Each day this week, Christopher Campbell will take a look back at a “classic” film that played the Sundance Film Festival. Today’s installment: Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991).

Richard Linklater’s breakthrough film, Slacker, almost never played Sundance. According to John Pierson’s book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, Competition Director Alberto Garcia “did not particularly like the film.” In fact, Linklater was initially rejected when he submitted Slacker for the 1990 festival, at the time still called the US Film Festival. So, that summer, he self-released the film in his hometown of Austin, Texas, with much success. But the biggest success was yet to come.

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