Gerry Flahive is senior communications manager at the National Film Board in Toronto.

No Borders.

That was a theme I perceived during the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, held in late January in Utah, as independent filmmakers (average age: 25, by my reckoning), distributors (average age: 35) agents (average age: 45) and journalists (ageless) converged on what might be called Banff With An Attitude.

As the information highway maintenance crews prepare us for a ‘borderless’ world, with every film ever made soon to be available through our microwave ovens, the Canada-u.s. border was falling at Sundance.

Native filmmakers in both countries came together to celebrate their achievements and some long overdue recognition from the mainstream industry. One Vermont filmmaker, attending with a feature starring a Canadian actress, spoke of ‘border stories’ and the common experiences of people living within shouting distance of the invisible line. And the border between the Hollywood behemoth and Hollywood North seemed not to matter at all.

But few cultural nationalists could decry any of this, for the meetings, screenings and discussions seemed to be stages on equal terms, with a common interest in storytelling, audience development and regionalism prevalent.

The week began, for some of us, with a visit to the Sundance Institute itself, a rustic/hip ski resort cum filmmakers’ lab located 45 minutes south of Park City. The National Film Board and Turner Broadcasting had joined with the Institute to honor all Native filmmakers attending the festival at the home of Robert Redford’s modest yet influential effort to ‘enhance the artistic vitality and diversity of American Film.’

Operating filmmakers and screenwriters labs, an annual independent producers conference and the festival itself, the Institute also supports environmental documentaries and children’s theater. Its 140-seat screening room was the site for the reception, attended in its waning moments by Redford himself, who spoke of a ‘major shift’ in attitudes and acceptance for Native filmmakers.

Starting the Fire

He underlined his remarks with a rolled-up poster presented to him moments before by Toronto producer James Cullingham, attending the festival with partner Peter Raymont and the director of their film Starting Fire with Gunpowder, David Poisey (who surely garnered the prize for greatest distance travelled to Sundance – he lives on Baffin Island).

Redford joined the reception guests at the premiere of Alanis Obomsawin’s feature documentary, Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, the keynote film in the program ‘In the Tradition: New Dimensions in Native Cinema.’ Redford stayed to speak with the filmmaker, asking if the Oka crisis of 1990 (which the film chronicles) received significant press coverage in Canada at the time. On being assured that it had, he remarked, ‘Think what would have happened if it had not been publicized.’

Next door at the restaurant we discovered an untapped revenue stream for Canadian filmmakers: themed merchandise marketing. The Sundance collection (one colleague mistook the gift catalogue for the festival catalogue) includes such items as Utah fudge, Navajo-style blankets and A River Runs Through It fishing reel cases and fly-fishing wallets. Why not Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould fingerless-gloves or I Love a Man in Uniform leather jackets?

The latter two films were also festival favorites, with Gould attracting attention as a ‘buzz”film in advance by the Los Angeles Times and Uniform snapped up by I.R.S. Releasing for theatrical distribution in the u.s.

But my loyalties were with Kanehsatake, and as the scheduling of all three films simultaneously on Monday had Canada-philes reeling, I listened as an emotional and engaged audience peppered Alanis with questions following her film. The slightly twisted musings of an audience member who accused her of producing a piece of pro-apartheid propaganda only served to generate greater applause for the film and its director – and a few well-chosen expletives hurled at the man by enraged moviegoers.

With the above-mentioned films, along with Shelly Niro and Anna Gronau’s It Starts with a Whisper, and two animated shorts, Diane Chartrand’s L’Orange and Eugen and Ludmila Spaleny’s Lord of the Sky, Canada enjoyed its strongest year ever at Sundance.

Well-informed

Programmer Geoff Gilmore is extraordinarily well-informed about Canadian cinema, and Canadian filmmakers would be will advised to consider Sundance as a pivotal spot in the annual Berlin/ Cannes/Montreal/Toronto/ Vancouver festival life cycle.

Certainly the scale of filmmaking represented at Sundance evokes much that seems Canadian: regional themes, no budgets, and multicultural leanings. How can one be intimidated by a festival that includes a film made (it was claimed) for $100, but that still inspired one filmmaker to organize his own ‘fringe’ festival (on a hotel video monitor) for his production Alferd Packer (‘in the tradition of Friday the 13th Part ii and Oklahoma!’).

And the most ubiquitous and wittiest promotional campaign was a photocopied effort for the film Darkness in Tallinn, which utilized the immortal slogan ‘Everybody Must Get Estoned.’ But then, how many film festival message boards can boast notes for two Ethans (Coen and Hawke)?

It certainly seemed sometimes as though Sundance’s reputation as the happeningest film event around was becoming a burden, making it difficult for distributors to ‘find’ films and filmmakers long since signed, sealed and discovered. But for most of the filmmakers I met, Sundance was less about immediate transactions and more about relationships and reputations. Indeed, a recent Variety article tallied the combined 1993 u.s. box office grosses of five of last year’s Sundance hits: about us$2,300,000.

That figure is about twice as much as the production budget on Jay Craven’s Where the Rivers Flow North, a rich tapestry of a film set in northern Vermont in 1927, and premiered to a packed house at Sundance. I know it’s a cliche, but Tantoo Cardinal’s performance (as the partner of a tenacious tenant, played by Rip Torn, of land slated for flooding as part of a dam project) is worthy of an Oscar nomination. Given the tenacity of producer/director Craven, it just might be seen by every Academy member.

Having raised the budget entirely in Vermont through the sale of $6,000 units (including some to dairy farmers), Craven is self-distributing the film on two tracks: one, through major u.s. cities, the other ‘deep into the region’ – meaning every town with a movie theater in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and upstate New York. A study guide for schools and a ‘making of’ documentary are also part of the package.

Even the Sundance spirit itself may soon hit the road, so to speak, if Redford’s latest plan comes to pass. You guessed it: The Sundance Channel.