Editor's Note: In honor of his 86th birthday, we're looking back at a profound interview with our founder Robert Redford. In 2007, Redford spoke with us about the power and future of documentary filmmaking and his words are as important today as they were 15 years ago.by Cara Mertes
The Sundance Film Festival's longstanding commitment to documentary has been driven by the personal connection founder and president Robert Redford feels for the form. Leading up to the premiere of Chicago 10, the second doc to ever open the Festival, we talked to Redford about the past, present, and possible future of documentaries.
You made an early commitment to documentary. Why was that?
A lot of what Sundance is today has to do with my early impressions as a kid. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, and our main entertainment was going to the movie theater on Saturday night. I remember being impressed by the Pathe newsreels, which were really an early form of documentaries.
They brought you information, including images of the Second World War that was going on, and if you had relatives in the war there was a personal connection that probably hooked me. There was also something about the grainy sense of reality that really stood out against the feature presentations of narrative films and animation. So the early genesis of this goes back to being very impressed with those newsreels.
When did you start to think of documentary as something other than straight journalism?
In the 1950s, I remember the McCarthy hearings on television, and it was all extremely dramatic and it really struck me. Then, in the '60s I saw Emile DeAnontio's films on the same hearings, and it was suddenly clear how a filmmaker could work with real events and also tell you more of the whole story. And I realized that documentaries could carry a weight that fiction films didn't seem to have, and I started to get hooked on them.
But at that time, almost all documentaries were in the talking-head style and were primarily academic. And then they started to take a new turn with the work of people like Drew Associates, Lee Pennebaker, the Maysles. Suddenly, the camera was moving, and they were covering live things that were so dramatic that I began to think, This drama of reality is as strong, if not stronger, than the narrative theatrical films in the marketplace.
And this was the impetus for you to become involved in the making of documentaries?
That's right. In the late '60s and early '70s, as a sidebar to my own career, I began to think that I wanted to get into documentaries in some way. I started by supporting documentarians by either narrating or producing or co-producing or arranging money for them.
It started out with smaller films about the threats to the environment or Native American issues on Indian lands where developers were coming in trying to wipe them out. My interest continued to build until finally in the mid-'70s, I began to feel that there would be a future for documentaries as they evolved and that someday they would evolve to a place where they would be equivalent to mainstream, narrative filmmaking. I just really had that belief.
You started the Sundance Film Festival in 1984. How did documentaries fit into the idea for the Festival?
From the very first Festival, we've screened documentaries. And by the early '90s, the Festival had formed enough of a visible platform that we could start leveraging it more aggressively to promote nonfiction work. So we started pushing documentaries by positioning them more highly, giving them more screenings, showing more of them.
In 2001, the Institute began giving grants to documentarians when the Soros Documentary Fund became the Sundance Documentary Fund. How did this come to fruition?
By that time we had a solid platform to show documentaries at the Festival, we could see the potential for audiences to grow, and we wanted to provide resources to get more of these films made. By providing both funding and a strong platform for exhibition, we hoped we could raise awareness about international issues of human rights.
We went to Diane Weyermann, who had been instrumental in starting up the Soros Documentary Fund at the Open Society Institute, and we worked out how the fund could come over to Sundance. A lot of the pieces came together at the right time. And now, we also provide labs for documentarians to support the creative side of their work.
Are you surprised at the level of success that documentaries are now achieving?
I've always believed in these films and have always been committed to them. I'm very surprised by many other things, but not that documentaries are catching on.
Do you consider documentary as a way to directly approach deeply political and urgent questions?
Definitely. I want Sundance to be a forum for cultural exchange and for political dialogue. We're not hearing the truth about a lot of issues and I'm worried that people are giving up and getting numb and not even bothering to look for the truth. It's often in documentaries-when the focus is on personal stories-that we learn the truth of current situations and events. They're not just a cultural force for storytelling; they're also political truth. If you look at Born into Brothels and Hoop Dreams and Super Size Me, these kinds of films really are a huge channel to get back to the truth. So, yeah, it is political.
Do you think that documentaries can inspire change?
I do think it's possible for a film to inform, to wake people up to the real truth of our situation. Al Gore's film [An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim] is a great example of a documentary that creates real impact-it just happens to fortunately coincide with facts about the state of our environment being publi
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
08/10/2026
Modern venues have come a long way since the tinny, echoing audio of the mid 20t...
08/10/2026
ESPN's first Super Bowl production will stream in English and Spanish on Disney+, while the ESPN App carries the full slate of game, ManningCast, studio, an...
