This year marks the 40th festival for the Sundance Film Festival. In some ways, it’s hard to believe an event that has such an influence on film and art worldwide could possibly be that old. In other ways, it feels as if the festival has always been a permanent part of Park City and Utah. This 40th year marks Eugene Hernandez’s second as Festival Director, but, for people close to the event, it might feel as if Hernandez has always been a permanent fixture of the festival as well. 

Hernandez started coming to Sundance 30 years ago, as a journalist in the mid-1990s, to build Indiewire. For Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO, bringing in Hernandez is a “full circle” moment. Vicente was a film producer and met Hernandez during those early years. “Many times we would meet at Sundance,” she says, illustrating one of the festival’s primary functions. “Sundance is really a place about discovery. It’s this gathering place where you meet collaborators that you’re going to be working with.”

“The two of us are part of this broader independent film community because of the role that Sundance played in our own lives,” says Hernandez. Within that community he includes industry folks and audiences, particularly locals, who have shown “tremendous enthusiasm for coming back together,” he says. They saw this last year as well, when nearly 87,000 people physically attended the festival. Participants redeemed 138,000 tickets and contributed $118.3 million to Utah’s gross domestic product, according to an economic impact study on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “There’s something unique and special about every year coming back to that community,” says Hernandez. And the community is growing. With the accessibility of digital, festival films screenings received more than 285,000 views online.

The Next Sundance

So what will Sundance look like with a longtime participant and professional, like Hernandez, as director? His focus is on connection, specifically connecting to art and to others through art. Forty years in, Hernandez attributes the festival’s longstanding cultural relevance to its support of independent artists. “Sundance plays such a vital part in starting the year with a new class of filmmakers, and that first impression is so essential,” says Hernandez. So the question becomes, “How do we assure that each film and filmmaker and the teams that come to Utah as part of that experience have the best shot at introducing themselves and their work to our various audiences?”

To that end, the 2024 Sundance Film Festival will carry forward some of the aspects of the 2023 festival—such as the hybrid model, with films available to screen in-person and online—while trying to infuse the event with more meaning and connection by emphasizing the in-person experience. To make those first impressions as special as possible, film premieres will only be screened in-person and competition films will be screened online only during the second half of the festival. 

With this new model, the hope, in part, is to make the in-person portion of the festival—well—festive. Like with all anniversaries, expect celebration. Reflecting on 40 years, Sundance plans to honor the past by celebrating the future. “Celebrating the future is about continuing to be curious and to curate and bring the most exciting voices, stories and people who are the future of independent storytelling,” says Hernandez. The festival is also celebrating its legacy of discovering new talent. This year’s Opening Night Gala will celebrate a director who got his start at Sundance with the film Memento, Christopher Nolan.

“It really is unique among other festivals to have that focus on spotlighting and showcasing what’s new while also celebrating that alongside some of the familiar faces,” says Hernandez. “That’s really the work…to continue bringing people together.”  

Sundance 2024 At A Glance

• Festival dates: Jan. 18-28, 2024. Opening Night Gala is Jan. 18 at the DeJoria Center. In-person screenings begin around noon on Jan. 18. Online screenings begin Jan. 25. 
• The lineup: 90+ feature films, 60+ shorts. 
• Park City venues: Eccles Theater, Egyptian Theatre, Holiday Village Cinemas, Library Center Theatre, The Ray Theatre, Redstone Cinemas and Prospector Square Theatre.
• SLC venues: Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway, the Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas and the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. 

Tickets and more information at sundance.org

“No Welfare for Sundance + Kimball,” read the anonymously authored sticky note. The note contained one of many such nuanced takes from a late fall event designed to gather public input regarding Park City’s possible future arts and culture district in Bonanza Park. Setting aside the ludicrous, anonymous nature of the feedback—which channels some of the most vocal characters of an internet comment section—the event’s very existence reflected a contemplative mood surrounding what was once a broadly supported development concept. Local sentiment is seemingly less enamored with the world of art and entertainment. Is the feeling mutual?

If a faction of fed-up residents were contemplating ousting Sundance, the fabulously impactful annual film festival, some rumors suggest they may not get the chance. Word on the street is Sundance has been considering an exit from Park City, possibly leading to a situation of “You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you!”   

Reporting from Deadline in July 2023 indicated festival organizers were fielding RFPs from numerous cities including Santa Fe, New Mexico and Bentonville, Arkansas. Sundance reps replied at the time that the requests for proposals were related only to Sundance Labs, the year-round programs Sundance Institute runs to develop upcoming filmmakers. One of the labs is held at Utah’s Sundance Resort, which is undergoing extensive construction, necessitating the need for an alternative location. 

The enticing morsel of Hollywood gossip got a boost a few months later when Sundance Film Festival leadership requested an extension on the deadline to renew its agreement with Park City to hold the festival in town beyond 2026, when the current agreement expires. The requested seven-month extension (from March 1 to Oct. 1, 2024) indicated Sundance is conducting a broad review of the festival’s future. In a letter to Mayor Nana Worel, Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente pointed to new executive leadership, several years of declining revenue and “many uncertainties” that make a “new vision” for the partnership essential. 

Is Sundance really asking to see other people? Are they merely trying to find out if Park City is serious about their relationship? Is this strained metaphor an inaccurate lens through which to view a standard negotiating tactic relating to an agreement that automatically renews in 2027 without a two-year written notice by either party? It’s hard to say.

Those sticky notes referenced in the introduction weren’t about the Sundance Film Festival itself but the Sundance Institute’s presence as an anchor tenant in the planned arts and culture district. In 2017 when the district was conceived, three parties—City Hall officials, Sundance Institute representatives and Kimball Art Center leadership—envisioned a vibrantly reimagined section of town that would lessen the community’s reliance on outdoor tourism while serving as a long-term hub of artistic cultivation. 

The intervening years, in no small part due to the pandemic, upended best laid plans. Locals have bristled as the city’s estimated portion of the bill, which has exceeded $90 million. Vicente’s letter made no mention of Sundance Institute moving to Summit County. The Kimball Art Center continues to operate in its “temporary” digs on Kearns Blvd. with no end in sight. Meanwhile, the lots where businesses in Prospector were razed to make way for the arts and culture district remain vacant.  Relationships are hard. Rumors are swirling. 

“Good riddance,” some residents would no doubt say, at least, anonymously, on sticky notes. If it ever comes time to cut ties with the festival and organization that has become synonymous with Park City, the community will have to reckon with whether the grass is really greener. Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. 

It’ll Be ‘Festival As Usual’ This Year

Park City has hosted the Sundance Film Festival since 1981, when it was still known as the U.S. Film Festival. In its 40th festival year, Sundance in Park City and Salt Lake City has hosted, thousands of films, millions of attendees and countless gossiped-about celebrity sightings. (I’ve talked to both Danny Glover and pre-ayahuasca-enthused Aaron Rodgers.) If you’re reading this between the dates of Jan. 19-29, 2024, get out to Main Street and revel in the madness. Who knows how many years it’ll still be a possibility.