Sundance Roadshow
The Sundance Institute announced yesterday that for this coming year’s festival, they’ll be taking eight features and their filmmakers out to theaters across the country on January 28th — before the awards are even given out.
Eight cities will be included in Sundance Film Festival USA:
Ann Arbor, MI — Michigan Theater
Brookline, MA — Coolidge Corner Theatre
Brooklyn, NY — BAM
Chicago, IL — Music Box Theatre
Los Angeles, CA — Downtown Independent
Madison, WI — Sundance Cinemas Madison
Nashville, TN — The Belcourt Theatre
San Francisco, CA — Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
This is an idea I’ve been talking up for years — the chance to participate in Sundance without trudging up to Park City.
As a filmmaker (and fan of indies) it’s frustrating to notice that audiences will line up for two hours in the Utah snow to see a movie that, six months later, they won’t drive to the nearby theater to see. The difference, of course, is that audiences want to be the first to see something. They want to participate in the discovery and discussion. This roadshow provides a chance.
If I have any quibble, it’s that the Arclight in Hollywood would be ideal. If this first round is a success, maybe we can hope for additional venues.
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November 5th, 2009 at 10:25 am
The fact that it’s coming to Michigan does my midwestern heart good.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:50 am
This is great news for indie film, if it works. I remember Salt Lake City screenings being less than packed last time I was up there. Maybe it’s a case of not being far enough.
And the Arclight maybe… but perhaps a more likely future LA venue might be the Downtown Independent where Sundance held their shorts event this summer: downtownindependent.com. It’s a great venue and has a real indie atmosphere that I think fits the Sundance vibe well.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Hi Toby,
They’re doing the Downtown Independent this year. You might have missed it because it accidentally appears on the same line as Chicago.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I would have liked to see Seattle get some Sundance love. The indie scene is growing pretty rapidly up here with Humpday, a Seattle film by a Seattle film maker, screening at the 09 Sundance and securing a nice distribution deal.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
What a great idea. I totally agree that half the fun is seeing something before everyone else and actually being in on that bit of discovery. I bet most of these screenings will sell out.
I wonder if they could even expand it to 20 or 50 or even 100 cities and theaters and turn it into a form of distribution. Certainly the Sundance brand could fill theaters in lots of cities around the country.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Good idea. Sundance over the years has become the embodiment of everything it was started as a rebellion against (big money, studio execs, flashy celeb premieres); spreading out the venues in a way that makes it possible for actual human beings to see the movies will go a long way toward returning it to its populist roots.
But yeah, why not the Arclight?
November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I’m in Nashville, and I LOVE this. Last year Moon, Tetro, and another Sundance movie that I don’t recall, ran for a brief time at the Belcourt and I didn’t get a chance to see them. I will definitely be at this.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I think saying people line up to see a movie at a film festival but refuse to drive to see the same movie when it is in wide release is because the film festival audience just wants to be ‘the first to see something’ is an over-generalization. I attend many film festivals, and sometimes get to see a movie’s first release at the festival and then again at my nearby theatre. The film festival audience is inherently different: We’re cinephiles, and we (probably arrogantly and somewhat conceitedly) talk about the mood, the writing, the directing. We want to see the movie with people of like mind. There is no guarantee we will get that when it comes to the nearby theatre. As you stated, I am often one of two or three people, and there is something about a critical mass that helps make the event enjoyable. Or worse yet, I am one of three hundred people all there just to see the latest ‘indie’ film because it is trendy. They cannot talk about other films by the same director, or writer, or producer, or even in the same genre because they just do not know about them.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Thanks for posting this. I’m in Brookline and the Coolidge is a great resource for film lovers, so it’ll be fun to have a Sundance event here (especially for those of us who can’t make the trip out to Utah).