It’s day 2 of the Sundance Film Festival and CB photographer, Leanne and I started the day off by heading to a press conference featuring some of the festival's jury members. We made it to the venue early and spent some time out in the freezing, snowy weather waiting for the place to open. Fortunately we were of the first to arrive so when we did eventually get in, we were able grab prime spots up front. Among the jury members present at the conference were documentary film makers Amir Bar-Lev and Leena Pasanen, IFP (Independent Feature Project) Executive Director, Michelle Byrd, directors Jan Schuette and Mary Harron, and actors Diego Luna, Marcia Gay Harden and Sandra Oh.
After everyone got settled in, the director of the festival, Geoffrey Gilmore began the discussion by talking a bit about the process of judging these films. He explained that because of the diversity of the films, deciding on the winners is often an apples to oranges judgment but he seemed confident that this year’s jury members would be up to the task. Gilmore elaborated by saying, “The diversity of the jury is partly designed so that you’ll have the diversity of opinion. You’ll have a range of different reactions.”
Latin American actor Diego Luna, who has been to the festival in previous years as part of various films such as Y Tu Mama Tambien, expressed much enthusiasm over having the opportunity to judge at this years festival. He went on to say that he feels lucky to have been asked to participate and happy to be able to enjoy the festival as part of the audience this time around.
When the discussion got around to what some of the jurors anticipate in terms of the films they’ll be judging, Marcia Gay Harden (who is as gorgeous in person as she is on screen) was excited at the prospect of getting to really analyze and evaluate each film individually. She said, “I know that we’re going to see things that are raw and great. I know that [I’m] going to see things that are different and may not appeal to my taste but I get to go ‘Huh, how do all the elements fit together? How did the craft – the cinematography, the contributions of the actors – How did it fit together in order to make what would be a wonderful independent film?’”
One of the really interesting things that came up during the conference was the question of whether there might be a bias qgainst mainstream films among the jury. This is a film festival after all. The jury could automatically favor a low budget film over a more mainstream, bigger budgeted film because gaining exposure for smaller independent movies is a big part of the foundation of the festival. While some of the jurors said that they are basing their decision on the quality of the movie and not the budget or how commercial the film is, Sandra Oh was more up front about her feelings, questioning why it would be wrong to promote films that are lower budget. She said, “We want to promote the best film possible. I think that’s a given here but, I mean come on! Do we really need to support the next MI-6? No.”. It should also be noted that in addition to being refreshingly up front about her opinions on the issue of supporting low budget films, Sandra has fantastic hair.
And finally, when the topic of whether or not the winners in the festival will appeal to a mainstream audience, Geoffrey Gilmore summed it up pretty nicely by saying, “It’s not the job of the jury to find the most marginal work aesthetically and say that’s what we’re going to reward. Again, it’s apples, oranges, cumquats, watermelons- It’s a comparison; a judgment call that has to be made depending on those factors, which you’re evaluating and they’re complicated from year to year. And sometimes the films that win are films that will play with mainstream and sometimes they don’t.”
Overall, getting to better understand the process that goes into judging the films that are competing at the festival was pretty interesting. It was also great to see that while some of the jurors had judged festivals in the past, others were doing this for the first time and were a bit unsure about how exactly they would approach the job. This is something that they’ll apparently be going over at a private brunch with Gilmore this weekend.
The winners of this year’s Sundance Film Festival will be announced next Saturday (Jan 26th).
I just want to add that one of the things I really love about this festival, which was extremely present at this press conference, was the enthusiasm expressed by Gilmore and the jury members. This festival is truly a celebration of film and of allowing new and up-and-coming filmmakers a chance to show off their stuff. Based on what was said by the Sundance jury members, it seems like they realize that through their role as jurors in the competition portion of the festival, they’re playing a part in helping to increase visibility for films that due to a smaller budget or in some cases, a lack of big-name actors, might otherwise have gone unseen and unappreciated.
Meanwhile, missing from the press conference was jury member Quentin Tarantino. We spotted him later that day running through press headquaters. Leanne managed to snap a lovely picture of the back of his head. Next time, she'll run faster... and perhaps use a lasso. She did however score some great pics of the jury members who did show up for me. Take a look at a few of those below:
