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Posted Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 - Comments Off on [PR] John Cooper named new Sundance big
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[PR] John Cooper named new Sundance big

Cooper-Marcel Hartmann.jpgLos Angeles, CA—March 11, 2009—Sundance Institute today announced the appointment of John Cooper as Director of the Sundance Film Festival. Effective immediately, Mr. Cooper will serve as the Festival’s artistic director leading the Festival’s programming and strategic growth, also overseeing activities such as content production, online initiatives and key national and international partnerships. Mr. Cooper previously served as Director, Creative Development for the Sundance Institute and Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival. Highly respected by the film community and known for his innovative style, Mr. Cooper joined Sundance Institute in 1989 and has played a pivotal role in both the evolution of Sundance Film Festival and the development of the Sundance Institute’s new initiatives. Long committed to diversity and building audiences for independent film, he has pioneered the Institute’s expansion of cinematic storytelling by fostering the development of New Frontier on Main, the intersection of contemporary artists with technology and the moving image; boosted the Festival’s now content-rich website, enabling a virtual Festival experience for film lovers all over the world; and led the distribution of short films through strategic relationships with iTunes, Netflix and Xbox 360 platforms. Last year Mr. Cooper was instrumental in engaging Blue State Digital, architects of President Obama’s groundbreaking online campaign, to connect with the Institute’s film and theater alumni, enhancing donor communication, and the recruitment of new Institute and Festival supporters. In addition to programming the popular Sundance Institute at BAM series, since 2005 Mr. Cooper has spearheaded The Sundance Institute Art House Project, a national initiative of 18 art houses from across the country designed to connect regional audiences to the Sundance’s films and filmmakers.
Robert Redford, Sundance Institute President and Founder said, “When we established the Festival, it was always with two goals in mind: supporting new artists and inspiring new audiences. Cooper has never lost sight of these goals. He brings to the position an infectious enthusiasm as well as a deep understanding of the Sundance brand and culture. Forward thinking, he is a natural choice of succession to lead the Festival into the 21st century.”
Added Ken Brecher, Executive Director of the Sundance Institute, “The Trustees and I are very pleased that Cooper has agreed to serve as the Festival’s new director. To have such an innovative leader who is very much in tune with the needs and interests of today’s filmmakers is invaluable.”
“This is a tremendous opportunity not just for me but for the entire programming team,” Mr. Cooper said. “Our industry is at a crossroads: innovative technology and global accessibility are making filmmaking wildly creative while, at the same time, traditional funding and distribution models are being challenged. Never has our Festival been more relevant. I am honored to accept this position and ready to get to work on shaping the Festival of the future.”


Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is the premier showcase for U.S. and international independent film, held each January in and around Park City, Utah. Presenting dramatic and documentary feature-length films in seven distinct categories, and a selection of international short films each year, the Sundance Film Festival has introduced American audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Trouble the Water and Little Miss Sunshine.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development of original storytelling in film and theatre, and presents the annual Sundance Film Festival. Internationally recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring Awakening, Boys Don’t Cry and Born into Brothels.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon