It’s an event many of us only know because of the films that come from it and none of us, or maybe I should only speak for myself, have an idea of what truly goes on at the Sundance Film Festival. Everything I do through our work at District Studio and Hi Omaha centers around building community and telling stories so why not go to the event where some of the greatest storytellers in the world premiere their work?

That’s the question I’ve asked my self a few years now so I decided to take the trip out there with Anne Gustafson so I could stop asking it and see what it was about.

The short answer is that it was in fact the fairytale weekend I had expected it to be. Here’s why.

The worlds greatest storytellers let their guard down.

Imagine sitting in front of people like Lena Waithe, Andy Samberg and Daniel Dae Kim. They’re polished speakers (and actors of course) and usually have their lines down.

Sundance is the first time that these actresses and actors are debuting their films and it’s also the first time that they’re having to answer questions about their films.

The panels and Q & A’s are edgy and transparent and you’ll never get that anywhere else. Casts are having to work through the emotions of seeing themselves on screen for the first time (for that film) and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.

Quote dump:

“Because you’re all pirates on this ship of shame you have to have a sense of humor” - St. Vincent

“I was put on this earth to tell stories. To be able to contribute to the stories of our culture is a profound responsibility.” - Justin Simien

Sundance cares about every voice in film (and does something about it).

Not only are the films diverse in content, but the producers and the panels Sundance Film Festival put together are as diverse as it gets. To give you a number (because we all love KPIs) 46% of the films in the competition categories are directed by women (thanks Film Streams for the data). It was a great example, in an industry that is very one sided, to see how they put their money where their mouth is

Quote dump:

“Every film directed by people of color are valued less. And the fight never stops.” 

“The ultimate question is always “what’s next?” What can we do to encourage everyone’s story to be told.”

It’s not just for filmmakers.

This is why it’s not the last time I’ll be going to the Sundance Film Festival. The panels not only touched on storytelling but they also talked about the consumers of those stories (and how short our attention spans are).

One thing that kept getting brought up was on content strategy and consumption. Not only do we need to be more thoughtful about the stories that we tell but we need to be more creative than ever in how their distributed and the channels they’re pushed through.

Another theme I kept hearing over and over that related more to marketing than it did to filmmakers is how bad social media is on our health. This conversation isn’t going away and if that is the sentiment towards a priority marketing channel, we better start thinking of better channels to tell our stories in.

Quote dump:

“Every next generation of storytelling was driven by technology.” - Jeffrey Katzenburg. 

“Streaming has completely changed the marketplace. You don’t have to spend the same kind of money making the public aware of it.” - Nanette