Park City ups and downs

What can I say about Sundance this year that has not already been said?

Yes, the programming was missing from commercial offers and was filled with small films of directors for the first time. Yes, the festival felt moderate with less star power than in the past years. Yes, there was still inexplicably an hour and a half of waiting the lower lawyer toast that you have ever had in your life. And, yes, it always costs you $ 40, even if your boss has warned you of reducing expenses.

Compared to past years, this year Sundance felt a turning point, with collective acceptance that the time of the Festival in Park City has taken its course.

During the party of last year, the CEO of the time, Joana Vicente, for the first time floated that the festival could (would) move after its contract was in place with Park City in 2026. The time there was the required tooth of the teeth. “What is Sundance without Park City?” Many asked. People shared favorite screening stories. Stories where the life of a filmmaker has been changed forever, and has targeted poetic on distributors who exhaust themselves in mid-fail to plead their cases to acquire a possible blow.

A year (and a new CEO later), the leaders and the representatives that I speak in 2025 are apparently too tired to seal the depths of their nostalgia for a few thousand hotels.

Now, many are ready to ship to Salt Lake, Boulder or Cincinnati. But the veterans of the festival are wary of a Sundance, known to defend the diversity of art and thought, to Ohio. Or, as I was told: “I will not go to the state that gave birth to JD Vance.” But despite the celebration of the party for four decades, Utah is not a bastion of freedom of expression, the State being one of the first to implement a ban on the state for more A dozen books in libraries and classrooms. Boulder, on the other hand, is a university city in a largely liberal state, and this may be for this reason, among others, it is said to be the favorite.

Just or not, the industry turns to Sundance as a pseudo-Belwether for the year, reading the big titles on the sales of low-to-medium adolescents as if they were tea leaves. If we are basically twelve months last week in Park City, things are quite dark. There were only two important sales. Even if buyers see all the films before making their first offer on anything, the transmission promises to be a lack of chandelier.

There is a general lethargy that cannot be blamed for a programmer, programming or a festival. The industry is still in shock from a 2024 record production. The mergers and pending acquisitions always prevent studios from having solid foundations on which to build slates. And Sundance landed a few weeks after a year that has already seen Los Angeles face one of his most devastating natural disasters. The filmmakers, executives and representatives came to Park City after losing their house.

And, of course, there is Trump. In 2017, the Chelsea manager, Laura Dern and Charlize Theron led thousands of participants on Main Street in the Festival’s Women’s Marche after Donald Trump took office for his first mandate. After Trump took office for his second term this year, a group of around 60 years dancing in a Flash Mob to help announce his independent television series, HuntersAnd wore pink “pussy” hats like a well -intentioned tribute if not depressing to date eight years ago.

Although there have been moments of this year party which has taken into account excitement, absurdity and very funny that Sundance can be – Jennifer Lopez to enter the DJ stand in Tao Or Eva Victor making his debut as a director to universal acclaim – this year has proven that Sundance needs a change.

Will I miss the teenagers of the Eccles concession stand to talk about their chemistry quiz? Absolutely! Will I run out of subsistence on Snickers of this concession stand because there is absolutely nowhere where to have a quick meal. No!

A producer who created several films in Park City noted to me that Sundance is, on the whole, the only festival that filmmakers should exceed. The Sundance Institute, led by the OFT and the case, Michelle Satter, has done an incredible work of identification and incubation of cinema talents. Talent which then goes on larger budgets or in Venice and Cannes.

The industry has always sought Sundance to give it something new – a director, a star, a film, etc. Now Sundance can present us with something else new – himself. And I wish it good luck.