As Sundance Prepares to Leave Park City for Boulder, Indie Filmmakers Worry the Festival May Lose Its Magic

Catherine Hardwicke, who would later make a name for herself with the vampire romance “Twilight,” first went to Sundance in 1989. It would be the year that put the festival on the map, though Hardwicke couldn’t have known it at the time. She had studied film at UCLA and was embarking on a career as a production designer. If she needed a sign she was on the right track, she found it in Park City, Utah, at the premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.”  

“Coming from McAllen, Texas, my little hometown, I had never seen a movie like that, or movies like any of the ones at Sundance,” Hardwicke says. “I didn’t know what independent films were — my head almost exploded. I was so excited to think that stories that were so personal and intimate could be put on the screen. That just lodged into my brain, and I wanted to make something like that.” 

“Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” a blistering examination of voyeurism and infidelity, was a sensation, becoming one of the first contemporary art-house films to break into the mainstream. And Sundance’s profile rose with it, encouraging generations of aspiring moviemakers to max out their credit cards and bet it all on the chance of getting their movies into the festival.  

Over the next four decades, Sundance, which was founded by Robert Redford in 1978 to help innovative filmmakers navigate a business that was often hostile to their visions, served as the launching pad for some of the boldest creative forces in movies. It’s an alumni network that includes Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”), Darren Aronofsky (“Pi”), Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”), Wes Anderson (“Bottle Rocket”), Ava DuVernay (“Middle of Nowhere”) and Hardwicke, who debuted her first feature, “Thirteen,” a coming-of-age drama about a troubled teen, at the festival in 2003.  

“We wouldn’t even have 90% of the amazing indie films out there if it weren’t for Sundance,” Hardwicke says. “And I never would have thought that a movie like ‘Thirteen’ could be made if I hadn’t been to Sundance before.” 

For many artists, agents, critics and studio executives, Sundance is synonymous with Park City, the ski resort that has hosted the festival for nearly 45 years. The town’s sloping main street, nestled in the craggy Wasatch Range, has practically become a symbol of the annual film gathering.  

“It’s so magical,” says James Wan, director of “Saw.” “It’s like movie camp for movie lovers. It’s the yardstick by which I measure all other festivals.” 

But that’s about to change. In 2027, Sundance will leave the mountain town for Boulder, Colorado, lured by tax breaks and subsidies that it needs to continue operating. That’s left some people concerned that the festival is sacrificing a vital part of its identity.  

“I worry about it going,” says Ann Dowd, an actress who made a name for herself with the 2012 film “Compliance,” which premiered at Sundance. “It’s not as Robert Redford intended it to be when he founded it. It sounds like it could become something else entirely. Park City is such a special place.” 

 But others believe that Sundance has outgrown the town, which has become a glossy vacation destination for the 1% instead of a shaggy getaway for artsy types. They argue there’s not enough housing, and what’s available has become prohibitive (hotel rooms can fetch thousands of dollars a night). If Sundance’s mission is to provide a forum for emerging filmmakers, why host it in a place that most of them can’t afford to visit?  

“Hats off to them for moving,” says Tom Bernard, co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics. “I’m excited to leave. It’s definitely not the Park City I used to visit in the early ’90s. The prices are through the roof, and the indie filmmakers that used to roam these streets are disappearing.”  

Not too long ago, films as varied as “Manchester by the Sea,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “The Blair Witch Project” debuted to raves at the festival before being embraced by the wider public. Sundance remains the biggest name in independent filmmaking, but the festival, like the art form it celebrates, is operating in a much more perilous environment than in its heyday of the ’90s and early aughts. The edgy, distinctive movies that continue to find a home at Sundance are struggling at the box office, with recent festival acquisitions such as “Sorry, Baby,” “Lurker” and “Twinless” barely registering when they opened in theaters. “Train Dreams,” arguably the most successful of last year’s Sundance sales, was snapped up by Netflix and mostly seen on streaming, a sign of how much the business has shifted.  

“Consumer tastes have changed,” says Scott Shooman, head of IFC Entertainment Group. “And what consumers want to see is different than what Sundance is programming. Other festivals aggressively court more commercial films.” 

As Sundance prepares for one final hurrah in Park City, many filmmakers and executives are reminiscing about the good times they had in the mountain town and reflecting on its singular appeal. For them, the remoteness, as well as the wintry weather that makes getting around a slippery, sloshy ordeal, enrich the experience. Instead of haute couture, most celebrities are decked out in snow boots and parkas, lending the event an air of informality.  

“Somehow that ends up being my most vivid, enduring memory of the festival — the goddamn snow,” says Karyn Kusama, director of 2000’s “Girlfight,” starring Michelle Rodriguez. “I remember trudging along through the sleet and snow. It’s a hard festival for that reason, but it’s so worth it when you get to your destination. Which, in a weird way, is just like a metaphor for indie film: You really have to do a lot of trudging through these inhospitable conditions to get to that destination of finally seeing those films come to fruition.” 

