The Last Sundance (in Park City) and Why Boulder?

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0:40Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town that's linkedin.com slash the town terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by the Home Depot. Spring is starting, so it's time to wake up your yard. And at the Home Depot, they've got everything you need to do with low prices guaranteed. Mowing your lawn is a dream with top brand outdoor power tools like the RYOBI 40 volt mower with up to 50 minutes of runtime. You can add a pop of color with spring blooms and fresh plants and refresh your garden beds with earth grow mulch five bags for just ten dollars start your spring with low prices now through april 1st available at the home depot exclusions apply see homedepot.com slash price match for details it is wednesday january 21st it's sundance time festival kicks off on thursday craig and i will be there staying in the second worst hotel on Main Street.

1:43Say hello if you see us. It's a pretty monumental year for Sundance, the last in the Park City era of the festival. It's kind of hard to believe it's moving to Boulder next year. End of an era. This is also the first Sundance without its late founder, Robert Redford, who passed away in December. They're doing a big celebration of Redford and other stuff is planned this year to commemorate the last go-round in Park City. Feels like more people in town are going this year. Helps that this year's festival is kind of stacked. New films from Olivia Wilde, Gregor Rocky. There's a John Wilson documentary, a Charlie XCX movie, a Duplass brother.

2:16Gotta have one of those. And new distributors looking to buy films, including Warner Brothers, which has a new indie label looking for titles. It'll be interesting to see if they're a buyer. Lots to discuss, so I asked Eugene Hernandez to come on the show. Eugene is the Sundance Festival director, which means he's in charge of everything that happens during the 10-day event and all 100 or so movies that are shown. He's been in that job since 2022, and before that, He was at the New York Film Festival in Lincoln Center. For that, he was the co-founder of IndieWire, the media outlet that covers festivals, including Sundance.

2:47I've been going to Sundance for almost 20 years. I've got some great memories. So we're going to share some stories and look ahead a little to Colorado in the future of the festival. Today, it's the last Sundance in Park City. From the Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

3:05Okay, we are here with Eugene Hernandez, who is the festival director of the Sundance Film Festival and a noted Dodgers fan. Welcome on the show. Go Dodgers. I mean, can you believe... Thank you, Matt. Can you believe it? We're like, what, under three? No, a little over three weeks away from spring. I know. I know. And you know what? It's nice. We're going into the season as the evil empire. Everyone hates us. So it's great. I love it. It'll be a blast as always. But we're talking about cold weather and snow, Sundance. Exactly. By the way, would you like to first take a victory lap? I predicted on this very show that Sundance would not leave Park City and that this was all a negotiation play with the city.

3:47You said at the time, we're pretty serious. And I said, you know what? You'll stay. So take a bow. If Matt Bellany invites you to take a bow, you take a bow. You were absolutely ahead of the curve as well, Matt. I will give you your kudos. as you were ahead of the curve on some of the conversations that started to percolate more than a couple of years ago now around the future home of the festivals. Okay. Well, now that we've scratched each other's backs for 10 minutes, let's get into this. Because I feel like this year at the festival, there's like not just nostalgia, but people kind of, they want to go because they want to experience one last time.

4:24Not necessarily to relive old times, although I think there'll be some of that, but just to kind of like take it in and be like, okay, this is a pretty cool thing that exists. I know I'm certainly going to like go to those screenings at the library or Eccles and be like, okay, last time here. Yeah, I mean, I think, look, I think you're right. Are bookings revealing that? Are they like showing that there's increased interest this year? Yeah, we've seen an uptick in attendance. I'm sure it's a combination of factors. This is a unique moment in the history of this festival. No way of saying it any, you know, can't say it any other way.

4:58I think there's an excitement to be part of something that will be once in a lifetime to put a big weight on it, I guess, in the sense that for so many of us, I know, speaking for myself, I guess, but for so many people in my circle, Sundance in January in Utah has been such a fundamental part of how we navigate the entertainment or film ecosystem starting here in January like you. It was so genius to put it in January because it really does kick off the year, culturally speaking. You go, you're like, okay, this is how we're starting off our year. And I know it sucks. You're in the middle of the cold weather.

