Small Screen Is Big Player at Sundance

I'd agree that there is much more vibrancy and energy in television than in cinema right now. I'm skeptical, though, that the current trend of showcasing television series in American film festivals is anything more than a trend meant to capitalize on TV's cachet. There are two issues here, in my view:

As financially risky as it is to produce a film, there is a solid business model behind it - you sell various distribution rights to make back your money, and hopefully turn a profit. Even with all the new emerging distribution platforms, the model is the same. The barriers to entry, provided you have the cash to make a movie, are low.

TV's business model is different. The studios that produce the series and the channels/platforms that air them don't have any incentives to let independents come in and take a slice of their pie. What they have going works pretty well for them - there's a reason one almost never heard of an independently produced series by a producer without solid TV experience.

The second issue is that a film festival audience goes to a festival to see movies by undiscovered talent or foreign auteurs. Films that may not see the light of day outside NY or LA, if at all. A series? Once it premieres, everyone has access to it. The element of discovery or rarity is gone. They're different animals.

NY and LA both have independent TV festivals...it's no coincidence they haven't caught on.

"Television."

If you're reading this story online, you're doing so on a device that may eventually replace every TV set in America.

And that could, in turn, replace every existing broadcast and cable network. (Which would also probably make public access television, for which I produce content, defunct.)

And that means, all "content" that one used to see in movie theaters or on TV sets, may only come to us via two "networks: Google (via YouTube) and Amazon.

Remember "Poison" by Todd Haynes? "Ruby in Paradise"? "Welcome to the Dollhouse"? These films used to represent what so-called Independent american films were: daring, personal, and unique.
Those glory days are long gone. There is no longer any 'cinema' at Sundance. For the last couple of years the selection committees have favored well-made but tiresome films that offer little in vision and unique storytelling. Maybe this turn toward TV was inevitable since so much that has come out of Sundance lately appears better suited to the small screen, albeit the small screen of the 1990s.
It's too bad. I'm sure Mr. Redford never wanted the festival to become an out of touch self important relic of hipster fantasy. But so it has.
One can be hopeful though, that Mr. Redford will reclaim the reins and steer Sundance where it belongs: as a vanguard of american cinema. Until then, we thankfully have Toronto to look forward to.

Check out Bob & the trees! My brother in law fights for survival in the Berkshire winter! I been their, its no joke!

Mo Willems has been illustrating cartoon pigeons superimposed over photos of NYC in children's books since his 2003 hit, Don't Let the Pigeon drive the Bus. I do hope the series Animals is more original than the single illustration shown.

Woody Allen exited the "indie" train a long time ago. Amazon needed a big time movie name, and they went out and got one of the biggest. How? A big bucket of cash and a blank check. This deal had nothing to do with independent film, small markets, Sundance or your local "art" cinema.

Would it be too much to ask for Sundance to show some of the films it is promoting on, oh, say, the Sundance channel on cable tv? As a lover of film and a retired firefighter, travel is out of the question. I thought that was what the Sundance channel was supposed to be about, not Law & Order reruns.

The problem isn't that these projects will be exhibited on TV as opposed to "art house cinemas" but that they will be series.

As someone who does not live in either NYC or LA but loves cinema, I have little access to art house films and can only see breathtaking cinema by streaming it.

If excellent cinema were available on demand, this would be a thrilling development to me.

But, as much as I adore film I dislike TV series. Therefore, that potentially brilliant films are becoming multi-episode series is where the tragedy lies.

Geeze how harsh are the first few comments. I've been attending Sundance for the last 12 years. I am not in "the industry", I'm just a lover of film. I see films at Sundance I would never have seen otherwise, mainly because they can't get distribution. And the films are good. So what if Sundance is looking at alternative means of distribution. This can only bee a good thing if more people get to see a film. So what if feature film makers are branching out into TV where they have more time to tell a complex story. Television today does not have to be a 22 episode season that goes on for years. American producers should take a lesson in the short series format from our European cousins Black Mirror, Les revenants, for example. Sundance gets it. Look at Rectify.

Times change and Sundance is doing the right thing by exploring these new opportunities to make such projects available to those of us who appreciate good storytelling.

Hopefully one of my movies makes it to Sundance even though it is really not to independent anymore. Stroke your keys and take a look at my latest movie "The Lost Interview of Carlina La Salle" Cheers.

TV & cable channels - plenty of sex & low low brow content - applies to most HBO/ShowTime, etc. My life is not reflected or influenced by mainstream TV.
I'm tech savy - do not exist in a cave. TV needs to become relevant again, content content content that requires real acting talent.
The last TV series I thougth was awesome - West Wing - real writing & acting.
Thank gosh for TCM, BBC America & a diverse DVD collection that honors the craft of acting & writing.

Interesting development, but I'm not sure I'd go to a film festival to see a bunch of TV pilots though even if Woody Allen was behind it.The article mentions Indie sweetheart Lena Dunhum. She's a mega success story who turned her indie film Tiny Furniture into the hit HBO show Girls. She's the new model. But would I go to a film festival and see the pilot of Girls over say her film Tiny Furniture? Equally, would I see Mark Duplass' Indie film Puffy Chair over his pilot for The League?

I'd feel more like I was paying to be a test audience more than a movie goer. The new TV season is full of pilots, so why pay $12-15 and fight the crowds at a film festival to see one over seeing an indie film?

It's not that the Sundance-type "independent" filmmakers" are drawn to TV, but that audiences have absolutely no interest in the immature, politically correct dramas of self-discovery Sundance promotes.

Small wonder that Sundance, having thoroughly polluted what used to American "independent" film, to the extent that neither mainstream nor art-house audiences have any use for these movies, now looks to do the same to TV.

What has happened to Sundance has happened to many other creative ventures - it is called the corporatization of creativity.

Independent film makers have moved from the small to the smallest screen. At the same time live theatre has become trite, boring, mindless claptrap. Live theatre today is introducing productions that mimic television pilots. Cheap comedy, garbage music and downright silly plot lines have replaced the theatre of Chekov and Mamet.
You might better watch television. Who woulda thought?

Hurray for the small screen. It brings more independently minded shows and important documentaries to the masses, instead of confining them to a few art-house theaters not accessible in most cities outside major markets. I thank NetFlix and HBO for airing documentaries that I would otherwise never have seen. I thank commercial and cable television networks for suddenly offering us a brilliant array of smartly scripted series directed by big name directors and starring A-list actors.

Hollywood serves up Transformers sequels and the like at the big movie houses, shutting out original films for grownups and thought-provoking documentaries. Thank you, Sundance, for providing a venue to showcase original filmmaking that can be seen by so many more people -- thanks to the "small" screen.

Well over 25 years ago, Sundance had morphed from something connected with genuinely "independent" (what an amorphous word!) film work, to a Hwd calling-card festival. Commercial work was decorated with the label "independent" (independent from what/whom/why?) and shilled as "creative" etc. etc. Most of it is hum-drum theater-oriented cinema which aesthetically stretches no boundaries, plays the Hwd game of "stars",and invariably picks up a few years late whatever social-cultural waves are "hot" (LGBT, etc.) Sundance typifies America today: pure commercialism/consumerism masquerading as "new", "different" and even "art." A sham, but totally in lockstep with current American values in which falsehood is celebrated and fraud is the norm.
While the world burns.

[Writer has been to Sundance in competition 3 times.]
www.jonjost.wordpress.com