UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Curators have emerged as a significant force in defining film culture on local and global scales by cultivating public notions of quality and taste. sundance film festival programmers sifted through 4,042 submitted films in order to emerge with the 112 official selections for the 2012 festival. The decisions on what films to include or exclude from the festival program directly impacts public access to independent films because curators determine the films that distributors see, and possibly buy, for theatrical, dVd, or online release. The film industry relies on festivals as a necessary curatorial mechanism for managing the exponential increase in annual film production.