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regular benefactors—including Paul Newman, David Puttnam, Vidal Sassoon, Jake Eberts, Irene Diamond and Hume Cronyn—could not fund all that needed to be done to keep the pace. Brent Beck and Gary Beer’s retail catalog, now largely in the design hands of Shauna, proved a cash-flow asset, but much more was needed. By the mid-nineties, with the institute budget in excess of $5 million yearly, much was dependent on the film festival. In 1995, 30 percent of the institute’s budget was covered by the festival receipts, but still there was a colossal deficit.

In 1994 Redford came up with a possible solution, conceiving the idea of a dedicated Sundance television cable channel that would present alternative moviemaking to a wider audience. The concept seemed a natural one, piggybacking on a communication phenomenon that had taken wing since the deregulation of the television industry in 1972. Cable was originally a modest business, devised to relay over-the-air broadcasts to inaccessible areas. By the mid-nineties almost half of all householders across the country were cable subscribers. Redford entrusted Beer to build a partnership with Showtime (a division of CBS), Universal Studios (part of NBC Universal) and an international cofunder, Polygram Filmed Entertainment. The aim was to start in big, sophisticated markets like New York, then expand into other urban areas where cable thrived, until gradually a national coverage was achieved. The initial target audience was four million, projected to grow to fifteen million. The Independent Film Channel, however, beat Sundance to the starting gate by a substantial lead. IFC was a sister channel to “cable’s cultural powerhouse” Bravo and started transmitting in September 1994 with an advisory board that included Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee. Sundance Cable got going eighteen months later, promising a similar bill of uncensored alternative viewing, with an accent on Sundance festival films and documentaries. “But it was a heartbreaker,” says Redford. “We were well capable of moving faster, but the executive expertise was sloppy, and the window of opportunity was missed.” Sundance Cable, nevertheless, pushed on, launching to three million households in February 1996, with Nora Ryan of Showtime as titular head and Dalton Delan of the Travel Channel in charge. “We had all the tools to take on the IFC,” says Redford. “Beyond that, it was just a question of sales drive and determination.”

There was also financial scope, it was decided, in Sundance movie theaters. Redford remembered from his childhood a picture house he loved, the Aero on Santa Monica Boulevard, where he’d seen The Fallen Sparrow with his uncle David. In the early nineties, its fading art deco splendor prompted him to purchase the site and restore the building to its former grandeur. This set in motion another underwriting plan. “What I imagined was, again, the alternative experience,” says Redford. “What we had was the characterless multiplex, the same in Seattle as in Orlando. I thought of a different setup, where each exhibition arena would serve two purposes. First, it would culturally reflect its location in every way, in the building design, the building components, the local history. Second, it would offer integrated facilities that promoted independent filmmaking at the most basic level. For example, a library unit, an equipment rental space, even an advisory desk.” He hoped this vision of Sundance Cinema Centers could expand internationally. In meetings with the key players in the Sundance family—Geoff Gilmore and Nicole Guillemet (overseers of the film festival) and Ken Brecher and Michelle Satter (overseers of institute and labs respectively) and international programs director Patricia Boero—a potential map of global Sundance Cinema Centers was drawn up, stretching from Cuba to China. To partner this extraordinary venture, Redford signed a deal with Richard A. Smith, chairman of General Cinema, the eighth-largest chain of theaters in the country.

Meanwhile, the day-to-day struggle