Kusama, whose movie won the Grand Jury Prize that year, is one of many artists whose careers were launched in Park City. Jay Duplass remembers getting his short film “This Is John,” a seven-minute drama that he shot with his brother, Mark, using their parents’ video camera, into the festival. It cost them $3 to make, or the cost of the tape they used to film it.  

“I was at the end of my rope when I got the call that we’d been accepted,” Duplass remembers. “I was 29 years and 10 months old, and I had given myself until I turned 30 to fuck around with movies until I sucked it up and did something else. Everything changed with Sundance. We got agents and a lawyer, and all of that led to our first feature.”  

Glen Basner, the head of FilmNation, remembers sitting in the Eccles Theatre for the Sundance premiere of 2017’s “The Big Sick.” The $5 million comedy about a Pakistani comic (Kumail Nanjiani) whose Waspy girlfriend becomes gravely ill was the first film that Basner had fully financed. It entered the festival looking to land distribution, but Basner knew that he could only secure a rich deal if the audience responded in a big way.  

“There’s a scene in the movie when Ray Romano asks Kumail what he thought about 9/11 and Kumail goes, ‘We lost 19 of our best guys that day,’” Basner remembers. “Well, the crowd went wild. I remember being thrilled because it went over so well. But even more than that, I felt extreme relief because I wasn’t going to bankrupt the company.” After an all-night bidding war, “The Big Sick” sold to Amazon for $12 million.  

Sundance alums who were fortunate enough to have their films become one of the festival’s hot sales say that the alpine dealmaking, often hammered out late into the evening and through the following morning, are an exhausting, yet exhilarating experience. Lulu Wang, one of those lucky directors, remembers the producer of her 2019 film “The Farewell” summoning her shortly after its Park City premiere.

“I get a call at 10 o’clock that said, ‘Get dressed. There’s a car coming to pick you up,’ and then I got whisked away to this mansion where a bunch of people started coming in and pitching us,” Wang recalls. “There’s something that’s so beautiful, because we’re now in a time where there’s a lack of urgency around films, because you can watch them on streaming. It’s ‘I’ll watch it when I get to it.’ So the urgency of having to negotiate late at night was amazing.”

Still others trace personal and professional milestones back to the mountain resort. Josephine Decker has had several films play at Sundance, including 2020’s “Shirley,” which won the Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking. But the festival is particularly meaningful to Decker because it’s where she met her future partner, Malik Vitthal, in 2011. They reconnected three years later when he invited her to stay in a house he’d rented in Park City. “We first got together at Sundance,” she says. “My two children exist because of Sundance.” 

Last year, Decker and Vitthal left the kids with their grandparents and returned to the town where they first met — not to premiere a new movie, but to experience Sundance as film lovers. “We spent our anniversary watching movies for nine hours a day and just getting artistically inspired,” she says. “The only problem is we have very different tastes, so we didn’t spend much time together.” 

Others remember not only the big premieres or the intense conversations with fellow filmmakers, but the wild nights and blowout parties.  

“We had the classic thing when we would rent a cabin with 10 people there, and then you invite three people to party and of course 350 come and you have to call the police on your own party,” Hardwicke says. “New Line executives are throwing up in your hot tub. You know, all those outrageous you-gotta-love-it stories.” 

Despite its international renown, Sundance is a ragtag operation. Instead of hosting premieres in movie palaces, screenings are held in dozens of makeshift theaters, with screens erected in libraries, motels and school auditoriums. But that has its own allure for the filmmakers.  

“Sometimes you’re like, ‘Damn, I wish it sounded better or that the projector was better,’” says Cooper Raiff, the director of “Cha Cha Real Smooth.” “But mostly it adds to the charm. I’ll never forget watching this Jeff Buckley documentary in that theater in the library. It was a great film, and it was followed by a musical performance of ‘Hallelujah.’ And it was so fulfilling. It didn’t matter that the theater was shitty; what mattered was sharing that experience with an audience.”  

Raiff and other longtime Sundance-goers hope that the festival’s indie spirit won’t dim when it uproots for Colorado. And they’re happy that Sundance’s leadership opted to host the event in a college town that also boasts natural beauty. When the organization announced it was accepting bids for a new home, the other two finalists were Cincinnati and a combination of Park City and Salt Lake City. Given those options, many Sundance alums are relieved by the choice of Boulder.  

“I would be concerned if Sundance was moving to a major city that was crazy spread out,” says Decker. “If Sundance was moving to L.A., it would be like ‘Oh, no, it’s the end!’ But they selected another intimate town that has the kind of small walkable community where you’ll be bumping into artists every time you turn a corner.” 

Sundance is so much more than its geographic location. Through its labs and events, it plays a vital role in helping filmmakers fine-tune their visions and showcases their work. Not only does it connect them with a larger creative community, but in many cases they come away with distribution for their films or backing for their next projects.  

“I just hope they maintain what makes Sundance special,” says Cathy Yan, director of “Dead Pigs,” which debuted at the 2018 edition. “As special and unique as Park City was to the Sundance brand, its mission is much more important. There’s so much corporate consolidation in Hollywood. We need festivals like Sundance that champion new voices and independent artists now more than ever.”