Talk:Sundance Film Festival

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2020 and 10 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Taywall2828, Shatche1, Rmoncada, Laurensmith18. Peer reviewers: Ksm0408, Pwarsame, Jebradl1, Kmklein1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Ranking
The opening sentence says, 'The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival in the United States, and ranks amongst the top five events of its type in the world." Do we have either a citation for the ranking or criteria on which the ranking is based? (size, number of films shown, partipants attending, etc.) Crunch 10:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Revisiting this problem in 2012. I'm unable to find a citation that reliably demonstrates that Sundance is the "largest independent film festival" in the United States. There are several Reuters stories that call it the "premier" or "top" independent film festival, but those qualifiers don't seem to justify mention in the article. I found a economic impact study conducted by the University of Utah that gave specific attendance numbers in 2012, which I added. But I changed the language to "one of the largest independent film festivals" in the United States until someone can demonstrate that it is so with a reliable source. Any suggestions are welcome. Almonroth 21:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I have placed a merge tag on this article, proposing that the article, Utah/US Film Festival, be merged into this article. Please discuss the merger in this section. — WiseKwai 03:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge: The information about the early incarnation of the Sundance Film Festival is actually more detailed and thorough in the Sundance Film Festival article. Additionally, there are few articles that link to the Utah/US Film Festival article. — WiseKwai 03:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge: History section of Sundance Film Festival is a great place for this information. &mdash;A 23:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Merger completed. — WiseKwai 20:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Years
After all of these years editing Wikipedia articles about Sundance related topics, I still do not have a good primary source about what years the festival was the Utah Film Festival, what years it was the US Film Festival, and at what point it became the Sundance Film Festival. For the template I just created (Template:Sundance Film Festival) I included 1985 and on because of this source that lists all of the award winners from 1985-2007. I'd love to break the years into sections for when the festival was under the three different names; does anyone have a definitive source that would give us this information? &mdash;A 21:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

"Official Selection"
This page is pretty worthless. Who thought it would be a good idea to make a page about the Sundance Film Festival and not explain the only situation where most people are likely to encounter it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.84.132 (talk) 17:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sundance Screenwriters Lab (2010)
The Screenwriters Lab is a five-day writers’ workshop that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensely on their feature film scripts with the support of established writers in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. The 2010 Sundance Screenwriters Lab will be held January 15 through January 20, 2010 at the Sundance Resort in Utah.

Lance Edmands (writer/director) / Bluebird (U.S.A.): In the frozen woods of an isolated Maine logging town, one woman’s tragic mistake leads to unexpected consequences.

Craig Zobel (writer/director) / Canary (U.S.A): The residents of a small West Virginia coal mining town intersect and affect one another in surprising, often humorous ways, as their lives are inextricably shaped by their surroundings.

Sydney Freeland (writer/director) / Drunktown’s Finest (U.S.A.): Three Native Americans—a rebellious father-to-be, a devout Christian, and a promiscuous transsexual—find their self-images challenged, and ultimately strengthened, as they come of age on an Indian reservation.

Saodat Ismailova (writer/director) / 40 Days of Silence (Uzbekistan): Four generations of women under one roof look to each other for comfort while resisting the strictly proscribed life for women in Uzbek culture.

Lance Weiler (co-writer/director) and Chuck Wendig (co-writer) / HiM (U.S.A.): When a mysterious sleep virus begins to affect the adults in a small rural town, those under 18 find themselves cut off from civilization and fighting for their lives. As weeks turn into months, they must struggle against the infected adults, one another, and their own worst instincts.

Cao Baoping (writer/director) / How Many Trainings Must I Take Before I Can Be as Hard as Steel? (China): After spending her entire adolescence fighting with her psychologically abusive mother, a young woman is forced to come to terms with the love underlying the hatred she feels.

Sean Durkin (writer/director) / Martha Marcy May Marlene (U.S.A.): Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to reassimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

Cherien Dabis (writer/director) / May In The Summer (U.S.A., Jordan): A Palestinian American woman grapples with culture shock, religion, and her loving but strong-willed family when she reunites with them in Jordan to plan a wedding that no one knows she’s called off.

