Sundance: '99 Homes' Director Calls Hollywood's Lack of Diversity 'Horrific' (Video)

Hollywood’s lack of diversity is an open secret, “99 Homes” writer-director Ramin Bahrani said on Saturday during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

“Listen, everyone knows: There’s a horrific lack of diversity in Hollywood,” Bahrani told TheWrap Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman while discussing the Oscar nominations–revitalized hot-button issue. “There should be a lot more female writers, female directors.”

Bahrani and the film’s star Michael Shannon (“Man of Steel”) stopped by TheWrap‘s Sundance studio on Saturday to discuss the film, which tells the story of a ruthless businessman who evicts a single father, but then offers him a “deal with the devil” to get it back. The film also stars Andrew Garfield (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) and Laura Dern (“Wild”).

Also Read: Sundance Reviews: Literary Lions, Troubled Teens, Lithuanian Lesbians

Bahrani and Waxman acknowledged the promising number of female directors presenting at Sundance. Bahrani also suggested Hollywood should look for inspiration a few hours north of Los Angeles.

“I think what is interesting are things coming out of Silicon Valley,” he said. “There’s a freshness in the Valley that is not really existing in the film industry. In Silicon Valley, people think concepts like ‘Zero to One’ are good. In Hollywood, they think ‘Zero to One’ is scary.”

Bahrani was referencing a start-up theory popularized by author and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel that calls for new companies to seek a monopoly in an uninhabited stretch of market space.

“I think they should just keep moving forward as islands of themselves,” Bahrani said, speaking of minorities, but also anyone who might not have a mainstream platform.

Also Read: Sundance: Inside TheWrap’s Video Lounge and Industry Reception (Photos)

Bahrani doesn’t think “snubs” of films like “Selma,” which many industry observers thought should have been nominated in more than two Oscar categories, are the only slights to pay attention to this awards season.

“I mean, the first thing that I noticed was Steve James‘ film ‘Life Itself’ was not nominated, which was utter insanity,” Bahari said. “It made no sense at all.”

Waxman interviewed Bahrani and Shannon at TheWrap Interview Studio at the Indiegogo Lounge powered by Dell.

Sundance Party Report in Pictures: Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Kellan Lutz, Jason Segel (Updating Photos)

