Sundance Institute has named New York Film Festival (NYFF) executive director and indie stalwart Eugene Hernandez its next director of the festival and head of public programming, ending months of speculation.
Hernandez will join in November but will not lead Sundance until its 40th edition in January 2024. He will continue to oversee the upcoming NYFF (September 30-October 16) in the current role he has held since 2020.
Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente, who made the announcement on Wednesday (September 7), will continue to lead the 2023 edition of Sundance working closely with director of programming Kim Yutani and the leadership team.
Hernandez, an inveterate independent film champion who co-founded IndieWire and built it through his early years attending Sundance in the mid-1990s, will lead planning and execution of the festival, work with senior leaders across the Institute on the event’s in-person and online elements, develop programmes to foster dialogue and community around Sundance’s work, and lead the Institute’s year-round public programming. He will work closely with Yutani and the programming team and leadership team.
Hernandez will report to Vicente and work between the Institute’s New York and Los Angeles offices and the Park City office in Utah.
“It’s a full circle moment as Eugene has been inextricably connected to Sundance for more than 25 years, ever since he came to the festival in the mid-1990s to build Indiewire, an online community for indie film,” said Vicente. “He’s been at the forefront of supporting independent artists and deeply invested in the careers of storytellers and the field as a whole… He joins at a critical time in the industry for independent filmmakers when the Institute has never played a more important role for artists, audiences, and the field in total.”
Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford said Hernandez’s career had run on “a parallel path” alongside Sundance’s core mission to support independent artists.
“Sundance’s decades of leadership, championing artistic discovery and independent expression, was a landmark catalyst in my life,” said Hernandez. “Nearly 30 years ago, looking for direction and curious, I went to the Sundance Film Festival for the first time. I immediately connected with its mission, and it changed my life.
“I’m both energized and humbled to accept this opportunity to join Sundance. Supporting artists has been at the center of my career’s work, and for the last twelve years, I’ve had the privilege of growing and learning at Film at Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival. I’m ready for this inspiring challenge and unique opportunity to engage artists and audiences at Sundance, work with its best-in-the-business team, and follow in the footsteps of exceptional leaders.
Hernandez led the last three editions of New York Film Festival and last year brought the festival back to cinemas at Lincoln Center and around New York. He joined Film at Lincoln Center in 2010 as the director of digital strategy and was promoted to deputy director in 2014. Besides his NYFF role he currently serves as senior vice-president of Film At Lincoln Center and publisher of Film Comment.
He is the fourth official festival director in Sundance’s history after Geoff Gilmore, John Cooper, and Tabitha Jackson.
Jackson was the most recent incumbent and departed over the summer after leading two Covid editions. Speaking at a Sundance London panel in June she said initially she hadn’t wanted to accept the job: “I didn’t want to leave the creative process, I was very reluctant,” she said. “Sundance is an incredible festival, world-class. It’s a complex organism, it requires an incredible balance of the work, people, values, revenue, sustainability, safety, transportation. And it’s like – I just want to do the nice soft squishy bit there.”
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