Myna Joseph (writer/director) / My Favorite Nightmare (U.S.A.): A willful teenager, pregnant with her cousin’s child and determined to get an abortion, travels to New York, only to discover her unpredictable father has followed her

Edwin (co-writer/director) and Daud Sumolang (co-writer) / Postcards From The Zoo (Indonesia): After being abandoned at a young age at the zoo, a young woman leaves her magical childhood behind to discover the world outside.

Dash Shaw (writer/director) / Slobs and Nags (U.S.A.): Told with hand-drawn animation, a disconnected family is thrown into chaos when the scientist father loses the test subject of his experiment with appearance-altering technology.

Samantha McIntyre (writer) / Unicorn Store (U.S.A.): A lonely young woman who has never had a boyfriend tries to fix her life by purchasing a unicorn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.246.237 (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Sundance London
It appears that the Sundance Film Festival didn't move to London, but split into [Sundance London] which was last held in April 2013 and [Sundance U.S.A] which was still held in Utah in January 2013. Rustamabd (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Controversy
I have asked you to engage in discussion about your opinion on this on the talk page, and you have just reverted again without discussion. You seem to be getting needlessly bogged down in a trivial matter. Are you aware of WP:3RR? Let's see what a couple of other editors or admins think: not because I care so much about this trivial piece of information, but because it does not belong in a good Wikipedia article for the reason I cited and others. There is WP:CRIT, there is the fact that there is only one working citation to support the section, and there is the fact that according to the hatnote, this article about the history and nature of the recurring event; there are individual articles for each year. If you can find substantial debate and controversy about that year, then write it up in that year. Unless there is substantial and ongoing criticism in a wide range of sources about Sundance, it does not belong in this article. One opinion in one year does not make a controversy section, IMO. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)


 * It's seems to be a trivial mention that adds WP:UNDUE weight to the subject at hand, and doesn't really belong here IMO.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 06:42, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, - yes, there's that too. I'll remove it again. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:56, 5 September 2019 (UTC)


 * No worries. If you need more eyes on this, then please drop a note at the Film Project. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Peer Review for IDS 2002-476
The article does a good job listing facts about the festival and its history. It mostly stays neutral and is mostly organized in a way that flows well.

That being said, there are a lot of ways this article can be improved. The last couple sentences of the lead are clunky. There are a lot of sentences that could use citations in every section, especially the history section. The sentence about how many people attended in 2016 could be updated to numbers from the festival in 2019. Also the sentence about plans for the 2020 festival planning can either be removed or updated to reflect how Covid is affecting those plans. The first sentence of “notable” filmmakers only includes men with only two directors of color so that should be updated to reflect other minority directors/producers who gained notoriety at this festival.

About the lead section specifically, perhaps a list of the categories could be included. Also the fact that it is the “largest” US film festival could come before its location. I do think that the lead is otherwise quite comprehensive.

Structure-wise, the “growth of the festival” section should come before the “spinoff” section to maintain the flow of the article. I think it is more important to discuss the original festival’s progress than to veer off onto the topic of other locations. The rest of the article is organized well.

The subject coverage stays on topic and each section appears to be the right length for its topic. I wonder if the small point of the festival’s leaning away from small budget independent films for bigger name studios and titles could be fleshed out a bit more. Also the Oscars seem to be getting more and more political as time goes on. Is that reflected in the award acceptance speeches at Sundance? Or does it specifically remain neutral? What is the tone of the members attending the festival? The article itself does not draw conclusions.

The only sentence that has some not neutral language includes “…the most comprehensive chronicle of Sundance…” which can be removed or cited. Otherwise the article does not have a perspective. There are many citations missing so those could be filled in to add legitimacy to some of its claims.

Regarding sources there are a few problems. There are many sources cited so it is not unbalanced, however some of these sources are blogs or published by the Sundance organization itself or are broken. They are listed below.

- 6 seems to be both produced by the Sundance organization itself and does not relate to the original sentence cited - 8 no longer exists - 11 is broken - 13 is not available without a subscription - 14/15 is both a blog and broken - 19 appears to be produced by the Sundance org - 32 also produced by the Sundance org

Overall it looks like you have your work cut out for you. None of this seems too difficult, however.

Jebradl1 (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Notice of related discussion
There it is suggested that the list articles of films shown at this festival should be merged away. Kind regards from  PJvanMill ) talk ( 20:14, 17 December 2021 (UTC)