Vanguard Leadership Award

The Sundance Next Fest kicked off its fifth annual celebration this week with a very special 25th anniversary screening of Reservoir Dogs at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Before the film, the founding director of the Sundance Institute’s feature film program, Michelle Satter, presented Quentin Tarantino with the Institute’s Vanguard Leadership Award, thanking the director for his continued support of the organization. To a capacity crowd of 1,600 fans & friends, Tarantino gave an enthusiastic fifteen minute acceptance speech, calling Dogs stars Tim Roth and Michael Madsen to the stage, singling out the film’s producers Monte Hellman, Richard Gladstein, and Ronna B. Wallace in the audience, and giving a special dedication to the city he calls home. “I’m an L.A. boy, I mean I was born in Tennessee, but I moved at like two, so give me a fucking break… There are New York crime films, and other crime films, but [Reservoir Dogs] is a Los Angeles crime film.”