More than half a dozen Vineyarders made their presence felt at the nation’s premiere film festival, Sundance, in Park City, Utah, last month. Three — Stanley Nelson, Matt Heineman, and Al Shackman — were part of the program. For Brian Ditchfield and Anne Evasick of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF), and Richard Paradise of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center (MVFC), attendance at Sundance was mostly business. Also attending were Jim and Susan Swartz of Edgartown and Park City, whose production company, Impact Partners, was involved with six documentaries at the festival. Ms. Swartz has been active in developing documentary screenings at Sundance for the past 15 years.
Stanley Nelson, who summers in Oak Bluffs, premiered his latest documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. With seven films opening at Sundance over the years, Mr. Nelson has premiered the most films of any documentary director there, according to Mr. Paradise. Matt Heineman, a frequent presence at MVFF in March, won Best Director of a U.S. Documentary for Cartel Land, which tells the story of Mexican drug cartels. The film also won a Special Jury Award.
Musician and Oak Bluffs resident Al Shackman appears in the Liz Garbus documentary about singer Nina Simone, What Happened, Miss Simone? that opened at Sundance.Miss Simone’s longtime guitarist and music director, Mr. Shackman is interviewed by director Liz Garbus in her film on the High Priestess of Soul. While Vineyard resident Judy Belushi didn’t attend Sundance this year, she appears in the documentary Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead, about National Lampoon magazine.
“We [the Island] were well represented,” said MVFF’s managing director Brian Ditchfield in a telephone interview with the Times. Attending Sundance for the sixth year, he viewed 38 films over seven days, and selected five for the Chilmark-based festival, which runs from March 17 through March 22. “It was a banner year,” Mr. Ditchfield said. “It’s a very quick turnaround. I’m trying to book films [for MVFF] while I’m at Sundance.” In addition to What Happened, Miss Simone? Mr. Ditchfield scheduled Cartel Land, The Hunting Ground, Most Likely to Succeed, and Meru. At the March festival, students will be admitted free to The Hunting Ground, which concerns the sexual-assault epidemic on college campuses. Most Likely to Succeed, a documentary about project-based education, will be free for teachers.
“It’s nice to see things before you’ve read about them,” Mr. Ditchfield said. “It’s a whole different feeling.” He also spends time meeting with distributors and directors, and almost as soon as he returns to the Island, he starts preparing for the March festival. He looks for films MVFF might show during its summer series, too. Although he spent most of his time indoors watching films, Mr. Ditchfield said the weather at Sundance was beautiful — 50° and sunny.
Fellow programmer Anne Evasick of Island Entertainment helped select the fifth documentary, Meru, about mountain climbers, which will play in March. This year was Ms. Evasick’s third at Sundance, and she saw 34 films, primarily at what are known as industry screenings. Films shown this way do not include question-and-answer sessions, as the public screenings do.
“I’m going as their [MVFF] ears and eyes,” Ms. Evasick said. “But it’s a huge help to me at the store, too.” The Sundance Best of Fest, Grand Jury Prize, and Audience Award all went to Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, which Ms. Evasick saw. She said it was her favorite, and she knew it would be a winner.
Richard Paradise, founder and executive director of MVFC, has attended Sundance for three years, and saw 11 films during the five days he spent in Park City most recently. “I can’t watch four or five movies straight,” he said in a phone interview. He explained that industry screenings he went to allow programmers to attend films for free at one fourplex cinema. “A lot of the buyers go to the public screenings,” he said, “because they want to see the reaction of the public.” Films that premiere at Sundance — if they are lucky — are bought by a distributor, or go straight to HBO or other outlets. Out of 7,000 to 8,000 entries, 60 to 70 features and 100 shorts make it into Sundance, Mr. Paradise estimates.
Mr. Paradise also checks out Slamdance, the alternative Park City festival for films that don’t make it into Sundance. There he saw Batkid Begins, a documentary about a boy dying of cancer who became Batman for a day in 2013 through the San Francisco Make-A-Wish Foundation.
At Sundance, “directors are treated like gods,” said Mr. Paradise. Getting into parties or hobnobbing with celebrities proves difficult for others: “Just being downtown in Park City is a party.” While the films of Sundance are sometimes overshadowed by the celebrity hype, as Park City’s Main Street transforms into a fashion runway for the famous, Ms. Evasick said, “That’s not why I go.” It is an opinion seconded by Mr. Ditchfield and Mr. Paradise.