Robert Redford salutes film as agent of change at 2013 Sundance.

The 2013 edition of the Sundance Film Festival kicked off yesterday
with an opening day Press Conference, where the “Sundance Kid” Robert Redford
(Founder and President of Sundance Institute), Keri Putnam (Sundance Institute
Executive Director) and John Cooper (Sundance Film Festival Director) engaged
in a conversation with the members of press, moderated by The Salt Lake Tribune
film critic and columnist Sean P. Means.

Redford’s opening remarks celebrated film as an agent of
change and took pride in Sundance’s mission to embrace and use it, giving The
New Frontier –which brings high technology and the artist together in a social
and creative space- as an example. The course of the conversation revealed
impressive first-time stats around the diversity of this year’s 190-film slate,
which includes 51 first-time filmmakers and represents 32 countries around the
globe. It also touched upon the equal divide between male and female filmmakers
in the Dramatic Competition, which is another first at Sundance. When talking
about the visible trends in this year’s slate (as well as the submissions that
didn’t make the cut), Redford and Cooper both quoted an evolved study of sex,
one that is not necessarily tied to romance but more to relations. In response
to a question from a press member, the trio also drew attention to the musically
rich offerings of this year’s program with titles such as Sound City and Twenty
Feet From Stardom. Following a political diversion where the topic switched to
guns vs. media, the conference ended with Redford announcing that Sundance is
not going to Brooklyn (despite the false news that ran a short while ago).

Following the press conference, both films I was able to see
on the festival’s first day coincidentally align with one of the trends that
were raised earlier in the conversation. May In The Summer, directed by Cherien Dabis, is one of the dramatic competition titles from a female filmmaker.
Following her 2007 Sundance sensation Amreeka which was that year’s Grand Jury
Prize winner in Dramatic Competition, Dabis once again depicts the inner
workings of a family against a contrasting cultural backdrop and reunites with
many of the same cast members, including the great Hiam Abbass. Despite Dabis’
best intentions though, she only manages to deliver a watchable film with May
In The Summer, that suffers from a simple-minded yet cluttered script. In portraying
the relationship of three Jordanian sisters’ with each other and their mother
(for which Dabis, who also plays one of the sisters, admittedly was inspired
by her own family), May In The Summer seems more concerned about ticking predictable
boxes around the universal troubles of females, rather than injecting a breath
of fresh air into the topic. Still, its somewhat naïve charm played reasonably
well with the crowd in a packed Eccles.

After a quick stop at Indiewire’s annual condo party, the
second film I caught, Morgan Neville’s Twenty Feet To Stardom (which competes
in the U.S. Documentary section), has the potential to become the next music
documentary hit and is already generating some potential distribution buzz. I
caught a late press screening, however got word that the film, which shines a
spotlight on five back-up singers (Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, Lisa
Fischer, Judith Hill and Tata Vega) – the unsung heroines who sang back-up
for icons such as Rolling Stones, Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder- received
a standing ovation during its Eccles premiere earlier that evening, with
Clayton, Hill and Vega taking the stage at the post-screening Q&A for a
brief impromptu performance. This is an irresistible title with many
legendary/familiar tracks, including “Gimme Shelter”, which is the subject of
the film’s perhaps most spellbinding set piece that will surely leave all future
audiences speechless. Sundance Institute announced earlier this week that all five singers and
multi-platinum recording artist The Fray will perform at the annual ‘A
Celebration of Music in Film’ event on January 20; a performance which many at Sundance
look forward to attending.