08/10/2026
From high-school videoboards to War Eagle Productions, the Opelika native is learning how to lead shows and capture big moments
The future of live sports produ...
08/10/2026
The Television Academy and Prime Video have announced a six-year agreement making Prime Video the exclusive global home of the Emmy Awards beginning with the 20...
08/10/2026
Techex will exhibit at NAB Show New York 2026 (Booth 623, Javits Center, October...
08/10/2026
X Games has announced the appointment of Steve Rogers as Chief Operating Officer. Rogers previously served as COO of World Supercross and spent nearly a decade ...
08/10/2026
Fonn Group has appointed Trevor Spielmann as Sales Director for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Spielmann joins from EVS, where he held sales and business de...
08/10/2026
The flagship program will originate from major PG events with a four-camera production, live distribution across PGTV, social platforms
Perfect Game is bringin...
08/10/2026
Innovation rarely happens in a vacuum. More often, it happens at the point of collision: when worlds that have run on separate tracks begin to converge. That is...
08/10/2026
For decades, the production and broadcast services business has run on a familia...
08/10/2026
Uplynk, Zixi, BroadView Software, and Grass Valley have published The IP Converg...
08/10/2026
The NFL has announced the return of the Big Data Bowl, the league's analytics competition, now in its ninth year and again powered by AWS. Registration is o...
08/10/2026
Eutelsat has renewed its partnership with T l diffusion d'Alg rie (TDA), Algeria's national broadcasting network operator, for continued distribution of...
08/10/2026
Disney will livestream Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027, alongside the game's broadcast on ESPN and ABC. All Disney subscribers in the United States wi...
08/10/2026
RHStv and Red House Streaming have announced an expansion of their partnership w...
08/10/2026
Gray Media has announced a distribution agreement with TEGNA and DAZN to simulca...
08/10/2026
SVG readers can save 10% on registration and receive a complimentary Solutions H...
08/10/2026
PROTON Camera Innovations GmbH has been named a recipient of a 2026 Technology a...
08/10/2026
Industry leaders discuss real-world cloud workflows for live game production, pl...
08/10/2026
The next-gen audio technology joins Dolby Vision as part of Apple TV's immersive F1 experience...
08/10/2026
David France, Jesse Short Bull, Mato Wayuhi, N. Bird Runningwater, Jodi Archambau, Jhane Myers, Paul McGuire, Amber Morning Star Byars, Holly Macarro, Nick Tils...
08/10/2026
Dynamic panning plug-ins get an upgrade
Sound Particles have just announced major updates for two of their popular dynamic panning plug-ins. Energy Panner 2...
08/10/2026
New expandable instrument boasts full DMNO engine
UDO Audio have just announced the upcoming release of a new, expandable synth that packs the power of the ...
08/10/2026
Two new subwoofers added to monitoring line-up
ADAM Audio's monitoring range has just been expanded with two new DSP-equipped subwoofers, the Sub8 PRO a...
08/10/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
08/10/2026
Calrec gives broadcasters freedom of choice at NAB Show New York We're looking forward to meeting up with you all at NAB New York on 21st-22nd October.
Cal...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Globecast, a leading provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, will showcase its next generation of media orchestration services at NAB S...
08/10/2026
Clear-Com played a critical role in the production communications infrastructure for Rock in Rio 2026, one of the world's largest and most recognized music...
08/10/2026
Sohonet Launches ClearView Rush: A Leap Forward in Studio Review, Built for Crea...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Ikegami announces a major expansion to its range of broadcast-quality live production cameras. Scheduled for introduction on Ikegami booth 708 at NAB New York, ...
08/10/2026
Calrec will be located at Booth 444.
Freedom to choose
The media landscape is evolving quickly, and the broadcasters best placed for what comes next will be...
08/10/2026
LiveU has announced that CRD Audiovisuel relied on LiveUs LU900Q intelligent production unit, with built-in native LiveU IQ (LIQ ) connectivity, to deliver live...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/10/2026
Marshall Electronics, a globally recognized provider of high-performance video solutions for broadcast, streaming, AV and professional production, will exhibit ...
08/10/2026
14-hour package also includes A Remarkable Place to Die season 2 as well as libr...
Editor's Note: In honor of his 86th birthday, we're looking back at a profound interview with our founder Robert Redford. In 2007, Redford spoke with us about the power and future of documentary filmmaking and his words are as important today as they were 15 years ago.by Cara Mertes
