independent film

It all started with a purchase of land in the 1960s. Then, from that small slice of Utah and the founding of the Sundance Institute in 1981 and, later, its expansion into the Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford developed a vision that would reshape on-screen storytelling as we know it. Sundance opened doors for multiple generations of filmmakers who might not otherwise have gained entry to the movie business.

Redford, who died Tuesday at age 89, was already a hugely successful actor, producer and director, having just won an Oscar for his directorial debut “Ordinary People,” when he founded the Sundance Institute as a support system for independent filmmakers. His Utah property, named after his role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” would become a haven for creativity in an idyllic setting.

Evincing a rugged, hands-on attitude marked by curiosity and enthusiasm about the work, Redford embodied a philosophy for Sundance that was clear from its earliest days.

“When I started the Institute, the major studios dominated the game, which I was a part of,” Redford said to The Times via email in 2021. “I wanted to focus on the word ‘independence’ and those sidelined by the majors — supporting those sidelined by the dominant voices. To give them a voice. The intent was not to cancel or go against the studios. It wasn’t about going against the mainstream. It was about providing another avenue and more opportunity.”

The first of the Sundance Lab programs, which continue today, also launched in 1981, bringing emerging filmmakers together in the mountains to develop projects with the support of more established advisers.

The Institute would take over a small film festival in Utah, the U.S. Film Festival, for its 1985 edition and eventually rename it the Sundance Film Festival, a showcase that would go on to introduce directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nia DaCosta, Taika Waititi, Gregg Araki, Damien Chazelle and countless others while refashioning independent filmmaking into a viable career path.

Before directing “Black Panther” and “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler went through the Sundance Lab at the beginning of his career and saw his debut feature “Fruitvale Station” premiere at Sundance in 2013 where it won both the grand jury and audience awards.

“Mr. Redford was a shining example of how to leverage success into community building, discovery, and empowerment,” Coogler said in a statement to The Times on Tuesday. “I’ll be forever grateful for what he did when he empowered and supported Michelle Satter in developing the Sundance Labs. In these trying times it hurts to lose an elder like Mr. Redford — someone who through their words, their actions and their commitment left their industry in a better place than they found it.”

Chloé Zhao’s debut feature “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” premiered at the festival in 2015 after she took the project through the labs. With her later effort “Nomadland,” Zhao would go on to become the second woman — and still the only woman of color — to win the Academy Award for directing.

“Sundance changed my life,” Zhao said in a statement on Tuesday. “I didn’t know anyone in the industry or how to get my first film made. Being accepted into the Sundance Labs was like entering a lush and nurturing garden holding my tiny fragile seedling and watching it take root and grow. It was there I found my voice, became a part of a community I still treasure deeply today.”

Satter, Sundance Institute‘s founding senior director of artist programs, was involved since the organization’s earliest days. Even from relatively humble origins, Satter could already feel there was something powerful and unique happening under Redford’s guidance.

“He made us all feel like we were part of the conversation, part of building Sundance, right from the beginning,” Satter said of Redford in a 2021 interview. “He was really interested in others’ point of view, all perspectives. At the same time, he had a real clarity of vision and what he wanted this to be.”

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For many years Redford was indeed the face of the film festival, making frequent appearances and regularly speaking at the opening press conference. Starting in 2019 he reduced his public role at the festival, in tandem with the moment he stepped back from acting.

The festival has gone through many different eras over the years, with festival directors handing off leadership from Geoffrey Gilmore to John Cooper to Tabitha Jackson and current fest director Eugene Hernandez.

The festival has also weathered changes in the industry, as streaming platforms have upended distribution models. Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 drama “sex, lies and videotape” is often cited as a key title in the industry’s discovery of the Utah event as a must-attend spot on their calendars, a place where buyers could acquire movies for distribution and scout new talent.

“Before Sundance, there wasn’t really a marketplace for new voices and independent film in the way that we know it today,” said Kent Sanderson, chief executive of Bleecker Street, which has premiered multiple films at the festival over the years. “The way Sundance supports filmmakers by giving their early works a real platform is key to the health of our business.”

Over time, Sundance became a place not only to acquire films but also to launch them, with distributors bringing films to put in front of the high number of media and industry attendees. Investors come to scope out films and filmmakers look to raise money.

“It all started with Redford having this vision of wanting to create an environment where alternative approaches to filmmaking could be supported and thrive,” said Joe Pichirallo, an arts professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and one of the original executives at Searchlight Pictures. “And he succeeded and it’s continuing. Even though the business is going through various changes, Sundance’s significance as a mecca for independent film is still pretty high.”

At the 2006 festival, “Little Miss Sunshine,” directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, sold to Searchlight for what was then a record-setting $10.5 million. In 2021, Apple TV+ purchased Siân Heder’s “CODA” for a record-breaking $25 million. The film would go on to be the first to have premiered at Sundance to win the Oscar for best picture.

Yet the festival, the labs and the institute have remained a constant through it all, continuing to incubate fresh talent to launch to the industry.

“Redford put together basically a factory of how to do independent films,” said Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics. Over the years the company has distributed many titles that premiered at Sundance, including “Call Me by Your Name” and “Whiplash.”

“He adapted as the landscape changed,” Bernard added of the longevity of Sundance’s influence. “And as you watched the evolution to where it is today, it’s an amazing journey and an amazing feat that he did for the world of independent film. It wouldn’t be the same without him.”

