Sundance isn’t just 10 days of screenings and sponsor parties; it’s a market where undiscovered filmmakers come to peddle their wares and hope to catch buyers’ eyes. Bring the right story, and they could capture audiences’ hearts. 

Some might even start a filmmaking revolution.

Take Richard Linklater’s Slacker. When the Texas-set day-in-the-life film played Sundance in 1991, its DIY aesthetic and eccentric cast of characters became the cinematic equivalent of The Velvet Underground’s debut record: Not everyone saw it, but those who did went and made a movie.

Kevin Smith was one of those people. He put $27,000 on credit cards and made Clerks. Smith’s DIY New Jersey-set day-in-the-life comedy featuring an eccentric cast of characters (sound familiar?) premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival and launched his career. He wasn’t alone. 

To honor this artistic call and response, the Sundance Institute, which hosts the festival, published the Sundance Film Festival 101 Watchlist—an attempt “to represent the wide range of films and filmmakers that have written the Festival’s history.”

Read the full article, along with several picks from the list, at Caribou Current.