5:38And I've always thought that this was some kind of cruel joke that Robert Redford decided to play on all the fake Hollywood people he knew. That, okay, we're going to make them suffer in the middle of the snow. But it really, it just works. And don't you worry a little bit that maybe it won't work in Colorado? Like, I know it's also cold weather, but like there's something about Park City and the inconvenience of it all and the weird bus system and all of it that works. Maybe it won't in Colorado. As someone who runs a film festival and talking to my peers who do the same, I think there's that weight on all of our shoulders, whatever city we're in, that that something's just not going to work.

6:17like there's something really i'll be really idealistic from it there's something really magical about some of these great festivals that we get to go to whether it's like why does the can film festival work in the south of france in may why they make me wear a tuxedo every night and it all works and we did we like put that tuxedo on every night and we get into the spirit of what that festival is or when we're in telluride in the mountains and like you know at 11 000 feet or whatever the hell it is and we can't breathe but but we're in the mountains in telluride and it's just like something else happens and you just sort of adapt to that experience.

6:52I think that's what Sundance has been. And frankly, that's what Sundance in Boulder will be. You think so? You don't think that you're going to have to kind of re-engineer that over five to 10 years? The thing that I will say, things will be different. Like there is a re-engineering that is already happening. We aren't really moving the festival from Utah to Colorado. we're building a festival in college. Oh, there you go. You're on point. You've been media trained. I've been thinking about it. But we know why you're doing it. I mean, explain why you're doing it. I've been trying to reframe my thinking around this, Matt.

7:27I think the weight of trying to carry something from one place to another, a festival that is so unique to its place, to your point, I'm sitting here in Utah right now looking out the window at the beautiful mountains and there's not a lot of snow this year, so that's a weird thing, but looking out at where there should be a lot of snow And thinking, you know, when we talk about Boulder and this idea of building something in Boulder, what we're bringing with us is, again, very idealistic, and I really believe in this. What we're bringing with us is the mission and the vision that Robert Redford established in these mountains here in Utah 40 plus years ago.

8:00That's what we take with us. The community here has been great. The community in Boulder is ready to accept us and is inviting us with open arms. So I think that it's a complex relationship when you're trying to build a festival in a community. It can be disruptive, but we try to show up thoughtfully, meaningfully, carefully. The boring stuff to you might be like, it's like a Frederick Wiseman documentary, like the meetings you have with city officials talking about like parking and logistics and permitting and the stuff that might from the outside look a little, you know, a little dry from the inside, from the inside world of planning a festival is all about trying to create an experience.

8:39for both the town and also for the folks coming into that town to have a fun time. And more importantly, to sell more furry cowboy hats. Those are huge. The furry cowboy hats. They're real. People show up. You will see. People apply. I don't understand. There's like 10 stores on Main Street now that sell furry cowboy hats. I blame Taylor Sheridan. All right. So let's talk about, I want to go down memory lane a little bit. Give me your wildest moment in the festival. Just to be clear, you started covering this festival when? My first time attending was 1993. We launched IndieWire in 1995. So out of the gate, I was a journalist starting in 1995 with IndieWire.

9:22And my wildest story actually has to do with being a journalist at Sundance. It's 1997. This is pre-Olympics Park City. And that's a really important kind of turning point for this city. And it's going to happen again when the Olympics come back soon. But the Olympics here happened in, what, 2000, I guess it was. And that was a big deal. That was like a turning point for this city. And it really like put the city on a big map. But that was post Harvey. Harvey was a dominant force at Sundance in the late 90s. I mean, there were so many, there was the business of independent film, really like the modern business that we talk about today, right?

9:55It gets attributed to Sex, Lies, and Videotape at Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape at Sundance in 1989. So let's flash forward to 1997 for this wild story. There's a movie called Star Maps by Miguel Arteta that plays at the festival. produced by Matthew Greenfield, now the head of Searchlight, right? And we were bootstrapping journalists. Sundance used to have on Main Street this business center where you could go and like check your email, which was, you know, then a rarity. So, and then you could, people could leave cards or invites for you, like to parties. You could actually, there was someone who would answer the phone and could take phone messages.

10:32And then while you were out, Pink Pad would write like so-and-so called, they want you to call them. So I'm sitting in there checking my email. The person that answers the phone was like a volunteer at the festival, screams across the room and knows I'm working at IndieWire. Hey, Eugene, Searchlight just bought Star Maps for$2.5 million. Screams it across the room. Now, I was just paying attention to my computer where I'm working on a story. And little did I know, sitting next to me was Val Van Galder, who I'm sure listens to the town. I know her. She's a long-time marketing executive. Long-time marketing executive then at Searchlight.

11:08And she hears the same thing that I just heard about her film getting sold. And it's been screamed across the room as she's sitting next to me writing the press release for the announcement that is about to be given to the trades so that it can run in print the next day. Right. I have this information. What would Matt Bellany do with this information is the same thing I would do with this information is we're going with this immediately. It led to a series of events and a sequence of events that we'll save for another discussion. and Val and I have joked and laughed about this for years since then, where it was like this immediate collision of old and new media and the festival at a turning point and a deal making at a turning point.

11:49So Val grabs me and pulls me into her and is like, that's my story. What's going on here? And we still laugh about just that kind of collision of culture. Yeah. Like, hey, you know what? The internet's a thing. I think we're going to have to acknowledge this at some point. They're changing. That was a little before my time. When I started covering the festival, the internet was definitely a thing and it was pretty heated. It's so funny to think back now that these journalists in Park City are cutting each other's throats to get the five-second scoop on what independent label bought a film for a million dollars that few people will ever see.

12:29You guys were duking it out. I mean, when you were a reporter, duking it out with Variety because that currency of getting that information out first. Totally. It's crazy. And then Deadline started vastly overstating what the purchase price was. So all the agents loved it. So you have to cut the purchase price in half when you see the Deadline story. What's fascinating about it now, I think that world in which those films would sell that quickly and be acquired for millions of dollars by a student. The all-night negotiating session. There's actually very few of those stories. Yeah, that doesn't happen because everyone's more diligent about it and all deals take forever now and it's you gotta you know go through all of the various offers and like it doesn't happen like that anymore so people get to like tuesday or wednesday the festival oh nothing's selling and then stuff kind of trickles in we did a study on this this past year nearly 70 of the films from last year's festival ultimately sold for distribution but our grand jury prize winner a tropia by hayley gates who's in the moment with charlie xcx this year who was in marty supreme as well she's an actress as well that film just sold like a month ago.

13:35Although that's not a good sign. When it lasts that long, that you're going for the four wall or the, you know, the bare minimum deal. To your point, I think that there are just many different ways that these films are getting out to audiences, whether it's, you know, a partnership deal or if the studios aren't buying the films in the same way, you know, the industry is reacting in a different way. And we try to set our metrics at Sundance differently. We try not to judge ourselves on the number of films that sell, but really thinking about where filmmakers, the opportunities that come from filmmakers for their next film or their next film or the things that might happen after that.

14:12My favorite moment covering the festival, I forget what year this was, early 2010s. I was in a condo with my colleagues covering everything and we got a call from a source that said that the police had busted up a party that William Morris was throwing at a house up in the hills. which was not uncommon. So we had someone there. I texted or emailed at the time and confirmed it and did a story about how the cops had broken up a party that William Morris had thrown. It was like one, two in the morning. And obviously we blasted that out. Apparently Ari Emanuel, who was not at Sundance, but was the owner of William Morris at the time.

14:54He called and screamed at the agents that were in charge of that party because it had, you know, made them look bad. And the agent who was in charge of the party, who is now a manager, I will not name him, but he has some big filmmaker clients. He found me at a party the next night and tried to fight me. Fight like? Like old style, put up your dukes, fight in a bar. That's a brave. How dare you write about this? There's just a party. Why are you writing about this? For anybody listening who hasn't stood next to Matt Bellany, he's a tall he's a tall this guy is pretty big too and you know you're wearing your bulky you don't know who's buff you don't know who's not that was luckily a manager friend of mine stood in the center and de-escalated things pretty quickly well there you go yeah that and my second favorite story was the infamous CAA party on Main Street where they invited the burlesque troupe do you remember this one this was 2013 I wasn't there you were not there okay this is right when like texting everyone at the festival was a thing.

15:57The Wi-Fi service is good enough. And I got a text of a very risque burlesque dancer that had a hide the kids strap on dildo attached to her and was dancing on stage at the CAA party on main street. And this person said, Nicole Kidman just left. A couple other people were offended. This is a thing. So I ran over there and indeed people were coming out. I don't think people were that offended. I think it became a bigger deal than it was. But of course, we had to run the photo. We blurred the crotch so people could not see what the actual offending item was. But that was probably my favorite headline out of Sundance, the CIA party with the risque burlesque dancers that cause clients to leave.

16:43You know, what we really hope is that people are coming to the festival to talk about the movies. But to your point, sometimes things get away from... That's true. All right. So give me your biggest movie-oriented moment at the festival, the most impactful discovery, the sort of aha moment of your time there. So it's 2013, and I was doing a morning radio show here in Utah. So I would attend the festival as a journalist, and then they invited me to do this morning radio show that would go out over in VR. And you're getting the pitches ahead of the festival, like watch this movie, talk to our client, whatever it may be.

17:19And Fruitvale Station stood up to me. And I was like, Ryan Coogler, like they were pitching like this guy that used to be a football player has become a filmmaker. And he's making the story about the neighborhood where he lives in Oakland and about this police killing. And so I invite Ryan, I've watched the movie before the festival, his movie hasn't premiered yet, I invited him on the radio show, like first day, Park City. And anybody who's ever had a chance to have an extended conversation with Ryan Coogler will know that he is just the the most thoughtful and beautiful and just like such an engaging conversation, one-on-one conversation.

17:52I love that he's getting out more during this award season. He's doing more press. Like every interview he does is great. He should do more. He deserves it. I mean, Sinners is just like a spectacular film. And so I have this conversation with him and, you know, the movie hasn't even premiered yet. Like maybe one of his first interviews, he's just starting to find his conversation around this film. And so to me that, and we developed a bond, you know, from that conversation and stayed in touch. I just thought that to me was just like a perfect example of like how someone can arrive at the festival one person and leave an entirely different person.

18:24Yeah. I had a similar experience with Mark Webb. Oh, yeah. The year of 500 Days of Summer. Yeah. Remember that? Now that had a distributor already. I believe Searchlight was already in that one. But I went to the premiere of that one and a friend of mine was representing him. And I was in the taxi with him as we left the premiere. and the reviews started coming out. And to be sitting with a Sundance filmmaker when the reviews are hitting is quite an experience because you see like this is their career. This is like the moment they could, and the reviews were very, very good. That movie goes on to be a hit.

19:01He gets Spider-Man. He has a great career. I mean, it's so great to see those moments happen. And, you know, you mentioned Ryan and Sinners and him out in the circuit. And, you know, we were watching the Golden Globes a couple of weeks ago, you know, seeing Chloe Zhao up there who, you know, and Ryan Coogler, both of whom went through the Sundance Labs, you know, Michelle Satter. Together. Together, they were in the same class at the same awards show where Paul Thomas Anderson, who also started out his career at the Labs and has shared publicly how meaningful Michelle and the Labs were to him at the very earliest stage of his career.

19:32To see that longevity and to see those opportunities and moments that happen, that's the ultimate dream that you wish for these filmmakers and that we wish for all the ones that are going to come through this year as well.

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21:12The furry cowboy hats. And the furry cowboy hats. If I see you at a party this year, it will probably be for a very brief conversation because I don't get to go to a lot of parties. Yeah. Dinners are much better. I will ask you what your wildest celebrity sighting is. The most random celebrity sighting. Mine's Paris Hilton. Anytime you can get a Paris Hilton run in. This was during her heyday as well, when she was like bopping from swag suite to swag suite, just like with bags of swag. I was thinking about some of the like, you know, seeing Al Gore at Sundance with an Inconvenient Truth. Yeah, the politicians are great.

