I'm hoping to pick a few brains on this one. The set has been said to be 29 cards plus some promos. You could get an uncut sheet of them but I never saw that. I have 31 cards which I received as loose cards together in one lot and believe the breakdown goes like this:

One card appears to be a header card. It says "1999 Sundance Film Festival" at the top on the front and shows a woman moving away from a man/monster but we only see his large, menacing shadow on the wall behind her. The back text welcomes attendees to the festival. This card might be separate promo

Fourteen other cards show promotional posters from the event back to its beginning in 1985 when it was called the "1985 U.S. Film Festival" and had just moved to the Sundance Institute. There is a card for each year to 1998.

Fourteen other cards celebrate the films that won the festival from 1985 to 1998. I think these 14 cards plus the 15 described above make up the set of 29.

Two cards appear to be separate promos. Both promote the Sundance Channel and are dated 1999. The front of one shows an image of someone holding what appears to be a greatly-oversized film reel; the other is of a woman holding a movie camera like a gun.

I have seen a listing for two other promo cards from 1998 but don't recall seeing the actual cards.

My knowledge of 29 cards being a set comes from a Roxanne Toser auction from around 2000. She offered a "29 card set plus five promos" and an uncut sheet that had seven promos. I believe there were duplicates of promos in both cases. I still have the NSU issue somewhere and will have to dig that up to get what she listed exactly.

Does anyone know how these were distributed or anything else about them? I assume the 29 could have been given out separately so they might be promos as well but have a vague memory of the set being for sale. They might have been simply wrapped together in plastic or a large cello-pack but I've never seen one. It appears they were all available in some way at the festival.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many Sundance sets have been made? I have the 2014 and 2015 in the Beckett database so far but it has been difficult to find others. Any leads to more sets would be welcome. I'd love to get them all in the database and eventually priced. Thanks!

Hi Matt,

Two and a half years later, here's the checklist and a few images of the 1999 set (they are all unnumbered):

1999 Sundance Film Festival (text on back makes this appear to be a header card or possibly a promo)
**the following cards show the promotional posters for the years 1985-1998
1985 U.S. Film Festival
1986 U.S. Film Festival
1987 U.S. Film Festival
1988 U.S. Film Festival
1989 U.S. Film Festival
1990 Sundance U.S. Film Festival
1991 Sundance Film Festival
1992 Sundance Film Festival
1993 Sundance Film Festival
1994 Sundance Film Festival
1995 Sundance Film Festival
1996 Sundance Film Festival
1997 Sundance Film Festival
1998 Sundance Film Festival
**the following cards show stills from movies that won an award at the festival
1985 Blood Simple
1986 Smooth Talk
1987 Sherman's March
1988 Hairspray
1989 Sex, Lies, and Videotape
1990 Metropolitan
Poison 1991 (the title is given before the year on this card)
1992 Brother's Keeper
1993 Ruby in Paradise
1994 Hoop Dreams
1995 Crumb
1996 When We were Kings
1997 In the Company of Men
1998 Slam

plus two unnumbered cards that appear to be promos:

n.n. (someone holding a giant film reel)
n.n. (woman holding a movie camera like a gun)

Here's the front and back of the apparent header card and the front and back of the "1985 Blood Simple" card.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

Here are the two apparent promos for the set: