Giddy with excitement, Brooklyn’s VIPs
welcomed Robert Redford to Fort Greene on Thursday. The actor-director
made the trek to the Brooklyn Academy of Music – with a considerable
entourage – to announce his Sundance Film Institute’s planned
collaboration with BAM, "Creative Latitude," which
will kick off in May.
As first reported by GO Brooklyn in October, the collaboration
is key element of the Sundance Institute’s 25th anniversary celebration,
according to Golden Globe-winning actress Glenn Close, a member
of the Institute’s board of trustees.
"Creative Latitude: Sundance Institute at BAM" will
bring some of the artistic development programs of the Sundance
Institute and a selection of films from the 2006 Sundance Film
Festival in Park City, Utah to BAM, May 11-20. The title of the
collaboration is, in part, a reference to each organizations’
support of "fresh creative visions" and because Park
City and Brooklyn share the 40.6-degree latitude, explained BAM
President Karen Brooks Hopkins.
Details about the planned activities were scant, and while Redford
told GO Brooklyn that there would be opportunities for Brooklyn
filmmakers to be involved, he declined to specify how or in what
way.
"This is just the beginning," he explained.
Also, the slate of films that will be shown at BAM as part of
"Creative Latitude" – "the meat of the programming"
– will not be announced until the conclusion of this year’s Sundance
festival, according to BAM Executive Producer Joe Melillo.
Many of the thousands of submissions to the Sundance festival
are from Brooklyn, said Sundance Institute Executive Director
Ken Brecher, so it’s possible that some of the movies that will
be screened in "Creative Latitude" will be by local
filmmakers.
"I don’t think there would have been a Sundance last year
if it wasn’t for Brooklyn," said Brecher, who acknowledged
the success of Noah Baumbach’s Park Slope film, "The
Squid and the Whale." "It’s absolutely true that
this is the artistic center of our country."
"I think [’Creative Latitude’] is a great idea," Park
Slope actor-director Steve Buscemi told GO Brooklyn. "The
more independent film we can bring to Brooklyn, the better for
Brooklyn."
The director of "Trees Lounge" recalled that the day
he spent watching French screen siren Isabelle Huppert star in
the play "Psychose 4:48" at BAM’s Harvey Theater and
introduce the film "Wanda" at BAMcinematek was a "perfect
weekend."
"That’s what living in the city is all about," said
Buscemi, who took a moment to talk with Redford at the event,
igniting a firestorm of flashbulbs from the assembled news photographers.
Among the supporters who have helped to make this new initiative
possible, according to Hopkins, is philanthropist Diana Barrett
and her husband, the home improvement guru, Bob Vila, who were
both in attendance on Thursday.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz welcomed Redford with
open arms, assuring the matinee idol that the festival will help
solidify the burgeoning Brooklyn film scene’s reputation as "Hollywood
East."
"I assure you that your work in Africa, and in Park City,
and the Wild West, Bolivia, Montana, La La land and beyond has
been a warm-up, a dress rehearsal for your moment on the real
big stage of Brooklyn, USA," said Markowitz.
The borough president also announced to the crowd that he hoped
a film about Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson, which Redford is
producing, will have its premiere in this borough.
"I think that would be fabulous," Redford told GO Brooklyn,
although he pointed out that the script of the film, which will
feature him in the role of Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey,
has only recently been finalized.
"If you really want to help us, bring back Ebbets Field,"
Redford told Markowitz.
Redford said that the Brooklyn Dodgers was just one aspect of
the "mythology of Brooklyn" that influenced him as
a kid, so it came to mind when it was time for Sundance to set
up an outpost on the East Coast.
"We’re a farm club for the majors and we were doing the
development and we needed to ship the talent some place,"
explained Redford. "And New York proper is pretty well loaded
up with stuff. Brooklyn has an edgier image, it seemed right
for us. It seems like a great place to go, if we could make that
work."
After talking with Sundance Institute Trustee and BAM patron
Jeanne Donovan Fisher and BAM trustee Jonathan Rose – for whom
the BAM Rose Cinemas are named – Redford said he was hooked.
"What really struck me as we were pursuing this is how much
commonality there was in terms of tradition, sensibilities, commitment
to new artists and therefore new work, and also trying to build
new audiences to be witnesses to the new work," recalled
the Sundance kid. "This seemed like a wonderful place where
we could work together."
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