News of January 22, 2003
"Tupac: Resurrection" Screens for the First Time at the Sundance Festival
Barely finished editing, already on screen: On January 22, 2003, Sundance screened Lauren Lazin's Tupac documentary for the first time.
On Wednesday evening, January 22, 2003, Tupac: Resurrection screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. For director Lauren Lazin, it was a premiere under time pressure: according to Rolling Stone, she had only finished editing the film the weekend before with her editor Richard Calderon and had flown to Utah a day later than planned with the tape under her arm. Her own team also saw the result on a big screen for the first time in Park City.
A Film Without a Narrator
Lazin had been working for MTV for 17 years, most recently as executive producer for documentaries. She spent three years working on Tupac: Resurrection. Her principle: no narrator, no experts, no interviews with companions. Tupac narrates his life entirely in his own words from interviews, recordings, and archival footage. This was made possible with the support of his mother Afeni Shakur, who made the material accessible.
Rolling Stone described the audience’s reaction as enthusiastic and loud. Lazin said she had forgotten how funny Tupac was; there was a lot of laughter in the room: “Tupac took over. It was his show.”
Still Without a Distributor
The film did not yet have a theatrical distributor at that point, and a contract was in the works. The version shown at Sundance was not yet final, as Variety later noted. In November 2003, the film was released in US theaters.