Right here at IndieWire HQ, we take Sundance fairly personally — in spite of everything, most of the earliest seeds of this publication have been sowed at and across the competition and considered one of our personal beloved co-founders, Eugene Hernandez, at the moment serves because the Sundance Movie Competition director and head of public programming.
So when Sundance introduced in April 2024 that it was within the strategy of leaving its long-time house in Park Metropolis, Utah, it was laborious to think about a much bigger story for the IndieWire trustworthy. Because the competition has navigated months and months of vetting new doable houses, we’ve been on the frontlines of monitoring each private opinions {and professional} considerations, whereas additionally parsing our personal emotions about the place the competition would possibly land.
Practically a 12 months into that course of, we’ve lastly received our reply: beginning in 2027, the Sundance Movie Competition will probably be based mostly in Boulder, CO. For the employees of IndieWire, this selection supplied an opportunity to look each ahead and again, to contemplate what Sundance means now, and will imply in 2027 and past.
“Sundance goes to be fantastic and it’ll not be the identical. That’s a characteristic, not a bug: Possibilities for reinvention at this stage are uncommon,” IndieWire’s editor in chief and SVP Dana Harris-Bridson stated. “During the last 35 years or so, Sundance turned mythic — a state of being that alternately delighted and irritated its principals and in the end turned untenable. Boulder offers a setting that’s not radically completely different from its unique house, however that bodily reboot is a singular alternative for Sundance to alter the narrative. Impartial movie, and the tradition round it, has modified. You don’t have to tug up stakes to symbolize that shift, however the competition’s historic romance additionally made it very tough to change that trajectory.”
She added, “With Boulder, Sundance has the familiarity of a small city at excessive altitude, at decrease costs. I hope the competition takes benefit of that consolation zone and places its energies into exploring how this new chapter can symbolize the most effective of unbiased movie as it’s, not because it was.”
With biz on the mind, our personal writer and SVP (and a Sundance attendee for over 20 years) James Israel, added, “Having attended the Sundance Movie Competition yearly since 2002, I’m excited for this new chapter for Sundance. Boulder will probably be a fantastic new house to proceed to have a good time the artistic spirit and ethos of the Sundance neighborhood. IndieWire is thrilled to proceed our longtime assist and dedication of the competition as an official sponsor and stay up for the thrilling new alternatives for us and our companions in Colorado.”
Chief movie critic David Ehrlich, who I personally made return to Park Metropolis in 2025 for the primary time for the reason that begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, was characteristically cautious in his early tackle the transfer. “Sundance is shifting from Utah to Colorado, which is principally the identical state however with higher politics. It’s chilly, folks ski, there are direct flights from New York… perhaps the decrease elevation will lead to barely extra grounded premiere reactions, however apart from that, I’m unsure how relocating will considerably affect a competition that was already experiencing one thing of an identification disaster,” he wrote me.
He added, “I hope it’s a boon to the native financial system (my sense, and my hope, is that the folks of Park Metropolis will emerge unscathed), and I hope that the movie business reveals up and revitalizes an occasion that would use a recent spark, however my fast sense is that the way forward for Sundance — no matter that could be — could be largely the identical irrespective of the place the competition happened.”
Editor at giant Anne Thompson (who first began attending the competition in 1987, lacking solely a handful of editions within the interim) was extra effusive. “Boulder is a robust selection for Sundance,” she informed me. “It retains the Western mountain ethos and panorama, and doesn’t transfer right into a purple or purple metropolis however somewhat a blue college city. There are ski resorts in driving distance for individuals who search them! And it’s close to an airport hub, Denver. Boulder retains a little bit of the unique, which might not have been true of the extra prosaic Salt Lake Metropolis or Cincinnati. I can’t wait to go to Sundance Boulder!”
Our digital director Christian Blauvelt, perpetually an instance of cooler heads prevailing, supplied an excellent evaluation. “A colleague within the broader leisure business who’s been to Sundance a number of occasions expressed to me final 12 months the peril of fixing the cornerstone of a model’s identification,” he wrote to me. “He urged trying on the British monarchy — how a lot has its luster, its status, its affect, its standing as an everlasting fetish object diminished for the reason that Queen died in 2022? So much. He urged that Sundance leaving Park Metropolis would have an identical end result for the competition. I’d agree if Sundance had not chosen one other cozy Western city within the mountains to sub in for Park Metropolis.”
