The Sundance film festival has a very rich history dating back to the first event held in Salt Lake City, Utah back in August of 1978. The festival originally was started by founders John Earle, Cirina Hampton Catania and Sterling Van Wagenen. The festival originally began as a way to feature films that were American made, and also as a way to raise the visibility and potential that Utah had to offer to film makers for set locations and other filming options.
That first festival included such films as Midnight Cowboy, The Sweet Smell of Success, Deliverance, and A Streetcar Named Desire. A few of the luminaries that made up that festival’s first jury or panel included Katherine Ross, Anthea Sylbert, Gary Allison, and Verna Fields.
The festival was held for several years in Salt Lake City before being moved to Park City, Utah in 1981. The festival also spawned the Sundance Institute, formed back in 1979 by Sterling Van Wagenen as a pilot project that would later become the institute.
The festival has been responsible over the years to start breakout careers of such actors/filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, and Steven Soderbergh just to name a few. And the festival was also responsible for featuring such films as Saw, Reservoir Dogs, sex, lies, and videotape, and The Blair Witch Project. These films may not have received the attention that they did had it not been for those involved in this festival.
The festival has also garnered popularity in modern American culture over the years as evidenced by its inclusion in an episode of the animated series South Park and has also been a part of an episode of the HBO series Entourage.
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