Politics & Power Quote by Walter Salles

Walter Salles isn’t handing out polite institutional praise here; he’s staking a claim about how cinematic ecosystems actually get built. “Vital” is a loaded word in a region where film communities have often survived on improvisation: inconsistent state funding, fragile exhibition networks, and an industry geography that still routes “world cinema” legitimacy through North American and European gatekeepers. By naming the Sundance Institute, Salles points to a specific kind of infrastructure power: development labs, mentorship, co-production matchmaking, festival access, and the soft but decisive currency of prestige.

The subtext is double-edged. On one hand, it’s gratitude for a platform that helped many Latin American filmmakers translate local stories into globally legible projects without flattening them into stereotypes. Sundance’s brand signals a certain permission slip: you can make politically sharp, formally adventurous work and still find an audience beyond your national market. On the other hand, calling Sundance “vital” quietly acknowledges an uncomfortable dependency. If an institute based in the United States is essential to Latin American film communities, what does that say about the absence (or capture) of comparable support at home?

Context matters: Salles came up in the wave that pushed Brazilian and Latin American cinema into broader circulation (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries), precisely during the era when Sundance expanded its role from festival to talent pipeline. His line functions as cultural diplomacy and as a reminder that behind every “breakthrough” film is an ecosystem - and the ecosystem is never neutral.