Maybe that will provide a new spark for a 40+ year old Sundance?
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Hernandez has been steeped in Sundance and the indie film game his entire career.
He co-founded IndieWire around a Sundance was launching big Hollywood film careers and huge deals.
Sundance director Eugene HernandezGetty Images; Michael Buckner
He headed the New York Film Festival before getting his dream job at Sundance.
No one is more incentivized in keeping founder Robert Redfords vision alive.
DEADLINE: The reviews on the just completed Sundance Festival were not great.
Was there anything you and your team could have done to create a different outcome?
EUGENE HERNANDEZ: Thats a fair question.
We started at a rough moment.
When the festival opened, there were still fires burning in LA.
I spend a good part of the fall and winter in Los Angeles.
I grew up there.
I have an apartment in Santa Monica, and my place was in an evacuation zone for a bit.
We started the festival at a time of great anxiety and stress.
Colleagues and artists lost their homes and were displaced.
Everyone we talked to going into the festival, they were clear.
We have to continue.
These films were ready to meet an audience.
There was a lot of anxiety and distraction.
To walk out on stage to introduce films, and feel the energy from the crowd.
We had such amazing reactions in the room.
HERNANDEZ:We had the documentaryPrime Minister, early in the festival.
We had Dame Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, there in the audience.
When she came out on stage at the end of that film, everybody was crying.
And because of the hope and optimism you feel from that film.
I could list a bunch of moments, visceral experiences.
DEADLINE: Protest and political expression have been an important part of the tapestry of Sundance.
Did you expect more of a rebel yell at your festival?
Something Mr. Redford said at the start of the festival, I found very grounding.
We feel its far more important to support the storytellers and let them tell the stories.
And if the politics come up in those stories, thats fine.
Thats how I felt.
BeyondPrime Minister, setting an achievable but high bar for leadership, optimism.
Big global topics were discussed in films.
When we invited the film in November, it had a different context.
The election hadnt happened yet.
He hasnt been released yet, but will be soon, and that screening took on such incredible power.
DEADLINE: How many films do you and your team watch to cull the Sundance slate?
Weve seen the largest increase in and growth in our submissions coming internationally.
Last year we had 16,000 submissions, features short and episodic.
We start watching all those films in the spring and go all the way through the fall.
DEADLINE: That sounds like a lot of time in dark rooms.
We have a pretty exhaustive process and we send programmers to different parts of the world to watch movies.
The mission of Sundance is fundamentally to connect artists with audiences.
We walk into our programmatic process every season with that top of mind.
There are 10 films in each competition category, U.S., internation, docs.
We take your question really seriously, because we think about all the different audiences that the festival reaches.
But its different now, given the nature of our current marketplace.
Given the evolving way that audiences are finding films, exacerbated by the realities of the pandemic.
The paths open to these films to find an audience are going to be different.
Sometimes theyre going to be slower.
Sometimes theyre going to be acquired.
Sometimes these films are going to have distribution funded by some of the investors in the films themselves.
We see an increasing amount of that.
We premiere like 16 films a day over the course of the first six of the festival.
You have the industry community.
There you have the press.
You have curators who travel to the festival from all around the world to consider films for their festivals.
DEADLINE: The difference is the negotiating pace leaves snail tracks now.
Those festivals were a lot more exciting to cover.
This is the way the business has evolved, and I dont really know what a festival can do.
We saw that in Berlin.
HERNANDEZ: There was no shortage of activity happening at the festival.
It didnt sell, and the effort to find distribution continued in Berlin.
But let me tell you how that film came to be at Sundance.
I was at the festival as a journalist in 1998 when Bill Condon premiered Gods and Monsters.
It was a career turning point for him, and the festival.
The film got Oscar nominations, and a Screenplay win for him.
Hes had much bigger successes in the studio world, but is very mindful of his indie roots.
We watched the day after the election, a nearly finished cut.
The musical numbers, the performances were all there and everything looked great on the screen.
To us, this movie belonged at Sundance.
We wanted the life of this movie to start with us, and we brought Bill back home.
I am glad we could play a part in that films launch.
HERNANDEZ: I was a journalist and I appreciate commentary and feedback.
I know that right now theres no loss of direction.
And that continues to be the case now.
DEADLINE: Attendance is another sign of a festivals health.
How did you do?
HERNANDEZ: We havent released the final numbers, because I know theyre still being tallied.
But we exceeded our ticket sales goals, and great audiences at screenings.
HERNANDEZ: Were still working through that process.
The folks from the finalist cities were at the festival.
We hope to have a decision in place by end of March of early April.
