My first trip to Sundance was in 1995. I had caught the independent film bug after editing my first feature and wanted to watch movies, meet people, and see what that world was all about.
I wound up seeing a lot of documentaries that year, and as I came out of a screening of Steve James’ brilliant Hoop Dreams, I thought for the first time that someday I’d like to cut a documentary film. I never imagined that 16 years later I would be on the documentary jury. But Sundance is like that.
In 2002, I attended the festival as the editor of “Real Women Have Curves.” The film won the Dramatic Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for the two lead actresses in the film, Lupe Ontiveros and America Ferrara. America was a senior in high school making her debut at Sundance.
This year, I was thrilled to be reunited on the jury with America, now a grown woman with an exciting film and television career. Jason Reitman, who served on the U.S. Dramatic jury with America, also came into his own at Sundance. He described arriving with his first short in 1998 “as his father’s son and leaving a filmmaker.” He’s now an Oscar-nominated director, but still very much a part of the Sundance family. Again, Sundance is like that.
I have been to Sundance six times now with five features and a short, but being on the jury was without doubt my best festival to date. I screened 22 documentaries with my amazing fellow jurors Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound, Rocket Science), Laura Poitras (My Country My Country, The Oath), Jess Search (chief executive of the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation) and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening (a huge documentary fan).
I saw wonderful films and we had long, fascinating discussions about each one. I learned from my fellow jurors as well as the filmmakers themselves, and I feel inspired as I embark on my next feature doc.
I have also been inspired by the filmmakers’ persistence. One of the things I love about Sundance is that it doesn’t really matter who you are. My film Taxi to the Dark Side was rejected by Sundance in 2007 when we submitted a rambling early cut, in spite of the fact that the director Alex Gibney had already been nominated for an Oscar for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
And this year, a director who almost didn’t submit his film because he was sure he would be rejected, won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award. His name is Jon Foy and he cleaned houses in Philadelphia for four years while making his film Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.
The film charmed and delighted the jury. It was fresh and unique and imaginative, and we were thrilled to give him the award.
When I spoke to Jon after the awards ceremony, he told me he still has to clean houses. I hope his film sells and he gets funding for his next film so he doesn’t have to continue as a house cleaner.
But even if he does, he can count on forever being a part of the Sundance family, as I have over the years, with all the support that entails.
Because Sundance is like that.
Sloane Klevin is partner/editor at bicoastal Union.