Basically, he argued, “Boulder is each a daring selection and a secure selection, which most likely makes it the proper selection. The very fact is, Sundance’s luster was already diminishing — being untenably costly can do this. Boulder can polish that shine proper again as much as glittering style, with out making everybody really feel like they need to half with an armful of gold to partake in it.”
Awards editor Marcus Jones turned to different festivals as inspiration for this subsequent chapter. He informed me, “As significant because it was to get an opportunity to expertise Sundance in its unique house of Park Metropolis, Utah, I believe Boulder is a transfer that gives a lot alternative. Attending different festivals like SCAD Savannah Movie Competition or Virginia Movie Competition, which can be additionally organized round faculty cities, I’ve seen filmmakers be a lot keener on partaking with the viewers realizing that the placement offers an inherent instructional lean to Q&As, and college students truthfully ask the most effective questions.”
He added, “Given how the remainder of the 12 months the Sundance Institute is concentrated on its developmental applications for future filmmakers, a deal with tapping into the following era of cinephiles is already a part of the competition’s DNA. Hopefully, that a part of the work that the competition does will get highlighted extra, now that the value of attendance is presumably lowered. Sidenote, simply on a primary stage, it’s enjoyable for the competition to nonetheless be within the Mountain Time Zone.”
Our VP of options technique, Chris O’Falt, struck essentially the most considerate tone, questioning how the relative magic of Park Metropolis will translate. “That out-of-the-ordinary and specialness of that setting is significant, and wanted now greater than ever,” he wrote me. “It’s in that snowy, sunny, high-altitude buzz that gatekeepers of all stripes dream, ‘Can this film discover an viewers?’ or ‘Is that this a brand new expertise I need to work with?’ The Sundance audiences actively desirous to see what’s subsequent and rooting to see one thing particular (why else make the journey?). Executives and critics, together with my beloved friends at IndieWire, can declare they objectively make the identical judgments from a personal screening room, or the less-than-ideal watermarked streaming hyperlink, however the collective magical pondering of the Sundance setting is a strong enhance, particularly for these seeing 4 to 5 motion pictures right into a day. Impartial movie wants that springy platform.”
He continued, “What we don’t know but, is what Boulder supplied that assured Sundance they’ll carve out a competition with that very same small-town sense you’re rubbing shoulders with tight-knit indie movie neighborhood, whereas additionally accommodating the wants of the competition’s companions. And likelihood is it’ll take 2027-28 only for that to get located. We’re going to need to have endurance. However I belief the individuals who constructed Sundance to have made that analysis in the event that they discovered the fitting municipal companion and have been capable of strike the fitting deal. And from the skin trying in, having visited Boulder a couple of occasions — with its surrounding pure magnificence, artsy faculty vibe (CU Boulder is 31 p.c of the inhabitants), and it being a walkable, non-strip mall city — it strikes me as the fitting base to rebuild.”
As for me? When you’ve ever been subjected to my ideas on Sundance, they’ll get slightly emotional. Sundance was the primary out of city competition I ever attended, method again in 2010, earlier than I even labored at IndieWire (I used to be a lowly freelancer on the time, I paid my very own method and used my very own PTO from my then-day job; I don’t remorse a greenback or a day). It’s all the time held an extremely particular place in my coronary heart, sufficient that I’ve made it my enterprise to go each single 12 months since 2010 (save, after all, for 2021 and 2022, after I enthusiastically attended from house). That’s 14 years of my life spent on the bottom in Park Metropolis, math-ed out to about 110 whole days.
I understand how to navigate Sundance, however because the years have ticked by, it’s develop into clear that even that hard-won familiarity and affection couldn’t masks the realities, largely that’s it’s too rattling costly and too rattling small to accommodate the very folks, tasks, and concepts it’s meant to. Nobody really indie may afford the form of Sundance journey I personally financed in 2010. I do know that firsthand.
In brief: issues had to alter, and whereas a wholesale transfer is about as huge a change as you may think about, I’ve spent the final 12 months and alter acclimating myself to this concept. I’m snug with it now.
Is Sundance greater than a spot? Is Sundance actually an ethos? And one that may relocated to a different city? I hope so. I’d wish to suppose so. And so, I will probably be approaching 2027 in Colorado with optimism. That’s what impressed this transfer, isn’t it? The assumption that Sundance cannot simply survive, however thrive? Let’s see.
You may learn extra in regards to the different two finalists who have been within the combine to play house to Sundance proper right here. The 2026 Sundance Movie Competition, the ultimate version to happen in Park Metropolis, Utah, will unfold January 22 – February 1, 2026.