Through it all, Redford balanced his roles between his own career making and starring in movies and leading Sundance. Filmmaker Allison Anders, whose 1992 film “Gas Food Lodging” was among the earliest breakout titles from the Sundance Film Festival, remembered Redford on Instagram.

“You could easily have just been the best looking guy to walk into any room and stopped there and lived off of that your whole life,” Anders wrote. “You wanted to help writers and filmmakers like me who were shut out to create characters not seen before, and you did. You could have just been handsome. But you nurtured us.”

The upcoming 2026 Sundance Film Festival in January will be the last one in its longtime home of Park City, Utah. The festival had previously announced that a tribute to Redford and his vision of the festival would be a part of that final bow, which will now carry an added emotional resonance.

Starting in 2027, the Sundance Film Festival will unspool in in Boulder, Colo. Regardless of where the event takes place, the legacy of what Robert Redford first conceived will remain.

As Redford himself said in 2021 about the founding of the Institute, “I believed in the concept and because it was just that, a concept, I expected and hoped that it would evolve over time. And happily, it has.”

Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

One of the oldest movie studios in Los Angeles is up for sale, perhaps to the newest generation of content creators.

The potential sale of Occidental Studios comes amid a drop in filming in Los Angeles as the local entertainment industry faces such headwinds as rising competition from studios in other cities and countries, as well as the aftermath of filming slowdowns during the pandemic and industry strikes of 2023.

Occidental Studios, which dates back to 1913, was once used by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to make silent films. It is a small version of a traditional Hollywood studio with soundstages, offices and writers’ bungalows in a 3-acre gated campus near Echo Park in Historic Filipinotown.

Kermit the Frog above the Jim Henson Company studio lot in Hollywood.

(AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

The seller hopes its boutique reputation will garner $45 million, which would rank it one of the most valuable studios in Southern California at $651 per square foot. A legendary Hollywood studio founded by Charlie Chaplin in 1917 sold last year for $489 per foot, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

The Chaplin studio known until recently as the Jim Henson Company Lot was purchased by singer-songwriter John Mayer and movie director McG from the family of famed Muppets creator Jim Henson.

Occidental Studios may sell to one of today’s modern content creators in search of a flagship location, said real estate broker Nicole Mihalka of CBRE, who represents the seller.

She declined to name potential buyers but said she is showing the property to new-media businesses who don’t present themselves through traditional channels such as television shows and instead rely on social media and the internet to reach younger audiences.

Occidental Studios, which dates back to 1913, was once used by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to make silent films.

(CBRE)

New media entrepreneurs may not often need soundstages, “but they like the idea of having the history, the legacy” of a studio linked to the early days of cinema, she said. It might lend credibility to a brand and become a destination for promotional activities as well as being a place to create content, she said. Mihalka envisions the space being used for events for partners, sponsors and advertisers as well as press junkets for new product launches.

Entertainment businesses located nearby include filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s Array Now, independent film and production company Blumhouse Productions and film and production company Rideback Ranch.

Neighborhoods east of Hollywood such as Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park and Highland Park have become home to many people in the entertainment industry, which Mihalka hopes will elevate the appeal of Occidental Studios.

“We’ve been seeing film and TV talent heading this way for a while,” she said, including executives who also live in those neighborhoods.

The owner of of Occidental Studios said it’s gotten harder for smaller studios to operate in the current economic climate that includes competition from major independent studio operators that have emerged in recent decades.

“Once upon a time, you did not have multibillion-dollar global portfolio companies swimming in the waters of Hollywood,” said Craig Darian, chief executive of Occidental Entertainment Group Holdings Inc., citing Hudson Pacific Properties, Hackman Capital Partners and CIM Group. “They are not content producers, but have a long history of providing services for multiple television shows and features.”

Competition now includes overseas studios in such countries as Canada, Ireland and Australia, he said. “When production was really robust and domiciled in Los Angeles, it was much easier to remain very competitive.”

Another factor threatening the bottom line for conventional studios is rapidly changing technology used to create entertainment including tools as simple as lighting.

“You used to know that equipment would last for decades,” Darian said. “The new tools for production are becoming obsolete in far shorter order.”

Writers’ bungalows at Occidental Studios.

(CBRE)

Nevertheless, Darian said, the potential sale “is not motivated by distress or urgency. Nothing is driving the decision other than the timing of whether or not this remains to be a relevant asset to keep within our portfolio. If we get an offer at or above the asking price, then we’re a seller.”

Darian said he may also seek a long-term tenant to take over the studio.

Occidental Studios at 201 N. Occidental Blvd. comprises over 69,000 square feet of buildings including four soundstages and support space such as offices and dressing rooms.

It’s among the oldest continually operating studios in Hollywood, used by pioneering filmmakers Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith and Pickford, who worked there as an actress and filmmaker in its early years. Pickford reportedly kept an apartment on the lot for years.

More recently it has been used for television production for such shows as “Tales of the City,” “New Girl” and HBO’s thriller “Sharp Objects.”

Local television production area declined by 30.5% in the first quarter compared with the previous year, according to he nonprofit organization FilmLA, which tracks shoot days in the Greater Los Angeles region. All categories of TV production were down, including dramas (-38.9%), comedies (-29.9%), reality shows -(26.4%) and pilots (-80.3%).

Feature film production decreased by 28.9%, while commercials were down by 2.1%, FilmLA said.