Oscar Comes To Sundance & Six Other Takeaways From The Fest

It’s been less than a week since the 2019 Sundance Film Festival projected its final film, but it already feels like a million years ago. That might have been because overall it was strangely quiet in Park City this year.  No uplifting Women’s March like the last two years.  No crazy snowfall.  No massive stars.  Honestly, the biggest controversy was over the Michael Jackson “Leaving Neverland” documentary which saw two grandmothers, er, protesters show up and all they really cared about was getting a TV interview.  Sure, there were some insane prices thrown out there on the acquisitions front, but we’ll get to that outlier in the sales game in a minute.  Overall, this Sundance was frustratingly workmanlike with perhaps only two to three narrative premieres anyone will remember over a year from now, but if you’re part of the Sundance Institute mind trust there was one piece of silver lining.  The festival might have a Best Picture nominee on its hands after a rare year off (emphasis on “might”).

READ MORE: Best and Worst of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival

This past year the only Sundance nominations from the Academy this year were for “Minding the Gap,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” and “RBG” in the Documentary category (“Of Fathers and Sons” screened, but did not premiere at the festival),  “A Night in the Garden” in Documentary Short and “RBG” in the Original Song race. And considering Sundance has dominated the Documentary category for almost two decades at least one of those nods was sort of a given (even the snubs were Sundance premieres).  The film world knows the major documentary festival is Sundance and that’s something the Institute can hang their hat on.

Now, you might be wondering: “Why does this matter?  Sundance is supposed to be about ‘new’ independent voices.  Who cares if they get Oscar nods or a Best Picture nod?”  Well, it matters if you believe Sundance is the premiere film festival in the United States and if it’s the most important film market in the U.S.  If filmmakers decide to stop bringing their potential breakouts to Park City it affects the quality of the festival overall.  It also allows producers who think they need awards credibility for a sale to make the argument they should position themselves for the fall festivals instead.  You’re hot until you’re not.  Just ask the Cannes faithful.  Even that iconic festival had a string of rough years a decade or so ago.

Happily, Sundance has a good chance to return to the Best Picture race later this year with “The Farewell.”  A24 picked up the U.S. Dramatic Competition entry for a respectable $6 million buoyed by the fact it’s a tearjerker with a standout performance from Awkwafina that could easily land a Best Actress nomination.  Lulu Wang‘s semi-autobiographical tale also tackles the differences between American and Chinese society in a modern day context that is often illuminating without preaching or seeming didactic.  A24 might just release it in the summer (a smart move with the Oscars calendar moving up) and it would be shocking if the increasingly international membership didn’t embrace what could be described as a universal story.  And, again, did we mention it was a tearjerker?  You reach Academy members through their hearts and “The Farewell” could easily resonate with voters.  Moreover, despite being bizarrely shut out in the jury awards, “The Farewell” (which already boasts an 87 on Metacritic) should earn even stronger reviews outside the festival (it wouldn’t hurt to land a Cannes non-competition berth to get the word out among European and international critics either).  Wang’s drama isn’t a lock for a Best Picture nod, but anyone who screened it will tell you it’s going to be in the mix.

Other films of note this Sundance include Joe Talbot’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” another A24 title, that is likely a fringe Best Picture player but could easily be a mainstay in the Gotham, Spirit Awards mix.  It took jury awards for Directing and a special Creative Collaboration for Talbot, co-screenwriter Rob Richert and lead Jimmie Fails.  An original screenplay shot isn’t out of the mix either.  “Last Black Man” is also one of those films that will resonate with critics more strongly outside of Park City than in it (you could easily debate that a fall festival premiere might have made more sense too).

“Clemency,” on the other hand, is a strange play.  It took the Grand Jury prize, but despite a spectacular opening segment, Chinonye Chukwu’s editing style often takes the audience out of the picture. That’s disheartening because the film features one of the best performances of Alfre Woodward‘s career, a turn that is screaming for awards recognition.  Moreover, despite a “hot” pickup market, no one had acquired the drama when this story published.  That’s not great for its long term prospects.

Amazon Studios reportedly spent $14 million on Scott Z. Burns’ “The Report” well-reviewed drama features strong performances by Adam Driver and Annette Bening, both of whom could land in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress races later this year.  Burns script is masterful in how it lays out the Senate investigation into the CIA’s torture practices (in what became known as the Torture Report), but there’s so much exposition you wonder how well it will play with guild and AMPAS members overall.

The Amazon streaming service also acquired “Honey Boy,” a drama inspired by Shia LaBeoufs tough relationship with his father.  LaBeouf gives a fantastic performance in a role inspired by his dad as does Noah Jupe, who plays him at 13, and Lucas Hedges, who portrays him at 22.  The mercurial actor could be in the Original Screenplay mix and noted documentary filmmaker Alma Har’el deserves tremendous praise for her narrative feature directing debut (at worst, it’s a great audition for whatever she wants to do next). The concern for “Honey Boy” is that this is a movie that could easily disappear when it hits theaters.   How Amazon avoids that from happening remains to be seen.

