6 days ago
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The star of Sundance‘s annual gala in 2025 was not newly-minted Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo, or Oscar winner Olivia Colman, or even Sara Bareilles, who earned a standing ovation for a brief performance to close out the evening. Instead it was Michelle Satter, whose name the general public may not know but was beloved in the room at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City.
Satter is the Founding Senior Director of Artist Programs for the Sundance Institute. She has been with the non-profit since quite literally the very beginning. In her speech at the honorees dinner, Satter recalled getting five minutes of Robert Redford’s time and working up the courage to tell him that he needed her to open a Los Angeles office for the Sundance Institute.
His response? “Sure. Call me when you get there.” The rest is history.
Satter launched the Filmmakers Lab for the Sundance Institute and directly mentored filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao, Dee Rees, Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi, and more.
Many of those folks were featured in a video tribute to Satter, a touching collection of home movies in which people like Tarantino, Waititi, and Kieran Culkin were just baby-faced, aspiring storytellers. The many speakers in the video such as Ed Harris, Sally Field, the Daniels, and more described her as an unsung hero of Sundance, the “silent voice” who has been behind all the great artists. That’s because although she hasn’t been billed as a producer on these films, the filmmakers described how she left their mark through compassionate feedback and a steadfast belief in them.
Sundance also trotted out a litany of voices to champion her. Glenn Close, in one of three introductions for Satter, said she was “totally in awe of this particular human being.”
“The depth and breadth of her influence is incalculable,” Close said. “She is tough and resilient as only a woman can be.”
Marielle Heller, the director of “Nightbitch” and who worked with Satter on her debut “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” called her simply “one of the best people” and “one of those points of light” who represent the good in the world.
James Mangold, who accepted the festival’s Trailblazer Award, said that Redford hiring Satter was the “most significant and impactful decision he’s made.” After coming to the Sundance labs to develop his script for “Cop Land,” he said to this day, “I’m still yearning to convince you you were right.”
And in a letter from Robert Redford, who was not in attendance, but read by his daughter Amy Redford, he described her as “instrumental” in shaping Sundance to what it is today and calling her “steadfast” in four decades of changing administrations and the pandemic.
“You are the lighthouse. You,” Redford wrote in part. “But it has never been about you, because you have always been laser focused on the craft, the artist, and what they need. It may be to encourage them to keep digging or maybe back off. Maybe give them a hug or a little kick in the butt.”
Satter received a standing ovation as she took the stage, and she gave an emotional speech as she described recently losing her family home in the Palisades amid the fires in Los Angeles.
“We lost our village, but at the end of the day, we are the village.”
This year’s “Celebrating Sundance Institute Presented by Google TV” was held at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City. The annual event helped to raise funds for the non-profit Sundance Institute that will be put toward the Institute’s other year-round work supporting independent film programs and grants.
Increasingly the Gala dovetails with the Oscars campaign, and this year, the event happened to take place the day after Oscar nominations were announced, with Erivo, Mangold, and the “Sugarcane” directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, who won the Vanguard Award for Non-Fiction, all scoring nominations and all being honored by Sundance. Sean Wang, who won the U.S. Dramatic Jury Prize for last year’s “Didi,” was also given an award by the festival, the Vanguard Award for Fiction, as presented by “The Wedding Banquet” director Andrew Ahn.
Erivo’s Visionary Award was presented by Colman, who took the stage wearing a tiara and joked that she loves “how casual” Sundance is. She described seeing Erivo for the first time in “Widows” and thinking that here’s a bright young American actress who will one day go far. Colman’s convinced to this day that Erivo’s British accent is just something she does privately for her.
Mangold too gave a compelling speech, saying that as filmmakers we “don’t need to make thing that let people pass idle time.” He advocated for movies that wear their emotions on their sleeve and made a plea for more earnestness in movies, something Sundance tends to do best.
“We shouldn’t be embarrassed to feel shit and show it,” he said.
English (US) ·