The Hollywood Reporter - 12.02.2020

The Business

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 42 FEBRUA RY 12, 2020

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Analysis

Creators of Color, After a ‘Sundance Moment’

Even amid an industry push for inclusion, capitalizing on festival success can be a steep climb for underrepresented directors

FILM | PIYA SINHA-ROY

T

his year’s Sundance Film

Festival saw a record

number of diverse film-

makers across four competition

categories, some of whom won

top awards, but Hollywood’s his-

tory with indie directors of color

shows they’ll likely face an uphill

battle for mainstream success.

In 2014, two young filmmak-

ers garnered buzz at Sundance,

thanks to award-winning first

features. One was Damien

Chazelle, who stormed the

festival with his tense drama

Whiplash, which won the audi-

ence and jury awards; the other

was Justin Simien, whose sear-

ing satire Dear White People

nabbed the special jury award

for breakthrough talent. Their

post-Sundance trajectories

are emblematic of Hollywood’s

struggle to be inclusive.

Chazelle went on to direct two

big-budget features, La La Land

and First Man, and win an Oscar;

numerous film and TV projects are

in the works. Meanwhile, Simien

waited six years for his big-screen

follow-up. “It seems to happen to

white guys a little more, where you

have a moment at Sundance and

then immediately get that direct-

ing gig on a big TV show or big

Hollywood movie,” says Simien.

“That was not an option on the

table at the meetings I was taking,

but I can’t say I was surprised.”

guy would always land the job.”

Simien also faced obstacles —

even though Dear White People

grossed more than $5 million

at the U.S. box office and was

adapted into a Netflix series. He

says the issue lies in the lack of

diversity in the top echelons of

the studios, which are still over-

whelmingly white.

Simien notes that he couldn’t

get a project starring an Oscar-

and Emmy-winning actor

greenlit because the person

“was just not big enough” for the

studio. “It still comes down to

whether studio heads feel like

taking a chance on a black-led

cast, and the answer’s usually no.”

Now there’s more diverse talent

in the Sundance spotlight than

ever. Out of the 65 directors of

the 56 films in competition this

year, 46 percent were women

and 38 percent were people of

color — including Lee Isaac

Chung (Minari), Radha Blank (The

40-Year-Old Version), Edson Oda

(Nine Days) and Garrett Bradley

(Time), who all won awards.

As for Simien, his new horror

movie Bad Hair opened Sundance

in the Midnight category and

was acquired by Hulu for $8 mil-

lion. “It has been a long time and

I’ve been itching to tell a new

story,” he says. “It feels like a

new beginning.”

It’s no coincidence.

Underrepresented directors

helmed just 13.5 percent

of the top 1,300 films

from 2007 to 2019, accord-

ing to a January study

from the USC Annenberg

Inclusion Initiative. The

peak came in 2018, when

21.4 percent of the year’s

top-grossing films were

directed by filmmakers of

color — Ryan Coogler (Black

Panther), Jon M. Chu (Crazy

Rich Asians) and Spike Lee

(BlacKkKlansman) among

them. In 2019, that number

dropped to 16.8 percent.

That’s why the Sundance

Institute is trying to bridge the

gap and make Cathy Yan’s jump

from 2018 festival star to Birds of

Prey director less of an outlier.

“Year after year, filmmakers of

dominant cultures are getting

immediate opportunities to helm

big studio films after having a

very small indie film screened at

our festival or another festival,”

says inclusion director Karim

Ahmad. “There’s no concern on

the part of a gatekeeper to give

that person keys to a much, much

bigger-budget project.”

Indeed, a February Annenberg

and ReFrame study shows that

little has changed when it comes

to budgets of studio films by and

featuring people of color. Films

with white male leads received

a median production budget of

$51.9 million, while films with

underrepresented male

leads received $38.5 million

and films with under-

represented female leads

received just $19.2 million.

Sundance standouts

Matty Rich, whose 1991

feature Straight Out of

Brooklyn won awards and

landed him a development

deal at TriStar Pictures,

and Patricia Riggen, whose

2007 Spanish-language

Under the Same Moon (La

Misma Luna) sparked a

bidding war and grossed

$23 million worldwide,

struggled to launch mainstream

careers after their indie success.

“People would explain [that]

African American movies don’t

play to foreign [audiences] — I’ve

heard that for such a long time,”

Rich says.

Riggen says she went to

dozens of meetings for projects

centered on women: “A white

PIYA SINHA-ROY is senior film

editor at The Hollywood Reporter.

From left: Dear White People, Under the Same

Moon and Straight Out of Brooklyn illustrate

challenges faced by underrepresented

directors even after a Sundance breakout.

BUDGET

$77K

BUDGET

$1M

BUDGET

$1.5M

Simien

Riggen

Rich

Directors at Top Global

Film Festivals (2017-2019)

Underrepresented Females

Source: Time’s Up Foundation USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s “Inclusion at Film Festivals: Examining Gender and Race/Ethnicity

of Narrative Directors from 2017-2019” (Jan. 25, 2020).

White Females

Underrepresented Males

White Males

47%

27%

17%

8%