By Vico Sharabani
My first time attending Sundance in 1994 coincided with my first trip to the U.S. I made my way with a press badge and stayed in a cozy Bed & Breakfast on Main Street in what appeared to be a quiet little ski town.
Today, accommodations on Main Street are reserved for A-list celebrities and C-suite studio executives, and every other building is marked with a brand activation or pop-up of some kind. Back in ‘94, I was on the ground interviewing the likes of Naomi Campbell, Robert Redford and Brian Wilson. In ‘24, I traversed the festival with my team in celebration of our three films making their debut.
The people at Sundance this year were certainly the usual mix of studio executives, distributors, investors and lawyers, but I was pleasantly surprised by the high volume of extremely talented young people attending the festival to break through in their creative careers and leverage the festival as an opportunity to network. When I first came to Sundance, Abel Ferrara was revered as a “bad boy” in filmmaking, a standout voice in the industry who was truly taking chances. Today, there is an abundance of palpable excitement around fresh creative, technical, and conceptual approaches that are constantly setting a new "status quo" for craft within the independent filmmaking space. The slate of filmmaking talent also brings a refreshingly more diverse slate of perspectives to the table, reflecting a society and culture that is finally reckoning with the need for stories that are more representative of modern audiences.
While last year’s first post-pandemic in-person Sundance was marked by a bit of a snooze when it came to deal flow, this year’s titles were getting snatched up throughout the entire festival. There may not have been an overwhelming number of overnight bidding wars, but in the slate of three films that our studio worked on alone, all were acquired by the end of the festival. Presence, the captivating first-person perspective film from director Stephen Soderbergh, left critics, audiences and even the film’s actors on the edge of their seats during the premiere. It was sold to Neon in a competitive bidding process, which secured the worldwide rights for the film. The other films we worked on, including A Real Pain directed by Jesse Eisenberg, sold to Searchlight Pictures for $10 million hours after it premiered. I Saw the TV Glow arrived at Sundance with A24 already securing distribution rights for the Emma Stone-produced film.
While Sundance today may lack the “innocence” I experienced back in the 90s, the spirit of the festival remains intact. Over 30 years, the democratization of filmmaking technology has transformed the landscape of independent film, I believe, for the better.
Vico Sharabani is founder & chief creative officer at The-Artery
Josh C. Kline joins Scripto as CEO
Josh C. Kline has been named the new CEO of Scripto, the innovative real-time, cloud-native platform designed for remote collaborative scriptwriting and production. Kline will steer Scripto into its next phase of growth. Plans call for Scripto to further transform collaboration throughout the writing and production stages, enabling creative teams to accelerate their workflow and enhance teamwork.
Emmy®-winning programs such as “Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” “The Daily Show,” and the Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” rely on Scripto’s advanced workflow tools to allow show writers and production teams to work together seamlessly from any location.
“Late Night” host Colbert, co-founder of Scripto, said of Kline, “His deep background in entertainment technology will help take our groundbreaking platform to new heights, and also ensure we are on the winning side when the AIs finally make their move, which we all know is coming. I can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve together.
Kline brings a wealth of experience in technology and media. He previously served as head of media & entertainment at Box. Kline co-founded Sample Digital, where he developed Digital Dailies™, revolutionizing the review and approval process for film and TV production and earning him a Primetime Engineering Emmy Award. His entrepreneurial spirit continued with the launch of Secure Path Technology, a cloud-based content ID and metadata services company. Kline was chief strategy officer at Final Draft before joining Box as head of media & entertainment, and has consulted for major global clients including Microsoft, Avid, and Motion Picture Domain Registry.
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