{"id":2396250,"date":"2025-01-28T18:07:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T23:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sundance-film-festival-pivoting-to-the-middle-after-2024-election-paul-martino-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T18:08:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T23:08:38","slug":"sundance-film-festival-pivoting-to-the-middle-after-2024-election-paul-martino-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sundance-film-festival-pivoting-to-the-middle-after-2024-election-paul-martino-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Sundance Film Festival pivoting to \u2018the middle\u2019 after 2024 election: Paul Martino &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsundance-film-festival-pivoting-to-the-middle-after-2024-election-paul-martino-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2396250&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is notable for its shift towards a\u2062 more centrist political\u200d stance, as highlighted by the\u2064 inclusion\u200d of the\u200c documentary series &#8220;Bucks county, \u2064USA.&#8221; \u2062This <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">series \u200dexplores political divides<\/a> \u200din America while \u2064showcasing individuals from opposing sides\u2062 finding common \u2062ground. \u200dPaul\u200b Martino, founder of Bullpen \u200bCapital and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/marriott-att-airbnbheres-the-list-of-corporations-announcing-they-wont-donate-to-gop-lawmakers-who-objected-to-electoral-votes-from-contested-states\/\" title=\"Marriott, AT&amp;T, Airbnb\u2026Here\u2019s The List Of Corporations Announcing They Won\u2019t Donate To GOP Lawmakers Who Objected To Electoral Votes From Contested States\">political action committee<\/a>, expressed his \u2063appreciation\u2062 for this change, indicating a growing openness to discussions across the political spectrum. \u2063He\u200c noted that the surroundings at Sundance is evolving, particularly in light of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hamadeh-leading-masters-in-race-to-succeed-lasko-in-congressional-gop-primary-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Hamadeh leading Masters in race to succeed Lasko in congressional GOP primary - Washington Examiner\">recent electoral outcomes<\/a> that have prompted peopel \u2063to seek \u2063understanding rather than resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Martino, who\u2063 is featured in the documentary\u2063 directed by Barry Levinson\u2063 and Robert May, initially hesitated to\u200b participate but ultimately engaged to encourage more conservative voices to speak \u2063up. He\u200d emphasized\u200d the importance\u2064 of accurately depicting facts, which can demonstrate the rationality of \u2063conservative viewpoints. The \u200bdocumentary \u200dfocuses on two teenage girls from\u2064 bucks County, a \u200dpolitically divided \u200barea, showcasing their friendship \u200cdespite differing \u2063political beliefs. This pivot \u200dat Sundance \u2062coincides with a broader cultural movement following \u2063the re-election of Donald Trump,\u200d who has called for\u200d a\u2063 &#8220;new \u200cgolden age&#8221; in America, seeking the support of influential figures in \u200dHollywood.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Sundance Film Festival pivoting to &lsquo;the middle&rsquo; after 2024 election: Paul Martino<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_1958532\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is shifting toward &ldquo;the middle&rdquo; of the political spectrum, marking a noticeable change from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/movies-and-films\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">the festival&rsquo;s<\/a> past.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>This year&rsquo;s festival is screening the first two episodes of a documentary series <em>Bucks County, USA<\/em>, which aims to explore the political divide within the nation amid people coming together despite their political differences. Paul Martino, the founder of both Bullpen Capital and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/600-000-in-funding-awarded-to-school-board-races-in-pa-301408986.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">the political action committee Back to School PA<\/a>, called the selection to show the documentary &ldquo;fascinating&rdquo; due to how &ldquo;it really looks like&rdquo; the film festival is pivoting toward &ldquo;the middle.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;All of a sudden, the discussions are about &lsquo;Wow, I need to listen to the other side,&rsquo;&rdquo; Martino said. &ldquo;And so, it is satisfying to be here at Sundance, which is known to be so left-leaning, knowing that there is a new openness to dialogue.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As a known guy on the right&mdash;I can&rsquo;t begin to explain how unlikely it feels to be featured in a film here at Sundance. <\/p>\n<p>The fact is, this is happening because of the election of Donald Trump&hellip;.it demonstrates that Sundance is moving to the middle. <\/p>\n<p>People are realizing that this&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/knEo4jPYWV\">pic.twitter.com\/knEo4jPYWV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Martino (@ahpah) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ahpah\/status\/1884273627740139881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 28, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>    <\/p>\n<p>Martino added that this shift in people being open to debate stems from how President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Donald Trump<\/a> won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in the 2024 election. Because of this, people are recognizing that they should not be part of &ldquo;the resistance&rdquo; all the time and find out what their neighbors believe.<\/p>\n<p>Martino is featured in the documentary, which is directed by filmmakers Barry Levinson and Robert May. He stated in a video posted to X that he initially did not want to participate in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/film\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">documentary<\/a> but chose to join after May informed him no one with conservative beliefs wanted to be part of their series, prompting him to encourage others who share his beliefs to participate in the project as well.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And I am excited that this film is at Sundance, and I&rsquo;m excited cause I&rsquo;ve now seen the first two of five episodes,&rdquo; Martino said. &ldquo;And you know what? [Robert] did exactly what he promised me: that he would portray it as it happened. I didn&rsquo;t want to be portrayed as good or bad, I just wanted the facts to be told. And when the facts are told, guess what? Us on the Right, we look pretty damn rational.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My family is a key part of the new documentary series &#8220;Bucks County, USA&#8221; premiering at Sundance next week.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my thoughts on the project: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bddKy5sYIZ\">pic.twitter.com\/bddKy5sYIZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Martino (@ahpah) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ahpah\/status\/1882162650102235339?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 22, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>    <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/news\/barry-levinson-bucks-county-sundance-doc-series-1236283829\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The main focus of <em>Bucks County, USA<\/em><\/a>  is on two teenage girls named Evi and Vanessa, who are both friends despite their political differences. The directing duo met with multiple people across Bucks County, a politically divided county in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/2024-election\/results\/pennsylvania\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">a swing state that Trump won<\/a> by a little over 120,000 votes last November.<\/p>\n<p>The shift at the Sundance Film Festival comes as Trump has aimed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/trump-to-call-for-revolution-of-common-sense-in-inaugural-address-a6d94c59\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">usher in a &ldquo;new golden age&rdquo; of the nation as he outlined at his inauguration last week<\/a>. Part of this bid for the nation&rsquo;s new golden age <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/3289905\/trump-recruits-gibson-stallone-voight-hollywood-envoys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">includes Hollywood<\/a>, with the president announcing earlier this month that actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone would be his &ldquo;eye and ears&rdquo; in Hollywood, which he described as a &ldquo;very troubled place.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_1958532\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"1958532\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sundance Film Festival is moving towards a more centrist approach post-2024 election<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2632,"featured_media":2396251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Sundance-Film-Festival-scaled-1024x682.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[32431,38152,49380,49379,49378],"class_list":["post-2396250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-2024-election","tag-film-industry","tag-independent-cinema","tag-paul-martino","tag-sundance-film-festival"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Sundance-Film-Festival-scaled-1024x682.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2632"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2396250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396254,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396250\/revisions\/2396254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2396251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2396250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2396250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2396250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}