As many of you know, I've been attending the Sundance Film Festival every year for over 30 years, and have served the nonprofit Sundance Institute as a Board member for 25 years! Clearly, I am a passionate advocate for the work of the Institute and its year-round labs, training and mentoring programs to nurture, support, and mentor independent artists and storytellers. 

The Sundance Film Festival (SFF), now widely considered the premiere showcase for independent film (narrative, documentary, short films and episodic), has become an annual pilgrimage to the mountain town of Park City, Utah, for nearly 100,000 people from all over the world. They make the trek for the experience of discovering new talents, watching great films, and hearing from the storytellers themselves.

They also come to be among the first to see innovative, new approaches to filmmaking and future award winners. Over the years, countless Sundance films have gone on to win Oscars and become cultural game changers. Even after three decades of “Sundancing,” I am excited every year by the strong sense of community that is also very much a part of the festival experience. (You can read about my history with Sundance here.) 

History is often made at Sundance as well as documented on screen, and it was a personal thrill this year to be in the audience for the premiere of PRIME MINISTER, a film documenting the transformative tenure of New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. As readers here may remember, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dame Jacinda onstage last year at the Skoll World Forum. I shared then how deeply impressed and inspired I was by our conversation about her leadership. This new feature documentary will impress and inspire all who see it — it’s a MUST SEE! 

Dame Jacinda was in Park City for the premiere, which was produced by Sundance trustee and greatly admired friend, Gigi Pritzker. It is sure to be one of the most important films of the year, coming at a time when we need to amplify and celebrate the story of a leader who never sought power, but accepted the responsibilities of it with courage and compassion, taking decisive action through the multiple crises she faced as New Zealand’s youngest Prime Minister — a devastating volcanic eruption, the Christchurch terrorist attack on a Muslim community, and of course, the Covid-19 pandemic.

Co-directors Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe have crafted an intimate story, featuring very personal footage shot by Ardern's husband, Clarke, who along with their daughter, Neve, are costars in this engaging film that takes us inside the personal and professional journey of a leader in a way I’ve never seen so well documented, in part because of the never-before-heard audio diaries that Ardern recorded during her tenure that are included in the film.

PRIME MINISTER is featured in the World Documentary competition at the festival and is available for the public to watch online between January 30 and February 2. Get tickets.

Over the many years of my career, I interviewed hundreds of world leaders, often asking them what they wished to be the legacy of their leadership. Dame Jacinda is the only one who ever answered, ”kindness.” What a difference in the world we would see if more leaders considered kindness a touchstone.

The consequences of leadership that uses power to subjugate perceived enemies and destroy social justice movements is laid bare in FREE LEONARD PELTIER, another premiere at SFF, that documents the disturbing 50-year story of the US government’s wrongful pursuit and conviction of Leonard Peltier, one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement. I won’t attempt to share the details of how the FBI set about to systematically and violently end the work of a movement born out of frustration with broken treaties and human rights abuses, and the many ways that the US government not only failed to live up to the treaties, but also waged programs intended to destroy the culture, the languages, and the ways of life that had thrived for thousands of years before the arrival of the now dominant culture of white America.

Peltier was a survivor of the horrific abusive boarding school system, documented in last year’s SFF award winning film, Sugarcane (another “must see”!). He and others became targets of the FBI, who trumped up charges, threatened witnesses to get them to sign false affidavits, and ultimately succeeded in putting an innocent man in prison for two lifetime sentences.

It's a story of a miscarriage of justice that will leave you, as it did me, angry and extremely disappointed in the justice system, as well as in the multiple presidents who could have pardoned him, based on all the evidence that he was innocent, but caved to political pressures and did nothing.

Finally — during his last 20 minutes in the White House! — President Joe Biden commuted Peltier's sentence. Peltier, now an 80-year-old man in failing health, will spend the rest of his days under house arrest. It doesn’t go unnoticed that President Trump’s clemency to hundreds of January 6th insurrectionists gave them immediate freedom!

FREE LEONARD PELTIER is an important reminder that when promises made to entire communities are broken, when human rights are ignored or violated, and when our judicial system fails to deliver justice, we all suffer. These fundamental rights are essential for a thriving and sustainable democracy.

As has been the case for three decades, I will leave Park City feeling inspired by much of what I've seen, sometimes angered and frustrated, but always grateful for the opportunity to be in those theaters. I’ll track what happens to these two films as well as share more next week about other films I was privileged to see at SFF. I hope that my reports inspire you to learn more about the Sundance Institute and its mission to create pathways from story to screen to audiences for independent work. Without this unique model created by the great storyteller and visionary, Robert Redford, many of these works would not exist.

I also hope you will seek out these and other independent films when they make their way from Sundance to other screens and audiences — a journey that has become more challenging every year (more on that in a future post).

Well crafted stories that challenge, inform, and inspire us can be the forces that unite us in a very divided time; that connect us as a compassionate, caring, and yes, kind community committed to act on behalf of others. It was gratifying to witness the support for the LA community’s recent catastrophic losses throughout the festival this year.

The SFF continues online through Feb. 2nd. Many of the films are available for streaming online. Visit the Sundance website to see what's on offer.

Onward!

- Pat