Neon acquired “Luce,” a great thriller from Julius Onah that features an impressive lead performance by Kevin Harrison Jr. and a fantastic supporting turn from Octavia Spencer.  No hyperbole intended, but its quite possibly the best work of Spencer’s career.  If Neon can get the industry to take it seriously and Spencer hits the campaign trail she could earn her third Oscar nomination, giving the film a much higher profile.  If, like “Honey Boy,” the film disappears, so will any awards prospects.

Mark Duplass and Ray Romano give nuanced, moving performances in “Paddleton,” but the Netflix release feels like a movie that is so small it will be appreciated, but quickly forgotten.

Other hyped narrative films including “Late Night,” “Brittany Runs A Marathon” and “Hala” could do well at the box office, but are likely not real awards players.

Again, the documentary field is a completely different story for the festival.  Docs such as “Knock Down The House,” “Leaving Neverland,” “Honeyland,” “Sea of Shadows,” “One Child Nation,” “Jawline,” “Mike Wallace Was Here,” “Moonlight Sonata: Deafness In Three Movements” and “Midnight Family” could all pop either in limited release or on the awards season circuit beginning less than eight months from now.

Now, some quick thoughts on a festival in transition.

Park City on Life Support: This town is dead
The city of Park City and the Sundance Institute have worked for almost ten years to try to dimish the party crashing culture that would turn Main Street into a mob scene full of C-list stars and the paparazzi that followed them.  First, they enacted ordinances that were able to diminish the impact of gifting suites that did not have a connection to the festival.  Second, the economic downturn hit the festival in 2009 and 2010 which pretty much helped wipe away the Whirlpools of the world handing out free refrigerators to TV stars (it was also a rough period for the Institute itself which went through a number of different “presenting partners”).   For anyone who has gone to the festival before 2010 and even up to three or four years ago, the differences are obvious.  It used to be that brands such as ESPN would have a house and Beyonce would perform with a line around the block to get in.  Major EDM and dance music DJs would flock to Main Street venues to spin for an hour.  Some of the biggest hip-hop artists at the time would fly up to.  The past two years it was hard to decipher just how far the fun had fallen.  There was a ton of snow (especially in 2017) and that just diminished everything.  Now, with relatively normal weather, it’s insanely apparent.  Traffic into the Main Street area on Friday and Saturday nights was bad, but not as godawful as it was even earlier this decade (and that’s with people using Lyft, an official sponsor, more than ever).  The big red flag was that it used to be Tuesday night would see the last of the big parties with a few scattering on Wednesday.  No longer, Tuesday night on Main Street was deader than dead.  So much so that you would have thought it was regular Winter weekday night in February.  Restaurants closing at 10, barely any venues open and the streets almost deserted.   In context, you might think this would be positive for the festival, but it was quite the opposite.  The hype, party scene and multiple venues helped power the excitement during the Festival.  And those continuing events saw dealmaking and creative collaborations flourish.  Sure, the weekend was fine, but was anyone writing home about those events this year?  The scene now seems so muted the whole affair has almost become…stodgy?  Listen, rank and file Sundance parties were never anything to write home about (the same 300 industry people you saw the night before sort of thing), but even they lost their luster.  The festival and the city are justified in making sure Main Street doesn’t turn into a madhouse again, but may we suggest it might have worked a little too well?

Amazon Studio’s acquisition trove is an outlier
Let’s be clear, Amazon Studios’ massive buying spree for “Late Night” ($13 million), “Brittany Runs A Marathon ($13 million) and “The Report” ($14 million) was a shot across the bow to Netflix.  The studio is going to be aggressive under new head Jennifer Salke and can justify the prices with the increasingly global reach of Prime Video.  In fact, the release for the “Late Night” acquisition led with Salke noting, “The moment the lights came up after the premiere, we knew ‘Late Night’ is a film our viewers will love and talk about.”  And the emphasis is on “viewers,” not “moviegoers.”  To a layman, these buys would make it seem like the market at the festival was jumping, but it’s actually not.  Netflix spent a reported $10 million on “Knock Down The House” and, as previously mentioned, A24 picked up “The Farewell” for $6 million worldwide (a reasonable price any year), but many other hyped titles went to Neon for “undisclosed sums” (you can bet they were significantly lower or the prices would have been leaked by their sales agents).  Longtime buyers such as Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Roadside Attractions and Sony Pictures Classics seemed to watch Amazon and Netflix engage and avoided the overbuys by moving to the sidelines (it’s worth noting Apple took “Hala,” which was not thought to have major commercial prospects, for the dreaded “undisclosed sum”). Frankly, the one non-streaming surprise buyer was New Line which took “Blinded by the Light” for $15 million after Amazon’s shopping cart drove up the price for anything even remotely commercial.  Beyond those pickups, it’s hard to find other narrative premieres that have serious theatrical potential.  Then again, will this year’s crop have a “Hereditary” ($79 million global) or a “The Big Sick” ($56 million global)?  More importantly, what happens next year if Amazon, Apple and Netflix likely have enough product in-house?  Will the market crash? Should producers financing films aiming for next year’s fest realize we might not see these prices again in years?  Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Narrative indie formula is straining the festival
The Sundance programming team has done an admirable job in bringing in more diverse voices and the fact 41% of the films were directed by women is truly inspiring, but it still felt like too many of the stories were “same old, same old.” Twenty or thirtysomething man/woman looking for love in New York City full of familiar NYC cliches? Yep. Small town, southern or mid-west dramas about everyday people that are well done but instantly forgettable? Yep. High School coming of age story where you see where it’s going in the first 10 min? Yep. Cute coming of age story set in the UK set to 80’s music? Yep. These are all familiar indie film formulas (hint, they are relatively easy to make from a production/finance perspective), but they are becoming as predictable as the movies studios greenlit back in Hollywood.  There was a sense of surprise missing from this year’s films.  There were just a handful of films that seemed to be taking even big creative chances.  No matter who was behind the camera, it often felt safe and, narratively at least, too familiar. And speaking of such…

