PARK CITY: For three decades, it’s been America’s premier independent film festival. But this year more than ever, there is talk at Sundance of the blurring divide between movies, television and online.

This year’s festival lineup even includes two TV shows, while the Sundance Institute, the body behind the festival, has set up a separate “laboratory” for young filmmakers interested in making television rather than movies.

Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford acknowledged that the TV industry is developing faster than filmmaking, while stressing the need to embrace change.

“It’s part of the fabric of storytelling in terms of film. So you know, television is film,” said the 78-year-old movie icon, who named the festival after his character in the 1969 classic “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“They’re blurring, and there’s a reason why: mainstream film is shrinking, obviously. It’s harder and harder for an artist to find their way in the major film business, so television offers more opportunities.”

The phenomenon is well-recognized: the traditional business model of movies released only in theaters has been creaking for a long time.

But the exponential rise of new distribution formats, from DVDs to Video on Demand (VOD), premium cable channels like HBO and now Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo and other streaming outlets has changed the game for good.

Netflix and co are, understandably, popular at Sundance for their support for artists, whether TV or film. The appearance of “Netflix” on a film’s credits elicited spontaneous applause in at least one screening this week.

Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, said it was a no-brainer for young filmmakers.

“Thirty years ago, when you came out of film school as a 22-year-old, you probably had to take your first job in television, but you said ‘What I really want to do is direct features,’” he told AFP.

“If I were a 22-year-old coming out of film school now and a genie comes out of a bottle and says you can either have a feature film or be the showrunner for a series on HBO or Amazon Prime... I wouldn’t have to think very long.”