As the Sundance Film Festival runs through its 2025 season, its future remains uncertain.
Last year, the institute announced a possible move out of Park City, Utah, narrowing its list of possible host cities to a final three candidates: Park City-Salt Lake City; Boulder, Colorado; and Cincinnati, Ohio. The potential new host city for 2027 won’t be named until after this season.
There are arguments to make about what city would be the best fit, or what Sundance and Utah owe to each other. But I’d rather make the case that if the Sundance Film Festival leaves Utah, it will change as it exists. To move would force a transformation in its culture.
In the present-day film era, change is something that should be seriously considered.
The Sundance Film Festival is truly unique when compared to any of its peers. Its status competes with international film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, and Toronto.
Sundance also has the advantage of starting in January, which makes it the earliest signal for the coming film year. Its selections are also comparatively unique.
Other festivals focus on works by heavyweight names, the films competing for critical success to boost their award campaigns. Sundance is much more of a gamble, showing a few premieres but mostly independent projects, often without distribution contracts. Films that would normally go unnoticed get a chance in the spotlight.
In addition, Sundance’s curation of genre films through its Midnight series makes it a significant institute for film culture. It’s the kind of festival where two YouTubers can show their theatrical debut, find audience buzz, land A24 distribution, and become a major success as seen with 2023’s “Talk To Me.”
A festival isn’t just made by its slate though, it’s dependent on the volunteers who run it — the people who love Sundance enough to dedicate their time and labor just to be a part of it. It is the staff, theatres, and audiences who help create the culture. These people would be the real loss.
By leaving, you certify a ground zero reset. Even if the executive board is determined to run things exactly as they were before, the pieces would fundamentally be different.
Cincinnati would move the festival from its snowy mountain home to the heart of the Midwest — a total coastal shift.
Boulder, in comparison, is much more of a twin to Park City. Both are ski towns located next to the capital of their state.
Boulder would offer Sundance a far larger market. Census data from 2023 estimates Salt Lake City’s population to be near 210,000. Denver is well over three times that size, with estimates close to 720,000.
It’s worth questioning what this growth would cost. Would the truly small-budget entries survive, or would they need to scale up for the larger market?
This is even more challenged by the fact that Colorado already has a major film festival through Telluride — putting Sundance in tighter geographical competition with name-tested studio works. For many in the state, the cost of attendance may come down to choosing one over the other: the untested, small-budget directorial debuts versus the critically appraised, celebrity packed celebrations.
This change would be difficult as is, but this isn’t a stable decade for film either. The industry is going through drastic changes with labor strikes, consolidation, and a total change in theatrical distribution. For as many Sundance success stories as there are, there is an increasing number of titles that get lost in the crowd — either not finding distributors or getting bought and dumped on streaming platforms with little fanfare.
A reset already transforms the festival, but combined with a severely lost industry makes for a rocky future.
It’s worth noting that even if the festival stays in Utah, its headquarters will relocate into Salt Lake City. This change will keep the organization in the place that has helped build the culture of Sundance for nearly five decades. In fact, it reflects the festival’s origins, beginning in the city as the Utah/US Film Festival in 1978, before its name change and move to Park City.
If growth is what Sundance is looking for, why not develop in the state that has carried the festival to where it is now?
I’ve been lucky enough to attend the Sundance Film Festival. I’ve been to screenings held at this very school, SLCC — in the Grand Theatre on the South City Campus. We could easily discuss how much of a loss this move would be for Utah. But that’s a case I’ll leave to city officials.
For me, the real loss would be for Sundance. A culture built by Utahns over decades would suddenly start from scratch. A move would be destabilizing for the festival, its future more malleable to a volatile industry increasingly starving the small- to mid-budget films that have defined the institution. I’d certainly miss attending, but more than that, I’d miss the spirit. I would much rather navigate a future with the festival here than anywhere else.
