For John Cooper, new director of the Sundance Film Festival, it's all about moving into the future and maintaining tradition. Something old, something new... We hear about how films are selected, get a preview of this year's fest, learn about the new ‘Next' category and what it's like to work with Robert Redford...
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0:00.0 | From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment. |
0:14.2 | Welcome to The Treatment. |
0:15.2 | I'm Elvis Mitchell. |
0:16.0 | You can also hear the show of KCRW.com. |
0:18.1 | It's always nice when an old friend does well. |
0:20.4 | I'm sitting across from the new director of the Sundance Film Festival, John Cooper, who's been part of the festival for a long time. John, first of all, thanks so much for being here. |
0:27.2 | Thank you. One of the things we've talked about in the past, and I wonder if you would say that things are different now in this year you've been in this position is defining the personality, if you will, the Sundance Film Festival in terms of programming. |
0:38.4 | In general, our attitude is a little more relaxed. |
0:41.8 | We're shying away from other film festivals that are a little more pomp and circumstance. |
0:47.3 | We still think of ourselves as very independent. |
0:49.5 | And I think in general, looking at independent world is something different than the Hollywood world |
0:55.7 | is kind of where we wanted to go. |
0:57.3 | So it's a little more relaxed, only I think programming was maybe a little more rigorous in a way |
1:02.6 | because of that because we're really thinking. |
1:05.1 | We rethought the way we did everything, which makes for very intense. |
1:08.7 | You know, when you're rethinking while you're doing it, it can be very intense. There was kind of this feeling last year about the economy, things |
1:14.6 | not getting bought so much of the festival, because there were, in the last few years, we'd say, |
1:18.4 | almost a record number of sales, and it was kind of, you know, basically it felt like it was part |
1:23.4 | of the boom economy, and there was a shift from that in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. |
1:28.7 | It was a shift from the boom economy? |
1:30.0 | Yes. |
1:30.3 | Well, definitely it was. |
... |
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