller both talked about having young babies at their respective festivals and nursing them ahead of their premieres and being supported in terms of being working filmmakers and also working mothers at the festival in a way that they hadn't experienced at any other point in their career in Hollywood.

Alison Stewart: We are talking about the Sundance Film Festival. After the break, we'll talk about getting distribution, the social aspects of the film festival, and what it's going to be like when it goes to Boulder, Colorado. Stay with us. You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are Mia Galuppo and David Canfield, senior entertainment writers for The Hollywood Reporter. We're discussing their piece, The Ultimate Sundance Oral History in honor of the last year of the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the first festival without its founder, Robert Redford. Next year, the festival heads to Boulder, Colorado.

Let's talk about distribution, David. How has the festival navigated the balance between the artistic aspects of the festival and the commercial ones? People go there to get distribution for their films.

David Canfield: Indeed, they do. This is a dynamic that's evolved a great deal since those early days that Mia was talking about. There came a point at Sundance where it became really the hottest market in American film in many ways, especially American independent film. You would premiere a movie there. If it was a success, you would have overnight bidding wars, right? You would have these huge deals coming away. Movies like Little Miss Sunshine, of course, that went on to extraordinary success that were matched up with big studios.

People like Harvey Weinstein, candidly, were also very instrumental in sort of taking this festival and sort of realizing its commercial potential. In some of the filmmakers we spoke with, a tension kind of emerged between the original spirit of this festival and what ultimately became a place for studios to attend, scout their films, come away with a slate, and then have that mapped out for the rest of the year. It's changed a lot. I think as independent film has evolved, as it's faced new struggles, especially since COVID, that has receded to a degree.

At its height, Sundance did become a more commercial kind of venue for these films, and it did become a place, where if you didn't get that level of response from studios and you had a certain amount of expectation, a certain amount of financing, it would be considered a disappointment, actually.

Alison Stewart: Richard Linklater said to you, "I always thought that a fun joint project we should all do together is a documentary called Sick at Sundance. By the time you get off the plane, you or someone in your party gets the winter flu." [chuckles] Is that true, Mia?

Mia Galuppo: Yes, I'm in the middle of it right now.

[laughter]

Mia Galuppo: No, it's so true. The thing about Sundance, and it's kind of incredible, and a lot of our filmmakers talk to us about this, is when you are at the festival, you really gain this superhuman ability to not sleep and to not eat and to survive for days at a time, functioning that way. You are at altitude. You are never hydrated. You are going to a lot of events, so you're drinking a lot of alcohol. It's very, very difficult to actually find a meal in Park City, because all of the restaurants are so packed because of Sundance.

What that usually means is you neglect your body for about a week, and then the come down from that experience usually leads to some sort of illness. Everyone from the filmmakers to the executives to the agents that go have their methods that they swear by in terms of how not to get sick. Of course, at the 2020 film festival, a lot of people came down with flu-like symptoms that were difficult to be diagnosed. Janicza Bravo actually told us about taking her film star, Riley Keough, to the emergency room at the 2020 film festival.

The doctors were unable to diagnose the illness that she had. They ultimately realized it was likely COVID. Just based on context. That was a big year for illness coming out of that festival.

Alison Stewart: Well, speaking of COVID, how did COVID change the film festival, David?

David Canfield: Initially, the festival had to shift to a virtual format because of ongoing variants. The next festival after the pandemic officially broke out in the late winter, early spring of 2020, was the 2021 festival. This was moved online. This was viewed in two ways. On the one hand, it greatly expanded the accessibility of these movies. People who had never attended a film festival certainly never attended Sundance. Park City can be quite expensive and inaccessible. We're able to participate. We're able to see these films. We're able to weigh in on the conversation.

Anyone who goes to Sundance knows that one of the most exciting parts is being able to come out of the Eccles Theater and hear the debate around how people thought about the night's big premiere. Suddenly, this was happening online. Then as the pandemic receded somewhat, they were in a bit of a conundrum, and you had the situation where the opportunity for accessibility was not one that the festival wanted to fully take away. Studios, producers, filmmakers also saw the value in having their films premiere only in person, in theaters, especially as concurrently streaming.

The very existential threats to the theatrical experience started becoming a larger and larger problem. You have these things dovetailing at the same time. Where we are now is Sundance is a hybrid festival. Some of the films premiere-- The films premiere in the theaters. Some of them are then put on an online platform. Others are not. It's usually up to the studio's discretion, especially in the premiere section, whether or not they want their films to go online. Typically, they do not. Even just at last year's festival, a film called Twinless, starring Dylan O'Brien, that was very well reviewed.

It was pirated. The leaks went online and actually had to be removed from the platform. That was one of the more critically acclaimed films in the competition that year. It was considered-- part of the reason why it did take as long for that movie to sell as it did.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. I went to the film festival 20 years ago. It's like one street. You walk up and down it. You go see a movie and a school somewhere. I think I was the only person who saw Welcome to Collinwood with Sam Rockwell. I thought if social media had been there, someone else might have seen the film. How has social media changed Sundance? What do you think, David or Mia?

David Canfield: Yes, I'll go. I'll take it first. I think that, for starters, it does create a more immediate kind of conversation. The old days of Sundance, you'd have dailies, daily trades, going around the festival. Reviews would not be as immediate. The reaction in the room would be more important, especially to buyers. Now, between posts on X, formerly Twitter, and Letterboxd reviews, you have instantly thousands of reactions, often going online and instantly determining a film's value to a potential buyer.

