Mayor Brown exploring idea of bringing Sundance Film Festival to Buffalo

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Is it possible one of the most prestigious annual film festivals could be held in Western New York? Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is, at least, looking into the possibility.

During his State of the City address on Wednesday in Downtown Buffalo, Mayor Brown announced that his office has responded to a Request for Information to try and bring the Sundance Film Festival to the city.

"With our community's growing film industry and a significant number of great venues, we believe we are uniquely positioned to take this world class event to the next level," said Mayor Brown. "Think about what that would mean: Thousands of visitors and filmmakers coming into our community for a 10-day stretch, pumping millions of dollars into our economy by staying in our hotels, eating at our restaurants, and exploring our museums and neighborhoods."

According to the mayor, leaders of the Sundance Film Festival have made the decision to get Requests for Information from other cities across the country to look at whether they stay where they are in Park City, Utah, or go someplace else. The festival has called Park City home since 1985.

Mayor Brown feels the City of Buffalo is well-positioned to be able to make a legitimate bid to get the film festival to the "City of Good Neighbors".

"We're the right size, we're not too big. There are gonna be other major metropolises around the country that are going to be bidding as well, we think those places are probably too big," Brown said. "We think Buffalo is the right size to help take that world class film festival to another level."

Partnering with Mayor Brown in this effort is Buffalo native and Emmy Award winning screenwriter Tom Fontana. Brown believes with the recent popularity of Buffalo in the film industry, including Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro, it should be a top destination for Sundance leadership.

"People who have come here to film for movies and TV fall in love with the city. They think it's a great place to do filmmaking. As a result, we believe we could make a very credible bid for the Sundance Film Festival," Brown said.

Tim Clark from the Buffalo Niagara Film Commission understands how rare it is for a film festival to look into moving once it's rooted in a community. He feels this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the City of Buffalo.

"I think we have everything that Sundance has to offer now. Our city is really a perfect place for what their goals are, and that's to create a platform for independent filmmakers to tell their stories," said Clark in an interview with WBEN. "That's all you've got to do is roll down one of our streets, look at our architecture and you realize this is a pretty special place."

Clark says he has also been talking with Mayor Brown throughout this whole process, and helped connect the mayor with Fontana to get the wheels in motion with this initiative.

From a film industry standpoint, Clark believes getting the Sundance Film Festival to set up shop in Buffalo and Western New York gets eyes from across the nation into the community.

"I've been to the Sundance Film Festival many times, and I can tell you, it's full of people who are decision making in the studios, they're decision makers there. It brings filmmakers who would not normally come to Park City, Utah, where it is now, it gets them there to kind of see what's there and sort of the different locations that could be available there," Clark explained. "It really brings a focus, so to speak, or a real spotlight - no pun intended - on a community that really deserves it."

As for the economic standpoint, Clark says it will pump millions of dollars into the local economy over the course of 10 days.

"If you think about it, it happens at a really interesting time. It happens in late January when our hotels are not at peak occupancy, when our restaurants need a little help, and when other businesses that would be affected by this - attractions like the museums, Niagara Falls, the Comedy Center in Jamestown - it's at a time when those people are a little less busy too. So it really creates this nice atmosphere for everybody, and a nice economic kick when everyone needs it," he said.

"When you go to Sundance and you see thousands, and I literally mean thousands of people walking up-and-down the street, going into restaurants and into the stores there, it is a huge, huge part of their economy. And I know it would be something great for Buffalo, and we deserve it. This is a world class city, and that's a world class festival."

While the City of Buffalo may not have many spaces solely for the purpose of movie theatres that can accommodate a large influx of people, Clark feels there are plenty of places that could become temporary theaters, and that's not just in the city.

"If you really think about it, there are theaters that are usable in the downtown region, but also in the outskirts as well. I think if you make this a regional event, like it is in Park City, you can include the Aurora Theatre with 600 seats out in East Aurora, or the Riviera up in North Tonawanda, it's got over 1,000 seats there. Shea's has [3,019], and right next door, the 710 Theatre has a wonderful, intimate seating for 600-700 people there. Rockwell Hall at Buff State, the new AKG Museum, the Burchfield Penney, they all have screening rooms and theatre rooms of varying sizes," Clark noted.

What also benefits Buffalo, in this way, is how navigable the city is, and how one can get around quite seamlessly.

"It's kind of hard to do that in Park City. You have to trudge up and down a giant hill, and rely on public transportation, which is good because they run buses. We could do that, too, and additionally, we have trains," Clark noted. "There are these theatres that exist that can handle multiple hundreds of people, and handle these events. That's the least of our worries, I believe, in any kind of bid process."

As Clark goes on to explain, Buffalo already has a connection to not just Hollywood, but also a weird circuitous way to Sundance.

"Sundance was created by Robert Redford, famed actor, and, of course, he created it in the 1980s - really when he invested in it - and it took off. In the 1980s, he was here with Barry Levinson, who incidentally, is producing partner with Tom Fontana in so many ways. These people have a connection to Buffalo because of [The Natural], and they came here for our architecture. That's what Barry Levinson was looking for for that movie, an old baseball stadium, which we had at the time," Clark noted.

So what is Clark's selling point for Buffalo, if he was to try and convince leadership with Sundance to come to Western New York?

"We have a great international airport, and we're only an hour away from Toronto Airport, where people from overseas could fly in and drive down. We're in a very geographically pivotal location for something like this," he said. "And we know how to handle snow in January, Park City really doesn't. I've gotta be honest with you, I've been stuck in a lot of snow banks in Park City, and I think we can handle all of those things.

"I think we're gonna work collectively to try to put a nice big bid together to figure out what they're looking for, and I think we check all the boxes, at least that's what I see. So I'm excited. I think this would be a very, very big thing to get for Buffalo, and the economic impact is really almost incalculable. It's just so big."