Sundance 2016: 17 most anticipated indie films premiering at the festival

Other notable premieres include “Indignation”, a coming-of-age story set in the early 1950s that marks the feature directorial debut of Oscar-nominated screenwriter James Schamus, former chief of Focus Features; “Sing Street”, the latest musical endeavor from John Carney (“Once”); and “Mr. Pig”, from co-writer and director Diego Luna, which stars Danny Glover as a man who takes a road trip with his giant pig.

“When it’s a good film, you can immerse yourself in the story, lose yourself in the story, and embrace it”, said Francois Brisson, co-director of “Snowtime!” which will appear at the festival as part of the Sundance Kids program. “If you’re independent-minded, you’re going to do things different from the common form, then you’re going to have more diverse products. I don’t think about it. There’s nothing more important than the work when you’re doing it. So once that work is done, I back off. It’s just not something that occupies my thinking”.

“It has the design for children to appreciate in all ways, so we don’t put a joke for mom and a joke for dad and the rest for kids – it’s for the whole family to understand – but we didn’t bring it down to the children’s level, we brought it up to the family level”, Beauchamp said. To help you make sense of it all, we’ve rounded up 17 of the most anticipated films.

Instead of advocacy, “what we’ve found is, together with a lot of organizations like ours whose job it is to support and find new storytellers, we do provide a really great pipeline of talent into the mainstream”, said Putnam.

It is one of 120 feature-length films selected for this year’s festival, representing 37 countries and 48 first-time filmmakers, including 28 in competition.

Redford said he created Sundance in the ski town of Park City, Utah, in 1978, to simply “create a path for artists to show their work”, admitting that he initially assumed it wouldn’t thrive. “I’m happily part of that”.

The reason I consider the Slamdance Film Festival a high priority on the fest circuit can be summed up in one word: Discovery.

“I can hear the headlines now: ‘(Redford) hates Oscars,’ ” he said, to laughter from the gathered journalists.

“For me it’s about the work”, he said. “I’m not into that”. “For me, it’s about the work”.

Redford also used the conference as an opportunity to “straighten something out” about how he believes he’s come to be viewed by many industry members for so closely aligning himself with the independent film movement.

Anselmo said another Northern Ontario film – “The Grandfather Drum”, shot in Thunder Bay – is also being screened at Sundance. “But I don’t think the tough stuff is exclusive to the independent world, because it think it’s tough for the film world in general… because there have been threats, mostly in distribution”. Most of the movie, though, took place at the Northern Ontario Film Studios (at the site of the old Barrydowne Arena) to allow for a controlled environment. “It survives because it had value”.