Sundance Revives Independent Spirit
Times are still tough, but American independent cinema turns out to be a movement defined by stubborn true belief and survival. This year's Sundance featured strong noncorporate films.
The Sundance Film Festival, like the American independent film scene, was discovered by Hollywood, enduring good times and bad. Recently, though, the lows seemed to outnumber the highs. Crisis was the name of the game, and then suddenly it wasn’t. What happened? Put simply, filmmakers kept on making movies, if increasingly in affordable digital, and distributors, including new faces and studio veterans, found a way to put those moving pictures in front of the audience, both on the big screen and small. As it happens, viewers have developed a taste for noncorporate cinema.
