Sundance Online Leaks Shouldn’t Scare Filmmakers: It’s Part of the Appeal
Sundance patrons were enjoying the festival online when U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award winner “Twinless” suddenly went missing on Friday, January 31. It wasn’t a tech glitch: Some user(s) leaked the film through social media clips, and Sundance pulled the movie. Nor was it the first time: The night before, the festival yanked “Selena y Los Dinos” after fans of the Tejano music icon began sharing clips from the documentary on TikTok. Distribution remains on the hook for both titles.
The festival, not the filmmakers, decided to pull the titles, IndieWire has learned. However, IndieWire spoke to some rattled Sundance filmmakers now forced to consider if they’re vulnerable to piracy, or if they would submit to the competition at all again. Since 2021, the online platform has made most competition titles available online during the festival.
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Sundance wants to reassure that its movies will not be leaked; encrypted watermarks make feature-length piracy virtually impossible, and no film in its entirety has ever been uploaded online out of Sundance. As for out-of-context plot points, that’s another story: When viewers buy a ticket, they have 12 hours to watch a movie on the Sundance platform. That’s plenty of time for overeager fans to watch, record, and post clips.
But I’d like to suggest, as the tech kids say: It’s a feature, not a bug.
When likes and shares are coin of the marketing realm, organic — even forbidden! — leaks can testify to a film’s audience potential. Indie films need that buzz, however unauthorized. Online fans who feel a parasocial ownership of Selena Quintanilla or “Twinless” star Dylan O’Brien may be to blame for the leaks, but they’re often the same people who determine whether a film will find an audience.
That’s not why Sundance created the platform, of course; it launched when the festival canceled the 2021 in-person event in response to the COVID pandemic. Since then, Sundance has continued to make competition titles across the U.S. Dramatic, World Cinema, and Documentary sections available to stream. Big-ticket, non-competitive titles like “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (no buyer there, either) aren’t on the platform.
Sundance movies with distribution in place rarely screen online. A24 bought “Sorry, Baby” on February 2; it remained on the platform until it closed early on February 3. (“Train Dreams,” a Premieres entry that Netflix bought January 30, also was made available at home.)
We can’t be sure, but leaks might lie in individual ticket buyers rather than the passholders who pay up to $4,000 for cushy access to films in-person and online. If that’s the case, the festival could reassure filmmakers by limiting platform access to passholders. According to one insider, Sundance reconsiders the platform each year.
While it’s long outlived the initial inspiration, 2021 also represented a before and after for Sundance. Before meant a cultural dominance and a consistent flow, and the occasional gully wash, of acquisitions; after was the theatrical deprecation of indie films, streamers losing interest, and online conversation dictated by what’s shared on TikTok and Instagram.
Cutting off the platform may represent a cure that’s worse than the disease. In the rarefied world of film festivals, Sundance’s online platform has become the rare democratizing experience. It’s become a chance for everyday cinephiles to see what all the buzz is about in real time. Sundance is the only major film festival to offer that opportunity; Toronto offered a platform in 2021, but ditched it in 2022.
Going to Sundance is prohibitively expensive; that’s why it’s choosing a new home. In the face of industry-wide macroeconomics, the Sundance platform may be the only chance for some films to be seen. All 20 films across the U.S. Dramatic and U.S. Documentary competitions out of the 2024 festival ultimately received distribution, often limited or streaming-only (as in the case of Paramount+’s pickup “As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial”).
Some 2024 premieres are only now coming out, such as the Kristen Stewart-starrer “Love Me” (Bleecker Street, more than a year after its Sundance premiere) or another Dylan O’Brien vehicle, “Ponyboi” (Fox Entertainment and Gathr, June 27). Another insider with ties to the festival told IndieWire that distributors (in many cases, also cash-strapped to send buyers to Sundance) benefit from extra time on the platform to catch up on potential acquisitions.
That may be the case for the 2025 edition. Against a programmed total of nearly 100 features, only six Sundance movies have been purchased for North American distribution so far. The online platform has become a tool for those who buy movies. In some cases, a Sundance platform release is the movie’s distribution platform. One standout title I saw last year online out of the NEXT section, “Tendaberry,” never received distribution, but its Sundance platform release no doubt help power it toward placement at other festivals including Cleveland, Torino, and MoMI First Look.
The indie box office continues its post-COVID struggle, making festival acquisitions spotty. Last year, Searchlight bought Oscar nominee “A Real Pain” out of the competition for $10 million in 2024; it has grossed just under $9 million at the domestic box office. Netflix bought “It’s What Inside” for $17 million; it lasted a week on the streamer’s top 10.
With limited real-world interest in its lineup, Sundance doesn’t need to make filmmakers think twice about submissions. But in the ever-shifting paradigm of how a movie gets released, sometimes an online platform premiere (and its inevitable possible consequences) is the next best thing to a more traditional word-of-mouth generator like a marketing budget or in-person premiere.
When “Twinless” writer/director/star James Sweeney accepted his Audience Award at the festival’s closing ceremony, he didn’t seem upset about the leaks — and they included crucial plot moments and gay sex scenes with star O’Brien, who has a massive online fandom.
“I woke up this morning with an email thread about people posting spoilers with photos,” he said. “If anyone’s seen the film, you know what I’m talking about. So I guess the audience really does like the film.”
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