The festival somehow needs more star power
One of the biggest changes in the industry over the past few years is that American film school graduates don’t want to make movies. Well, that’s not exactly true. They want to make films but want to make their mark in television first. And, frankly, how can you blame them?  It seems much easier to get on a writing staff in this era of Peak TV then fight to raise financing and the content being created is diverse and often more boundary pushing than we’re seeing on the big screen. This has left something of a creative void at a festival like Sundance from an American filmmaking perspective. Sure, the festival can tout more submissions than ever (note, I’m not sure they have but it certainly hasn’t dropped dramatically), but much of the top young voices that would be scrounging to get their ideas on screen a decade ago are now prepping or shooting Netflix, Amazon, BET, HBO, Showtime, Hulu or other cable network series. There were six films with Australian directors in the festival this year and only one of them was in the World Cinema Competition. Bless the Aussie filmmaking community, but that is almost unheard of for Sundance. The festival is also at a point where the star-power that often helped get young directors discovered is dwindling. Sure, Jake Gyllenhaal was in town this year for a movie Netflix funded, but the other big star of the fest was…Zac Efron? Really? That’s who everyone was getting hot and bothered over? The stars who used to make their “one for me” an indie are now jumping into prestige TV. Look at 2010 for example. That festival had films with Kristen Stewart (who has moved on to international auteurs), Mark Ruffalo, Ryan Gosling, James Gandolfini, Natalie Portman and Kerry Washington and that was just for films in competition (!). Those level of familiar faces was the norm year after year. Their participation is important because not only do those names help get films acquired and seen in theaters, but it draws attention and excitement to the fest.  It’s great that Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson got a huge sale. If Shia LaBeouf has a career comeback because of “Honey Boy,” fantastic.  But things just ain’t the same and it’s a problem.

Consider moving to after the Oscars as soon as possible
Sundance has already announced their dates for next year, January 23 – February 2, 2020. That puts it just one week before the Academy Awards on Feb. 9. The Oscars will be on the second Sunday of February for the foreseeable future and considering how crazy the rest of January is, it would make sense for Sundance to consider moving to after the big night. Sure, even we see the potential benefit of the festival becoming a campaign stop for nominees as it takes place during the middle of voting (imagine even more high profile career retrospectives and panels), but moving it after the awards show could let it truly be the kick-off to the industry’s next “year.” The festival has always had a strange relationship with the studios. It hasn’t embraced their quality fare plays like SXSW has (and we wouldn’t argue SXSW has gone a little overboard with it), but for a festival that needs more legit attention why not move post-Oscar and try to add four-five studio or mini-major films to the premieres slate. The addition of even four high-profile premieres could allow Tuesday and Wednesday, which are effectively dead, to have more quality films in the mix and justify industry, press and attendees to stay in Park City longer (did we mention how deserted the city was after Monday already?). Why can’t Sundance compete with SXSW as a buzzmaker festival for studio or semi-studio fare? Sundance was a word of mouth fest before SXSW even came into existence. Sundance should own it to their benefit. All the other slates will still be there. Why not try it one year and see what happens?

Increase the size of the Grand Jury
Last, but not least, we’re well aware the festival sometimes has difficulty recruiting notable names for its U.S. Dramatic jury, but at this point, it has to find a way to increase the number of jurors. The festival is now in danger of going three straight installments where it’s awarded its top prize to a film that is forgotten by the end of the year (can you remember the 2017 and 2018 winners off the top of your head?). That’s a bad look considering how other contenders that have or will resonate throughout the year could have been awarded what was once a prestigious honor.  Frankly, this has been head-scratching considering the selections from 2010-2014 have turned out to be some of the most acclaimed films of the decade. Perhaps a larger pool of voters might create more consensus. Just a thought.