Filmmakers honor Robert Redford’s legacy at Sundance gala

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Filmmakers and actors whose careers were shaped by Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute he essentially based mirrored on his legacy because the godfather of independent cinema at a neatly-known individual-studded gala Friday night at some stage in the principle Sundance Film Festival since his death.

The 2026 festival — its final in Utah, forward of relocating to Boulder, Colorado — is a admire letter to the haven Redford established in the tell many years previously for reviews that didn’t match into the mainstream.

Even because the festival heads to its recent dwelling, the piece of Redford’s legacy that his daughter acknowledged meant basically the most to him will remain in Utah: the institute’s lab applications for writers and directors.

“When my dad would per chance well believe created an empire, he created a nest,” acknowledged his daughter, Amy Redford. “The Sundance Institute used to be designed to enhance and provide protection to and nourish and then residing free.”

She acknowledged there used to be no blueprint her father would rather be than sitting with a brand recent filmmaker at the Sundance Mountain Resort he essentially based, about 34 miles (54 kilometers) south of Park Metropolis.

Generations of filmmakers credit score Redford for their success

The labs, which started in 1981, raise rising storytellers to the rustic resort in northern Utah to nurture their abilities below educated steering and some distance from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. Three of the five very top director nominees at this yr’s Academy Awards — Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao and Ryan Coogler — came up throughout the labs.

Zhao, whose film “Hamnet” used to be nominated this week for eight Oscars, credited the screenwriting lab with jump-starting her occupation in 2012. Below the mentorship of Redford and program director Michelle Satter, she acknowledged she learned to believe her non-public imaginative and prescient and received a priceless community of creatives.

Rather a few aged contributors, in conjunction with director Nia DaCosta, shared recollections of Redford utilizing his motorcycle on aloof wooded paths and stopping to establish with them about their initiatives. He insisted each and every of them call him by his nickname, Bob.

“I rob into myth once seeing him toddle among the different fellows from the directors lab, and he gorgeous seemed so fleshy of admire and pleasure for us, for what he constructed,” DaCosta acknowledged. “And it used to be gorgeous very sure to me in that 2d the depth to which he cared about this blueprint and all of us.”

Sundance Film Festival habitual Ethan Hawke recounted his first audition in front of Redford for the 1992 length drama “A River Runs Thru It.” After forgoing sleep to put together a prolonged monologue, Hawke acknowledged Redford pulled him aside to claim he used to be too younger for the segment but would positively believe a sexy occupation.

Redford used to be an early champion of Hawke’s work and grew to alter into one amongst his ideal mentors. Hawke pledged Friday to “preserve the fireside that he started burning” and relieve it spread.

‘Imagination is value maintaining’

Screenings at this yr’s festival were preceded by a short video tribute to Redford, which used to be repeatedly met with thunderous applause. Many volunteers wore buttons that read “Thanks Bob!”

Later in the festival will seemingly be a screening of his first undoubtedly independent film, the 1969 sports drama “Downhill Racer.”

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s first fashion of Sundance used to be as a publicist for other artists at the festival. In 2012, she got her non-public gargantuan ruin at Sundance with “Heart of Nowhere.” She later spent a total lot of years as a Sundance trustee and grew conclude to Redford, though she acknowledged she by no manner felt moderately gorgeous calling him Bob.

“Mr. Redford didn’t gorgeous establish a festival. He modeled a formulation to be, a formulation that issues, a formulation that says artists matter, that imagination is value maintaining,” DuVernay acknowledged. “The door that he constructed is indifferent start, and it’s up to us to toddle through and to even per chance operate our non-public.”

For the principle and seemingly the one time, she then acknowledged, “Thanks, Bob.”

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