Robert Redford, The Sundance Kid who became a Sundance tycoon, independent entrepreneur and cinema champion,
Robert Redford, the Oscar -winning actor whose career as a leading man in American cinema lasted more than four decades and who then established himself as an important defender and entrepreneur to support independent filmmakers, died at 89 years old.
Redford got importance in the late 1960s and 1970s with star roles in films such as The bite (1973) and All the men of the president (1976). His mixture of charisma and subtlety on the screen made him one of the most bancable stars of Hollywood of his time. He won the Academy Award for making in 1980 for his first feature film Ordinary peopleAnd he was honored by an honorary Oscar in 2002, recognizing his contributions to the film industry as a whole.
After a starry decade in the 1970s, Redford personified the revolutionary nature of “New Hollywood” of this decade by pivoting in the 1980s to become an entrepreneur and activist. He created the Sundance Institute, a non -profit organization which offers workshops, financing and mentorship for emerging filmmakers, who would become, over time, basic infrastructure which supported the growth of independent cinema. An example of Redford Entrepreneurial Bent was the creation of the Sundance Film Festival, which Redford did not create: it is the result of a merger with the Pre-existing film Festival of Utah / United States, founded by the UTAH film Commission in 1978. Sous Redford, which was renamed, moved to Park City, Utah and finally became the first show of Shower for the independent film in the United States.
The Sundance Film Festival has helped launch the careers of filmmakers, including Steven Soderbergh, who, the famous critic Roger Ebert, would later call “the post of the generation of Sundance”, and in recent years, Quentin Tarantino and Ava Duvernay. He also provided a commercial channel for low -budget films to reach a wider audience. What started as a modest gathering has become a major event, drawing tens of thousands of industry and filmmakers, and reshanging the economy of independent cinema every year.
Key achievements under Sundance include Smoke Becoming the first film written and directed by Amerindians, being from Sundance Lab, then becoming the first native film to receive a commercial release, according to the Institute. In 1997, Redford joined the UCLA to create the Sundance collection at the University, an archive dedicated to the collection and preservation of independent cinema. He then associated himself with the billionaire of hedge funds George Soros, adopting the Soros documentary fund in the Institute in 2002 and rejoining the Sundance Documentary Fund. He also widened it to offer subsidies to fictional filmmakers, as well as creative and strategic support. Along the way, filmmakers and cinema actors won the Oscars, and the playwrights and the theater artists won the Pulitzer and Tony Awards.
A seaside resort, a brand, an inheritance
Redford told Utah about 20 years earlier, when he came across Provo Canyon, Utah, during a 1961 background trip. He loved so much that he had bought two acres and built a cabin with his own hands, according to the Sundance Institute. In 1969, he bought an additional 5,000 acres in the region and appointed it “Sundance”, the same year as its success Butch Cassidy and The Sundance KidWhile also opening Sundance Mountain to use the public and designating a large majority as a wilderness reserve.
Development reflected Redford’s interest in conservation, offering skiing, accommodation and cultural programs in an environment which he sought to maintain in harmony with nature. Long before “sustainable development” is in the dominant current, Redford joined environmental values ​​in the station’s operations.
The name of Sundance has become a recognizable brand in the arts, leisure and even retail, extending the influence of the actor in business while maintaining cultural and environmental priorities. Redford is survived by his children and grandchildren, as well as the institutions he has founded which continue to influence filmmakers and the public around the world.
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