Michelle Satter, Sundance Institute’s founding senior director of artist programs, quoted the late Pulitzer- and Nobel-winning author Toni Morrision after being honored for her 40 years of nurturing and supporting artists through the Sundance Institute film labs.“Artists are the gatekeepers of the truth,” Satter said during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival Gala on Friday night at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley. “We’re civilization’s anchor. We’re the compass for humanity’s consciousness.”Satter’s journey to Sundance started as a college graduate who formed a performing arts organization called Articulture in Boston in the early 1980s.Sundance Institute honored Michelle Satter, the nonprofit’s founding senior director of artist programs, for her four-decade work mentoring artists in the film labs program. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“A close friend called with a question that would forever change my life — ‘Would I ever consider coming to Sundance Institute in Utah for the first month-long filmmakers lab that Robert Redford was starting up?’” she said. “How can you say no to that?”Satter first set foot at the institute, located at the foot of Mount Timpanogos, in 1981, and has since mentored a stadiumful of award-winning filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino, Chloé Zhao, Dee Rees, John Cameron Mitchell, Paul Thomas Anderson, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ryan Coogler, Miranda July, Kimberly Peirce, Darren Aronofsky, Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi.She also established Sundance’s Episodic Program, Producers Program and still oversees the Indigenous, Catalyst and Documentary Film Programs.Other achievements include founding Sundance Collab — a global digital platform for storytelling, learning,and community — and artist and humanitarian advocacy that have been recognized with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science’s 2024 Governors Awards, the Women in Film Business Leadership Award and the ACLU Bill of Rights Award.In a touching moment, Amy Redford, a member of the Sundance Board of Trustees and daughter of Robert Redford, who couldn’t attend the gala, read a letter her father had written to Satter.“You have been with me since the inception of Sundance Institute back in 1981 when this organization was merely an idea,” the letter said. “You were instrumental in shaping it into the thriving and impactful entity that it is today. You jumped it with no net. You understood the why, and you were willing to figure out the how. And you’re still doing that. We are all with you as you have been with us. You are the lighthouse.”Satter said she is grateful for the elder Redford’s goal and idea for Sundance.“It’s been a true partnership and an adventure of a lifetime,” she said. “We all wouldn’t be here without Bob’s extraordinary vision and his commitment to supporting creative expression and transforming the landscape for artists and audiences to engage in independent film.”Satter, known for not wanting to step into the spotlight, then turned the focus of the evening to the Los Angeles wildfires.“This is a devastating time for us and many others — a moment that calls for all of us to come together and support our bigger community,” she said as she pointed out QR codes that can be scanned to help those who suffered because of the fires. “We lost our village but at the end of the day, we are the village.”In addition to Satter, other artists from the Sundance family — actress Cynthia Erivo, filmmakers James Mangold, Sean Wang, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie — were recognized for their work in the industry.Sundance’s Visionary Award, for “uncompromising work and notable contributions to the industry,” was given to Grammy- and Tony-winning actress Erivo, who recently received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Elphaba in “Wicked.”Mangold, whose most recent film is the Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” received Sundance’s Trailblazer Award for his “unwavering dedication and notable contributions to the field of cinema,” while Wang, Brave NoiseCat and Kassie were named Vanguard Award recipients, presented by Acura. Wang was honored for his work in fiction, and Brave NoiseCat and Kassie were recognized for their work in nonfiction.Sundance Institute honored award-winning filmmaker James Mangold with the Trailblazer Award for his “unwavering dedication and notable contributions to the field of cinema.” Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“When I first heard I was getting the award, I had to look up the word visionary,” Erivo said during her acceptance speech. “A visionary is someone who can see into the future, and I’ve never considered myself as a person who could see what’s to come. Because, honestly, I think I’ve been blindly following what I think might be my path. I put one foot in front of the other and keep chipping away at the road until I can reach a destination.”Erivo believes being a visionary comes in the form of belief.“Belief in the most audacious feats in art are possible. Belief that maybe one day one might get to play the role of a lifetime (and) belief that maybe even the role of a lifetime is just the beginning,” she said. “The rest is sheer will — to keep following those wishes and dreams as if they are North Stars in our personal skies. If that makes me a visionary, then I’m surrounded by visionaries constantly. And I’m lucky and grateful for it.”Mangold also thanked Sundance for his award.“(Being a trailblazer is) not the way I think of myself,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the filmmakers of the past. And so I never felt like a blazer as much as a follower of great ‘past-ers,’ some of whose trails have been overgrown with brush over time. So maybe I’ve re-blazed?”Mangold’s love and respect for films from the past comes from the sincerity of those projects.“I looked for films in … a period where earnestness had not become uncool,” he said. “We’ve become slightly hostile to movies like that. (But) those are the films that inspire me. In this time of irony and snark and internet nightmares, we need sincerity and earnestness more than ever. That’s how in some small way I hope some of my work is remembered, and I’m sure that’s how the work of Sundance will be remembered.”The evening opened with a performance by the Red Spirit Singers, a musical group from the Nez Pearce/Ute nation, led by actor Bartholomew Powaukee, and concluded with a performance by Grammy- and Tony-winning singer and songwriter Sara Bareilles.The post Sundance honors vanguards and trailblazers during 2025 Festival gala appeared first on Park Record.