21:48I was once interviewing Redford for Esquire magazine, and Bill Gates just stopped by. And I think he might have been there for Inconvenient Truth or some documentary that aligned with his interests. And he just stopped by to say hello to Redford. and they're just like chatting there. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. Bill Gates. Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Sundance, also with a documentary. Those are the people that I don't encounter people of that caliber or that experience in my daily life. All right, so let's get a little to what's planned for this final festival. What are you guys doing differently this time to kind of mark the end of this Park City era?

22:26For us, we're thinking a lot about Robert Redford who passed away in September. and having this festival in Utah this year, the first festival since his passing, we'll have on this Friday night the gala fundraiser for the Institute. We'll honor Chloe Zhao. We'll have Amy Redford, his daughter, who really is kind of carrying the torch for the Redford family and for him. So that will be the beginning of a number of different events over the course of the next week. But that's always a special moment. And then on the final Friday, so a week after this gala, something that is unique and special is everything we're doing to commemorate the kind of culmination of the festival on that Friday.

23:07And Redford shared this phrase with us last year, everyone has a story. And that kind of became the framing and the kind of the mantra for our festival for this year. So we're actually going to do a special event on the final Friday with stories. We haven't announced the list yet, but it's a free event for the entire Utah community. There's going to be filmmakers and industry folks and audience members there to kind of share the kind of thing that we're doing now, some favorite stories, some old photos. It'll just be an opportunity to kind of come together. And it will be the culmination of not only the festival in Utah, but this week of celebrating Redford, honoring his legacy, celebrating the time in Utah.

23:43We've got like a seven or eight legacy screenings, like Little Miss Sunshine 20 years later, got a reunion screening there, House Party, a film that maybe folks haven't seen in a while and the team. House Party was a Sundance movie? Party was a Sundance movie. Wow, did not know that. It is restored and it is back. And the Hudlin brothers will bring this restoration back to, and it'll look and sound like it's never looked and sounded before. So this great selection of films, Saw, you know, James Wan will be here with Saw. So a great collection of films. Feel good movies like Saw. It's a little bit of an expansion to your point of looking for something different of the legacy program, doing a little bit more.

24:23because to the earlier point, so many people just want to come and be part of this year's festival. And so we're putting them to work while they're here. Will there be some kind of a torch passing, like the mayors of both cities, like the Boulder Mail shows up and starts jogging towards Colorado? Kim Yutani, our director of programming, is hoping for a snowball fight. So that would be the moment. How close did you guys get to staying? Well, it could have been one of three choices. Now, I know you really probably didn't, as much as you thought we were going to stay here, you probably didn't think we would go to Cincinnati either.

24:54And I did not. No, that seemed like a joke to me. It wasn't a joke. Each of those three cities that were in our final running, we could see the festival in any one of those three cities. Salt Lake City is a really great place. There's great culture. There's a great music scene. There's multiple universities. There's like, and we do a summer festival here. You know, we're still anchored in Utah. Our institute is based here. We have the labs. We have a third of our staff who live here in Utah. We do summer programming. so as much as I know you're wanting to um you know nudge and poke the park city locals a bit mayor mayor and warrell pounded every possible pavement and desk to try to come up with the right the compelling way for us to stay and we had we had to think ultimately about what is going to be the best and most sustainable way to continue this festival uh in the future and and boulder just made the most sense but we could have gone in any of those three directions even though I don't you don't believe us like we really could have and but that was the time I think it would have just been the ultimate comedy to make all these fancy Hollywood people fly into a airport in West Virginia to go to Cincinnati it's in northern Kentucky sorry no no you're right northern Kentucky airport right it's like closer than going from from Manhattan to Hoboken sure yes I hear the pitch now uh well listen I I'm excited to be there not gonna lie I'm not I'm very excited for this to be the last year to have to deal with those portion control tops on the booze bottles at every bar that you have to have in Utah.