Robert Redford will be honoured “at home.”
The Sundance Institute is launching a three-part series celebrating Redford’s enduring legacy, both as an artist and as the founder of the Institute.
The first event in the series takes place on February 10. Thankfully, it will be available online alongside a live audience. You can register here:
I also stumbled upon a 2016 interview where Redford reflects on the early years of the Sundance Film Festival:
“It started in ’85 and there was no support at all. There was one theater, the Egyptian. Maybe three restaurants in town. I wasn’t sure it was going to work. It looked like a risk, it wouldn’t pay off. Just a few people came, maybe a hundred people wandered around wondering what was going on in this theater, and we had maybe 25 films, six documentaries, and that’s how it started. So for three years we really struggled. Until Sex, Lies, and Videotape came through. Then suddenly word got out that something was going on over here.”
Another part of the interview that stayed with me is his relationship to outcome:
“When you’re making a movie, you don’t think about the outcome. That’s something I’m grateful for. Whenever I go and do a new project, I never think about the outcome. It’s always just about the work at hand. That’s the fun part. The other part is something I’ve always struggled with, which is promoting the film.”
I suppose you have to be deeply process-oriented to create labs and workshops the way he did. He also openly admits that promotion has always been a struggle for him. And that he struggled with exactly this, yet went on to build an institute dedicated to supporting filmmakers through those very challenges, is what makes him Robert Redford. Bless his heart.
You can find the full interview here, published by Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/01/robert-redford-sundance-interview
A Screenwriter’s Journey 
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