Gavin Smith

Canada’s all-time greatest writer-director has come a long way since his film Videodrome proclaimed “Long live the New Flesh” nearly forty years ago. Because his films are often horrifying, many mistake David Cronenberg for a purveyor of horror films, and to be sure he singlehandedly invented the now-fashionable “body horror” genre. But only a few of his films are horror movies per se, and they are way in the past. The subsequent fifteen aren’t so much scary as disturbing: think the experimental gynecological implements in Dead Ringers. And a couple are unapologetically transgressive: think the death-by-car-accident fetishists in his 1996 adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s Crash.

In 1969 Robert Redford purchased 5,000 acres of land in the mountains of Utah and built a ski resort. In 1981 he founded the nonprofit Sundance Institute to cultivate new voices in American independent film through annual directing and screenwriting labs (alumni include Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson) and to provide financial support for select projects. In 1985 Redford took over the US Film Festival, based in nearby Park City, and brought it under the Sundance umbrella. In 1989, the festival had its breakthrough with Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Sundance became a film-industry fixture for talent scouts, acquisitions executives and journalists, particularly those inclined to go skiing in their downtime.