That, in and of itself, just dramatically changes the equation. It, I think, again, dovetails with general shifts in film culture and immediacy with which people react and therefore react to the reactions. Also, on a more fundamental level, I think it's allowed for more public engagement with the festival. I think this is something they're really going to try to harness in this next chapter, really just taking the enthusiasm you see online, you see for these films that oftentimes do not generate that level of enthusiasm once they meet a general commercial release.

Try to find a way to bridge those two things, channel that excitement for the next phase of the festival.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Rocco from Bed-Stuy. Hey, Rocco, thanks for calling, All Of It.

Rocco: Thanks for having me. Yes, I'm calling-- For the past couple of years, I hosted friends in my apartment. With COVID, Sundance is sometimes done this online component, and it's not all the films, so we miss out on a little bit of the selection. There's plenty enough that we fill an entire weekend and try to cram friends into our living room and make a little mini festival out here. I'm from Colorado, so I'm looking forward to it moving to Boulder. I'm a little reticent about the whole move because, for me, I've been to Sundance before, and it's a winter festival, and I really like the snow. [chuckles]

I know the Front Range of Colorado doesn't always have snow, Park City night. I think it'll be a new vibe. Still, it'd be nice to go home and maybe pop into Boulder and watch the next one.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling. Hey, Mia, why was the decision made to move the festival from Park City, Utah to Boulder, Colorado?

Mia Galuppo: Yes. The short answer is that Sundance outgrew Park City. When Sundance first started, they were programming at the Egyptian Theater on Main Street, which is a smaller venue. They were programming in the Library Theater, which is called the Library Theater because it is just the upper room of the library that they put a screen in. You were putting screens up in conference rooms and in school classrooms. Eventually, as Hollywood and also as brands and other marketing ventures moved into Park City, it just outgrew the festival.

They had to bring in more and more infrastructure to the point where it was just bursting at the seams. The local population became more and more disenchanted with the Hollywood parachuting in for two weeks every year into the festival, which is in the middle of ski season. This is a festival in January. They usually aren't want for tourism in Park City during that time. The choice was made to look at other locations to see what this next chapter of Sundance would look like. They ultimately decided on Boulder because there was definitely financial and tax incentives there.

It also was hoping to retain that sort of mountain town environment, that small town feel. The big difference between Park City and Boulder is actually the university that is in the state university that's in Boulder. A lot of people who I talked to this year on the ground at Park City, that's the reason that they are most excited for the move. People are very much so wary of a move to Boulder. The highlight that keeps consistently getting brought up to me is a younger audience that's coming in and younger Hollywood, an independent film, need to attract younger audiences in order to survive.

What better way to do that than with 20-something college students, get them in young.

Alison Stewart: All right, David, real quick about this year's festival. What are two films we should be looking at?

David Canfield: I'll name one that has sold and one that hasn't. The one that has sold is called The Invite, and it is Olivia Wilde's directorial effort at the festival. She actually was in multiple films there. Another one called I Want Your Sex, directed by Gregg Araki. Mia actually wrote a wonderful feature about this film. It's a real comeback movie for her. The film Don't Worry Darling, her last movie, generated mixed reviews, became a bit of tabloid fodder, which we don't need to get into here, but this is a movie with Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, and Olivia Wilde starring as well.

It's kind of compared to a Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? esque sex comedy, relationship comedy, generated great reviews, and generated an old-fashioned bidding war, the kind we haven't seen in this post-COVID era of Sundance very often at all. A24 came away with the rights. Many top studios were in the mix for it. That's one to look for. The other is a film called Josephine. It won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize, also the Audience Award, therefore sweeping the American Dramatic Competition. It stars Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan.

It is a movie told through a child's eyes, unlike any I've seen. It's quite heartbreaking. The filmmaking is really innovative. I know a lot of people caught up to it and were really impressed with it on the platform. I suspect it could be an awards season player if it gets the right distributor.

Alison Stewart: We'll take one last call. Suzanne is calling from Manhattan with a good story. Hey, Suzanne, tell us your story.

Suzanne: Hey, I'll be quick. Thank you. My husband and I were in Sundance, January 25th, 2010. This is a long time ago. My husband was working with Bob Redford, and we ended up spending the entire weekend with he and Billy, which was amazing. The premiere was Women Without Men. It's a critically acclaimed Persian-language film directed by Shirin Neshat. Amazing film. At the premiere and at the dinner, this journalist misunderstood who I was. I was standing with Robert Redford and my husband with Billy.

They did all these photographs of me with Bob Redford, and he laughed. They thought I was Billy. They thought I was his wife. We just laughed. He never even corrected the journalist. We all just laughed about it, and God knows where those pictures are, but it was a remarkable weekend and a memory we will never forget. Certainly not me.

Alison Stewart: You have photos that list you as Mrs. Redford. Is that the case?

Suzanne: That is right, girl.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Love that call. Thanks, Suzanne. My guests have been from The Hollywood Reporter, Mia Galuppo and David Canfield. Thank you so much for joining us.

David Canfield: Thanks for having us. What a treat.

Mia Galuppo: Thank you for having us.