James Deshommes
The whole purpose of the Sundance film festival is to bring light and awareness to struggling actors,directors, or writers. In the beginning this was in fact the case. The hope of taking that journey to Colorado, or France (the home of the festivals) would almost mean your film would get seen guranteed no matter what. Your only fear would be the large amount of entries taking the spots of other well deserved candidates. First here first served kind of attitude was always the order of the day. Yes Robert Redford is the creator of the Sundance Film Festival but maybe his name recognition and hollywood profile overflooded the festivals year by year with slow but steady fame. Next thing you know a Famous Director wants to push his so called indie film ahead of the under finance independent director. If that wasnt harse enough maybe this wil make you hurl, big budget actors are now showing their million dollar faces in the lobbies of these indie events, ready to jump ahead of the crowd and pop thier heart less half thought films into the for front. This just makes this hollywood game a little tougher to play. I am not saying this is always the case, because before Vin Diesel became who he is, his indie film got discoverd at the Sundance Film Festival by Stephen Speilberg, and Speilberg casted Diesel in “Saving Private Ryan”. Cases like that are great to hear but I feel those days are almost coming to an end. Maybe temporary or perhaps for a while. The true meaning of independent films is a film that has no intent to market or sell based on what famous face blesses the silver screen, a film in which the director alone created every image of the scene from his or her own heart and pure vision. Festivals are plain and simple the best way to break into the movie business if you are a director, or actor. But if your work, and your dream gets pushed to the back row by a million dollar actor who feels like directoring would be a nice little hobby to take up before the big budget movie gets underway, then as a result real work and dare i say the next Speilberg, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, or Spike Lee would be extinct and the true meaning of indie films would cease to exist to where we would know it. Finance is indeed the big hurdle any director has to get over, and some have it easier than others or has a smoother ride than others, but to be given a chance no matter how unknown you are is the right any young director deserves to have. Independent Films is the only pure thing left in hollywood, it deserves to keep the only thing it has right now, its name, meaning and true purpose. (Freedom of expression)
Thu. Sep 19th, 2024
