The Sundance Film Festival is quite likely the most famous event of its kind in America. Started by Robert Redford decades ago as a niche event, it’s grown into a yearly gathering that helps shape Hollywood.
When you imagine this gathering of entertainment influencers, one image that might not seem natural would be a large contingent of Christian college students! Yet that’s exactly where Mark Seignious and other faculty at University of Northwestern’s communication department found themselves with a group of their students recently. Mark, an associate professor at UNWSP, explains why they were there.
“It is a very influential place where a lot of films go to look for being distributed through, certainly, the major motion picture production companies – Twentieth Century Fox, Sony, and Warner Brothers – and a lot of independent filmmakers looking for their shot. The wave of new media is there. Amazon Video is there. And so a lot of distribution deals are done at the Sundance Film Festival.”
The cultural importance of the festival is key, and there’s a well established effort to bring people of faith face to face with the driving forces in that culture.
“About fourteen years ago, a group of professors at Fuller Theological Seminary got together and formed this institute called the Windrider Forum at Sundance. And so every year, these Christian guys from Fuller Theological Seminary and other schools like Biola, Asbury, Taylor, Regent University, Vanguard University, and Dallas Theological Seminary have been coming during Sundance and asking what is it like to be a Christian in this industry? And how can we be more of an influence in this industry? To hear the stories and to get to know people in the industry, and to really minister to them and also sort of grapple with this idea that we want to tell stories that really resonate with people, to open their eyes so they might be able to see who Christ is.”
“It might be that story is incredibly explicit – in the case of the Kendrick brothers who put together War Room and Courageous, or the Irwin brothers who did the recent movie Woodlawn. So you’ve got that aspect of it, and then you have these other, more implicit films – the Martin Scorsese movie that has just come out based on the very famous book that – I know – a lot of theological seminaries use in their classes that’s set in the Philippines.”
Mark takes us inside a day at Sundance.
“So every morning about two hundred and fifty students from these schools from around the country will gather and there will be a panel, and we’ll have discussions. You might have filmmakers that will talk about a particular movie that premiered.”
“Really, this is – you know – how can we be more like Christ? How can we be less ourselves, how can we decrease and Christ increase in the way that we produce our films.“
Mark Seignious is a celebrated on air veteran of major market radio stations from Seattle to Minneapolis. He now dedicates his creativity and energy to shaping the next generation of Christian media professionals as an associate professor at University of Northwestern, Saint Paul.
On the Road with Mark Seignious
