Sundance Offers a Web Afterlife for Its Alumni

Deals eventually expire,and rights revert; Mr. Noonan,the well-known character actor (Damages,Hell on Wheels),got his film back recently,and the timing couldn’t have been better: a wormhole has opened up between Sundance Past and the Online Present. Through it,films seemingly lost in time — or swallowed up by the gaping maw of bad distribution deals,or no distribution deals — might find commercial redemption.

Thanks to a recent arrangement between the Sundance Institute,which operates the festival,and the Manhattan distributor New Video,six Web homes — Amazon,Hulu,Netflix,iTunes,YouTube and SundanceNOW — are making Mr. Noonan’s movie,and any other eligible Sundance film,available for streaming online. The option is open to every film ever shown at the festival,or brought to a Sundance lab,or given a Sundance grant. Filmmakers don’t surrender their rights. They (17 so far,with thousands of potential participants) can opt to go with any or all of the half-dozen sites. In essence,it means a guaranteed distribution.

Erin Greenwell said that before she began making My Best Day,part of the festival’s Next section (it begins on January 19),“I promised my producer that if I had to personally go from town to town with a duffle bag of DVDs,I would.”

For others the implications are more profound. Hal Hartley,director of indie landmarks like The Unbelievable Truth and Simple Men,was already involved with Sundance. He was financing his next film Meanwhile through the institute’s alliance with the crowd-funding site Kickstarter,when he was contacted by Chris Horton,the institute’s associate director of artist services,which assists filmmakers in financing and distribution.

Mr. Hartley called the financial arrangement exceptional. With all the legalities involving rights,he said,“you need a Kickstarter campaign just to hire the lawyers.”

Robert Redford,who in 1984 founded the institute (which took over the festival in 1985),says,“There’s a whole category of orphan films that we think are quite good,but they don’t necessarily get picked up by distributors,more mainstream in their thinking.”

Given the cacophonous nature of current pop culture,Sundance is expanding the role it has always played: curator. “I kind of baulk at the word ‘brand’. But it gives us an imprimatur to cross into new territory with some kind of value-added appeal.” Sundance Institute’s executive director,Keri Putnam,says,“What the market doesn’t need is another distributor. We needed to offer a helping hand,to be an access road.”