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Shortly after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, Tabitha Jackson, then director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Films Program, hosted the annual opening reception for documentary makers at the Park City Film Festival in the ‘Utah. Briton Mrs Jackson, who is mixed race and gay, took the stage, knowing that many onlookers were disturbed by what had happened and what was to come.
She struggled to find the words to express how people were feeling. Instead, in a reverse Samson moment, she asked filmmaker Sandi Dubowski (“Trembling Before Gd”) to start trimming her dreadlocks, which she had been growing for 20 years. The crowd has gone mad.
“It was a release of energy,” she said in a recent interview. “A non-verbal expression of something that needs to change around me leading this program and around us as a community. A little warrior spirit and also a slight howl, since we didn’t know what was going to happen.
Ms. Jackson, 50, now finds herself as a leader in yet another moment of broader uncertainty. She took charge of the Sundance Film Festival in February, just before the pandemic really took hold in the United States, and has spent the past year pivoting again and again to prepare for the 37th annual showcase independent cinema.
Set to begin Thursday in a mostly virtual setting (in-person screenings will take place at select art theaters in 28 cities with lower virus numbers like Atlanta, Houston, and Memphis), Sundance 2021 is a high-profile experience. This will allow those who have never been able to share the extravagance of the snowy ski town – either because of the cost or the remote location – to experience it for the first time. With screening times set for each film and live question-and-answer sessions to follow, Ms. Jackson and her team attempt to recreate the unique energy of Sundance, which has been America’s premier independent film destination for nearly four decades. . .
“At first it was depressing when we realized we couldn’t run the festival like we had done before,” Ms. Jackson said. “But as we started to plan it became liberating when we thought, ‘Well, what can we do this year that we couldn’t do before?’
The decision not to hold the festival in Utah was made in June. But the organization had to change direction again in December when the surge in the coronavirus count in California prompted the cancellation of a large number of drive-thru tests that had been set for the Rose Bowl.
“It’s been a roller coaster ride, but the rails that keep us stable and secure are our goal in independent film making,” Ms. Jackson said. “We know why we are doing this.”
Ms Jackson joined Sundance in 2013, after spending more than 20 years in London working for the BBC and Channel 4 and producing works like Nick Cave’s ‘20,000 Days on Earth’, a quasi-documentary that purported to show a day singular in indie the life of a musician, filled with invented events filmed in fictitious places.
Those who know her often describe Ms. Jackson as curious, open, and quick-witted. She is also committed to helping filmmakers.
“She might actually host one of the best late night talk shows, she’s also funny and witty,” said Diane Weyermann, head of content at Participant and former director of the Sundance documentary program. This year, Participant will debut two films at Sundance: the documentary “My Name Is Pauli Murray” about a non-binary black lawyer, activist and poet who influenced both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Thurgood Marshall, and “Judas and the Black Messiah ”, The Warner Bros. film that tells the story of Fred Hampton, the president of the Illinois Black Panther Party.
Documentary maker Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) presents three films at the festival with his Concordia studio. He said Ms Jackson was bringing welcome change to an institution that hadn’t changed much over the decades.
“I like that it’s not just a festival for the few anymore – the few who could go, the few who could get tickets,” he said. “It’s a brave new world, and she’s brave.”
When resuming the documentary program, Ms. Jackson admitted that she did not want the genre to become “the preserve of the elite,” open only to those who could spend years fundraising and making money. movies.
In 2015, Ms. Jackson hosted a question-and-answer session with first-time filmmaker Nanfu Wang in front of a large number of investors. Ms. Wang was seeking funds to complete her film “Hooligan Sparrow,” which follows activists protesting the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal in China. Ms. Wang was forced to surreptitiously film and smuggle the footage out of the country in order to complete the film.
Normally, filmmakers have a producer on site to meet the financial needs of their project, but since Ms. Wang did not have one, Ms. Jackson directed the Q&A in order to pitch her to the right financiers. The discussion led her to receive the funds she needed to complete the job. Ms. Wang will present her fourth feature-length documentary, “In the Same Breath,” which traces the spread of Covid-19 from Wuhan, China, to the United States, at this year’s festival.
“Tabitha speaks like a philosopher,” Ms. Wang said. “I felt like she saw me, not only because I was making this film about Chinese human rights activists, but she cared so much about my background and how I became who I am today.” hui.
This philosophy of trying to give voice to those who are not always allowed to participate is personal to Ms. Jackson. A mixed-race girl adopted by white parents who later divorced, Ms Jackson was raised in a village in the English countryside and learned to move between groups.
“I’ve grown to love inhabiting the edge of things, the middle space,” she said after receiving an industry award in 2018. “What started out as a survival mechanism is now my most comfortable place.
The programming of this year’s truncated seven-day festival illustrates these intermediate places. With 72 features, compared to the usual 120, Sundance will showcase films from a diverse group of creators: 50% are female directors, 51% are filmmakers of color, 15% are directors who identify as LGBTQ and 4 % are non-binary.
The opening night film comes from Ahmir Thompson, the Roots drummer known as Questlove. Entitled “Summer of Soul (… Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”, it is a documentary that chronicles the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, an event held to celebrate African-American music that took place the same summer as Woodstock.
“Twenty minutes after Tabitha saw the movie, she said that not only do we want the movie, we want it for opening night and we want it for the US competition,” said producer Jon Kamen. “Usually you don’t know right away. In general, everything is a little tasteless.
Ms Jackson said she and her team, led by Programming Director Kim Yutani, had to rebroadcast the festival to many creators who feared the virtual environment would be a great way to debut. One person they didn’t have to convince was producer Nina Yang Bongiovi, who along with partner Forest Whitaker has had films competing at Sundance in five of the past seven years.
They will be there this year with “Passing”, from actress-turned-director for the first time Rebecca Hall. The film, set in 1920 and starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, traces the story of two African-American women who can “pass” as white.
“When I looked at the screen and saw Tabitha and Kim – two inclusive and diverse women – telling me and my team that our film was loved and adopted and that I wanted to be a part of it, it meant a lot, ”Ms. Yang Bongiovi said of the Zoom appeal when the film was accepted.
Despite the challenges of the past year, there have been some benefits. Ms Jackson was able to quarantine herself most of the time in Connecticut with documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson (“Dick Johnson Is Dead”), whom she married last year at Sundance on the first day of the festival. They recently bought a home with filmmaker Ira Sachs and artist Boris Torres, who co-parent Ms Johnson’s 9-year-old twins.
This gave Ms Johnson a prominent place in Ms Jackson’s process.
“What’s interesting about Tabitha is that she has so many perspectives on her background and her life,” Ms. Johnson said. “She is infinitely curious to know the permutations of racism in the world and the way in which we fight against identity. I think there is a real sense of how we continue to push for this new landscape and not be blinded by simple solutions.
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