Sundance Film Festival - a 'nursery' for Oscar-winning films

The annual Sundance Film Festival is considered a treasure trove of independent films, a breeding ground for excellent works that are often overlooked in theaters within the vast Hollywood film industry.

Sundance discovers outstanding films for the Oscars.

Boyhood and Whiplash, two nominees for "Best Picture" at the 87th Academy Awards, were both discovered at last year's Sundance Independent Film Festival. Boyhood surprised many viewers when it premiered at Sundance in January 2014. In July, the film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $44 million and received positive reviews. It became a Golden Globe Award winner before receiving six Oscar nominations in 2015.

Meanwhile, Whiplash's journey to earning five Oscar nominations this year is like a fairy tale. Two years ago, it started as an unknown short film, then screened at Sundance last year and garnered critical acclaim but received almost no attention from distributors. Finally, it made it to the most important nominations at the Academy Awards.

"Boyhood" is one of the outstanding films for the 2015 Oscar season that was discovered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Boyhood and Whiplash demonstrate that the Sundance Film Festival is considered by American professionals as a "nursery" for discovering Oscar nominations and awards in recent years. In 2013, the Sundance Film Festival received four Oscar nominations for Beasts of the Southern Wild. In 2011, The Kids Are All Right and Winter's Bone, which made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival, each received four major Oscar nominations. In 2010, nine works discovered at the Sundance Film Festival garnered 15 Oscar nominations. That same year, all four Oscar nominations for best documentary were from films previously made at the Sundance Film Festival.

In its 30 years since its founding, Sundance has consistently contributed at least one outstanding award to the Oscars every year. The most notable in the history of the awards is the film Little Miss Sunshine, which premiered at Sundance in 2006. This comedic story about a child beauty queen won the Oscar for "Best Original Screenplay," alongside a nomination for "Best Picture." Erik Davis, film editor at Fandango, shared: “Because filmmakers, studios, and producers see so many Oscar-winning films coming from Sundance, they are viewing Sundance as an equally important premiere venue as Toronto and Telluride – other unmissable film festivals in North America.”

Movie party in the snow

Initiated in 1978 but officially launched in 1984, the Sundance Film Festival takes place annually over the last 10 days of January in the lake and resort area of ​​Utah, USA. In recent years, Sundance has become a popular destination for American film lovers in midspring, offering opportunities to ski and enjoy independent films. The founder of Sundance is director and actor Robert Redford, star of the 1986 Oscar-winning film *Out of Africa*. He was also named one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, according to *Times* magazine.

“In the 1980s, the American film market was vibrant but dominated by large studios. Blockbusters easily made it to theaters, but I felt that human stories about complex lives also deserved to be told. However, those works lacked an outlet. Therefore, my colleagues and I decided to establish a film studio to produce independent, low-budget films. Later, we founded a film festival hoping that potential filmmakers would have the opportunity to exchange ideas, meet, and share concepts, creating a market for art films. That's how Sundance was born,” filmmaker Robert Redford recounted.

Over the past 30 years, the American film industry has grown significantly, and Sundance, which once screened fewer than 100 films, mostly B-movies from the Western era, has become a festival attracting 5,000 submissions and 50,000 attendees. Sundance is now one of the biggest film events in the United States. Furthermore, this film event, held during the heavy snowfall of the American Midwest, is considered by filmmakers worldwide as a model for a film festival showcasing modest yet outstanding projects.

Attendees of the Sundance Film Festival can both watch films and go skiing.

According to the Financial Times, "only at the Sundance Film Festival do viewers ignore superstars like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise and focus solely on finding good films." Only at Sundance do viewers have the opportunity to enjoy a range of realistic psychological films on many thorny topics – racial conflict, minority rights, and adolescent memories.

Sundance's two most famous categories, and those that have showcased the most acclaimed works, are American-world feature films and documentaries. Notable works that were nurtured by Sundance and later became widely known in the film industry include the Saw horror series, 500 Days of Summer, Sex, Lies and Videotapes, Reservoir Dogs, and Thank You for Smoking. Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, James Wan, and Steven Soderbergh are all directors who rose to prominence through Sundance.

In 1999, Three Seasons became the first film to win both of Sundance's biggest awards – the "Grand Jury Award" and the "Audience Award". Directed by Vietnamese-American Tony Bui and starring Don Duong alongside Harvey Keitel, the film was also nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Early contenders for the 2016 Oscars

This year's Sundance ran from January 22nd to February 2nd. From 5,000 submissions from 29 countries and territories, leading film critics – under the direction of festival director John Cooper – selected 119 feature films for screening.

Image from the documentary "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck".

Two feature films, Brooklyn and Grandma, were described by film critic Ramin Setoodeh in Variety as strong contenders for the 2016 Oscar season. Brooklyn tells the story of an Irish immigrant in America, while Grandma recounts the arduous journey of a lesbian poet after the death of her partner.

The New York Times highly praised two documentaries, "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck" and "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief." While the first documentary offers an authentic and comprehensive look at the late singer Kurt Cobain, the second addresses the scandal surrounding Tom Cruise's family because the actor is a follower of Scientology.

According to critics David Fear and Phoebe Reilly, the 10 art films that just premiered at Sundance are expected to receive widespread acclaim worldwide and garner upcoming film awards, including Best of Enemies, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, The End of the Tour, Mississippi Grind, Mistress America, The Overnight, Unexpected, Welcome to Leith, The Witch, and Z for Zachariah.

According to VNE