Robert Redford addressed a crowd on Thursday. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
As the likes of Paris Hilton and Wilmer Valderrama descend upon Park City, Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford admits that it’s all become too much of a circus – and it could leave Utah altogether.
Hilton “didn’t have anything to do with the films,” he complained during a panel discussion in Park City on Thursday. “I said, ‘What movie is she in?’” She and her hard-partying, swag-grabbing cohorts, he said, have made the festival “not as much fun.” He explained, “There are too many people who come to the festival to leverage their own self-interest.”
Redford added of Sundance’s transformation from a sleepy, indie movie festival to party circuit destination: “We were… besieged by the ambush mafia. Fashion houses would come in and they would take over the houses on Main Street and pay three times the rent to get the space. Then they bring celebrities in to give them free stuff.” He added the economic downturn chased some of the marketers away. “Then the recession hit and those people went away. And now we can focus again,” he said.
But part of that focus may mean taking the festival to a new location altogether. “I can’t promise that the festival will stay in Park City. I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Page Six reported earlier this week that Sundance was exploring a joint venture with the Independent Filmmaker Project for a Brooklyn fest.
Redford shot down the Brooklyn move at Thursday’s panel discussion after a spokesperson for the Sundance Institute issued a statement saying, “There is no truth to rumors of plans for Sundance Institute to host a film festival in Brooklyn.”
But the New York Times then reported that while no formal discussions have taken place, the New York City Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting had been informally advised of a potential collaboration between Sundance and the Independent Filmmaker Project.