Keanu Reeves gets Seacrest'ed by Eli Roth as Lorenza Izzo and Collen Camp enjoy the breather while speaking with TheWrap's Jeff Sneider on Saturday.
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Pure as snow: Iggy Azalea performed at Billboard's Winter Fest on Saturday night.
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Dianna Agron is in town for her drama "Zipper," with "Game of Thrones'" Lena Heady. On her first trip to Sundance, she hit Birchbox's pop-up shop to cut down on the delivery time of the subscription beauty/grooming company.
Tiffany Rose/Getty Images
Rashida Jones, who produced the amateur-to-professional porn documentary "Hot Girls Wanted" that debuted on Saturday afternoon at the Temple Theatre. She and the crew celebrated at the Merrell #Trailscape.
Miles Mortensen
A frequent site in Park City: cell phone charging stations. If half the money spent on parties went to solar energy research, this could be obsolete by next Sundance.
Mikey Glazer
Lori Singer and John Leguizamo celebrate the Stanley Milgram biopic "Experimenter" at the Grey Goose Blue Door on Sunday night. DJ Spider would close it down with a early 1990s hip hop dance party afterwards.
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"Flight of the Conchord's" Jemaine Clement and Sean Rad at the Tinder Arts & Cinema Centre's party for "Tig & People Places and Things" on Sunday night.
David Edwards/DailyCeleb
Catherine Durickas from The SpinOffs with Catdance host Nikki Reed. The heavily promoted "feline" film event remains a head scratcher.
Roxy Manning gets the scoop on "Animals" from Mark and Jay Duplass at the Kia Supper Suite by STK on Saturday night.
David Edwards/DailyCeleb
Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, and Nick Offerman form an impressive round table at the Acura studio on Saturday afternoon.
(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Acura)
Sarah Silverman looks overwhelmed as she ducked in off Main Street to hit Kari Feinstein's Style Lounge, which has been giving full trips (including airfare) to Aruba.
After spending the day on the press circuit, Kid Cudi and director Josh Mond goofed off at a dinner celebrating their film "James White" hosted by Sabra Hummus at Ciseros.
Michael Bezjian
Star Trek co-stars Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto hit up the same Sabra Hummus House for a cross-film kick off party celebrating indy filmmakers.
Michael Bezjian
Director Ramin Bahrani and Michael Shannon strike a pose while celebrating "99 Homes" on the opening weekend.
Michael Bezjian
Toni Collette came through the busy space housing TheWrap's Interview Studio at the Indiegogo Lounge and picked up some fuel at the Tim Hortons Cafe and Bake Shop in the space that will house Iggy Azalea's concert on Saturday night.
Tiffany Rose/Getty Images for Chefdance
She also signed in to Rock & Reilly's, which has been an industry hangout all festival. Thursday night had the densest concentration of L.A. publicists and media in one room actually paying for their own drinks.
Donald Margulies, James Ponsoldt and Jason Segel had one of the hot parties on Friday for "The End of Tour". They broke in the Grey Goose Blue Door on its first night. (Michael Loccisano)
(Michael Loccisano)
Later in the night, Nicole Kidman would party there for "Strangerland".
(Michael Loccisano)
Cool photo opp at the TR Suites. Newly minted Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez and Henry Esteve stayed at ground level on the "Vuarnet Sunglasses Lift" supported by Otterbox.
(Alexandra Wyman/AP Invision)
Ryan Hawke and Ethan Hawke at the "Ten Thousand Saints" premiere on Friday night.
George Pimentel/Getty Image
Kiana Madani, Thomas Middleditch, Gary Cole, and Jay Duplass toast "The Bronze" at the Kia Supper Suite by STK.
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Festival regular Andie McDowell arrives in one of the ubiquitous Kia Sorentos shuttling talent around town.
David Edwards/Daily Celeb
Former SAG president and screen legend Ed Asner is at Sundance on the weekend of the SAG awards. He found some rare personal space with Lois Rezler at the Kia Supper Suite.
David Edwards/Daily Celeb
Josh Hutcherson took a pause with Murilo Bueno at the Merrell Trailscape, where the crown jewel is the Oculus Rift.
Miles Mortensen
Ken Sunshine joined HFPA President Theo Kingma and Sunshine Sachs' Michael Samonte at the HFPA's first event at Sundance -- a party at the Sky Lodge with THR where DJ Jesse Marco got people dancing with "Remix to Ignition."
Al Powers/Powers Imagery
Festival regular Kellan Lutz hit Tao late on Friday, which has Elyx as its partner this year.
Scott Roth/AP Images
Ethan Hawke is amongst the first to tag the hood of an Acura TLX that will be auctioned off for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation after the festival.
California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom popped up on Heber at the Merrell Trailscape on Friday.
Miles Mortensen
Sean P. Means, John Cooper, Keri Putnam, and Sundance chief Robert Redford kicked off the festival at the annual Day One Press Conference on Thursday.
(Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Sundance)
Delta ran a festival shuttle in conjunction with UTA from LAX on Thursday, raffling off business class tickets to Shanghai, Paris, "anywhere in the 50 states," and "anywhere in Mexico" on board. People actually talked to their seat neighbors on the all-industry flight. The pilots hawked a script.
(Mikey Glazer)
UTA's Jeremy Barber with Delta's Ranjan Goswami, who closed down Lemonade in LAX for an industry pre-flight brunch. "Bad news, Jeremy Zimmer did not make the flight. Good news, we have his credit card and we will be buying drinks," Goswami said over the flight's P.A.
Post flight, official Sundance vehicles awaited faces like Adam Scott.
Gustavo Caballero/GC Images via Getty Images
Billboards and signage still taking shape.
(George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance)
Films looking for daylight get an early jump on poster space along Main Street.
(Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for Sundance)
Already full ... and it is not even dark on Thursday yet.
(George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance)
Meanwhile back in L.A., Francis Ford Coppola and former Academy President Sid Ganis presented Dagmar Dolby with a star on the walk of fame. Dagmar Dolby accepted for her late husband, Ray Dolby, whose name now emblazons the home of the Oscars.
(Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)