The star on SundanceAnnual gala in 2025 was not recently coined Oscar-nominated Cynthia ErivoOr Oscar winner Olivia Colman, or even Sara Bareilles, who received a standing ovation for a short performance to close the evening. Instead, it was Michelle satwhose name the public may not know but where Loved in the room in the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City.
Seder is the founding senior director of artist programs for the Sundance Institute. She has been with the non-profit since literally the beginning. In his speech at Honoree’s dinner, Seder reminded five minutes by Robert Redford’s time and worked up the courage to tell him that he needed her to open a Los Angeles office for the Sundance Institute.
His answer? “Sure. Call me when you get there.” The rest is history.
Seds launched Filmmaker Lab for the Sundance Institute And directly mentored filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao, Dee Rees, Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi and more.
Many of these people were presented in a video tribute to Seder, a moving collection of home films where people like Tarantino, Waititi and Kieran Culkin were only children’s face, future storytellers. The many speakers in the video such as Ed Harris, Sally Field, The Daniels and more described her as an unscrupulous hero of Sundance, the “silent voice” that has been behind all the great artists. This is because even if she has not been invoiced as a producer on these films, the filmmakers described how she set her mark through compassionate feedback and a steady belief in them.
Sundance also believed a lithany of votes to seize her. Glenn Close, in one of three introductions for Seder, said she was “completely in reverence for this particular man.”
“The depth and breadth of her influence is incomprehensible,” Close said. “She’s tough and resistant as only a woman can be.”
Marielle Heller, the director of “Nightchitch” and who worked with Seds on his debut “Diary of a teenage girl“Simply called her” one of the best people “and” one of these bright spots “that represents the good in the world.
James Mangoldwho accepted the festival’s trailblazer award, said that Redford hired Seder was the “most important and influencing decision he made.” After coming to Sundance Labs to develop his script for “Cop Land,” he told this day, “I still long to convince you that you were right.”
And in a letter from Robert Redford, who was not present, but read by his daughter Amy Redford, he described her as “instrumental” to design Sundance to what it is today and called her “constant” in four decades of changed administrations and Pandemic.
“You’re the lighthouse. You, “Redford wrote partly. “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 continue digging or maybe back. Maybe give them a hug or a little kick in the butt. ”
Seder got a standing ovation when she took the stage, and she gave an emotional speech when she recently described to lose her family home in Palisad in the middle of 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 collect funds for the non-profit Sundance Institute, which will be placed against the institute’s second year-round work that supports independence film Programs and contributions.
To a greater extent, 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 “Sugarcue” directors Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassiewho won the Vanguard Award for Non-Fiction, all points nominations and everyone is honored by Sundance. Sean Wang, who won the US dramatic jury for last year’s “Didi”, also received an award from the festival, Vanguard Award for Fiction, presented by “The Wedding Banquet” director Andrew Ahn.
Erivo’s visionary prize was awarded by Colman, who took the stage with a tiara and joked that she loves “how relaxed” Sundance is. She described that she saw Erivo for the first time in “widows” and thought that here is a bright young American actress who will one day go a long way. Colman’s convinced this day that Erivo’s British accent is just something she does privately for her.
Mangold also gave a convincing speech and said that we as a filmmaker “do not have to do things that let people pass free time.” He advocated for films that carry their feelings on the sleeve and made a basis for more seriousness in movies, something that Sundance tends to do best.
“We shouldn’t be embarrassed to feel shit and show it,” he said.
