to say goodbye to exiting Festival Director John Cooper. Cooper moved into an Emeritus role at the fest starting this year., was already expected to broaden the festival’s reach, however, the pandemic simply expedited. Is it a format we’ll see at Sundance in 2022 and beyond?
Putnam’s sincere answer to this is “We don’t know…so many factors go into these titles getting acquired. What’s going on with the distribution environment, we want to lean back and learn and listen and see where we are.” There was per Jackson “creativity that came through the pandemic.” Fourteen movies in this year’s lineup were made through the Sundance Institute.
One key hot acquisition title dealing with racial issues in the U.S. Competition section is Rebecca Hall’s starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga about two African-American women who “passing’ as white, choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1929 New York. The pic explores racial and gender identity, performance, obsession and repression.
“It takes a lot of work and it would be hard for us to get back to work quickly,” she said, “we can’t go back now.”