Robert Redford’s Indie Revolution: How the Sundance Spirit Is Rewiring Streaming, Festivals, and Hollywood
Robert Redford’s death at 89 lands with the weight of two intertwined careers: a generational movie star who embodied idealism tested by reality, and the architect of modern American independent film. Through the Sundance Institute, its artist Labs, and the Sundance Film Festival, Redford didn’t build a counterculture to Hollywood so much as he built an on-ramp—an artist-first infrastructure that gave sidelined voices another avenue into the mainstream. That blueprint—incubation, discovery, and a marketplace attuned to distinct voices—now animates the streaming era. Platforms rely on festivals like Sundance as a live A&R function for originals and awards slates; financiers and buyers cluster in the mountains not just for premieres but to place strategic bets; and festivals themselves are evolving beyond red carpets into year-round development and distribution engines. With Sundance relocating to Boulder in 2027, Redford’s core idea—mission over map—enters its next phase.