Sundance Film Festival regulars have been looking back at the festival’s 41-year run in Park City, Utah as the 2026 edition comes to a close; and ahead to next year’s first edition in Boulder, Colorado.
“This festival directly affected my ability to be a working actor,” said Jenny Slate, who broke out in Obvious Child at the 2014 festival, returning several times, including with 2019’s The Sunlit Night and this year’s Carousel. “It’s where I’ve had some of my most meaningful work. I’ve always felt I would like to work hard enough and be in a film that is good enough to be in this festival.”
Slate’s Carousel co-star Chris Pine recalled his first visit in 2008 for Bottle Shock, while in the midst of filming Star Trek in Los Angeles. “The whirlwind-ness of what it meant to be a professional actor was really exciting,” said Pine. “To be here this year is bittersweet. Sometimes it’s good to shake things up and see what new life you can breathe into something by moving. I’m as excited and curious as anyone else about what the move will bring.”
Director Gregg Araki has screened 11 films at the festival, including this year’s I Want Your Sex, and attended “six or seven times as a juror, or on a panel.”
“It’s emotional to leave Park City, but it’s also the beginning of a new era, things change,” said Araki. “It’s hard for Park City as it’s such a small place, to accommodate this many people and this much craziness. So in a way it’ll be nicer to be in a big place that has big roads, hotels and restaurants. But I have such fond memories of this place; I will definitely miss it.”
“It’s bittersweet; I don’t know what the sweet part is, it’s a little bitter,” said Taika Waititi, who first attended the festival in 2002, prepped his debut feature Eagle vs. Shark at the 2005 directors and screenwriters lab ahead of its 2007 launch at Sundance, and has returned on numerous occasions including with 2010’s Boy and 2014 breakout What We Do In The Shadows. “It’s going to be fine no matter what, it’s going to live on – it’s not the location that really matters,” said Waititi, who has attended the festival as an actor, including in this year’s Fing!.
“I have a love for the place, I’ve met very dear filmmaker friends here. It’s a place where I shaped who I was and my voice as a filmmaker.”
“The best thing about the business is we can be the right amount of sentimental about the past, and remember what brought us here,” said producer David Hinojosa, who has his own lengthy history in Park City, with over a dozen films at the festival including 2016’s Goat, 2020’s Zola, and 2023’s Past Lives – the latter on its way to two Oscar nominations. “It’s bittersweet to be wrapping up here, but [I’m] excited for what’s ahead,” said Hinojosa, at the 2026 event with Aidan Zamiri’s Charli XCX mockumentary The Moment. “Everything’s changing and evolving, and this festival can too.”
Park City thanks
At a tribute gala to the late Robert Redford at the 2026 event, John Cooper, festival director from 2009-2020, also acknowledged the bond with Park City, a small ski resort town with a regular population of fewer than 8,500 people. “We worked together all the time to make sense of it all,” said Cooper. “In the best of times, we became us. Residents opened their homes and their hearts; the Sundance spirit was held in the people because the show always went on, here in Park City, here in Utah.”
Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission, also addressed the move at this year’s Brunch with the Brits - a staple event for UK industry attendees held for many years at the High West distillery on the middle Sunday morning. “Obviously, there’ll be a new future in Boulder, I hope we’ll be back there; but we’ve been really grateful for this fantastic relationship with Park City, thank you to them for hosting us over so many years,” said Wootton.
This year’s festival featured 21 UK films across the programme, including Molly Manners’ Extra Geography, Petra Volpe’s English-language debut Frank & Louis, and The Moment. “Geopolitics may suggest some issues [between the US and UK], but I’m here to tell you – not between our film and television makers,” said Wootton. “There’s a fantastic spirit of collaboration, creative and economic exchange. If there’s a definition of the special relationship, then it really is in the creative industries between the US and UK.”
“It’s really sad!” said producer Andrea Cornwell, attending Sundance for the third successive year, with Wicker following The Thing With Feathers and Love Lies Bleeding. “This year, with less snow, it’s feeling much like a film town again. It doesn’t feel like [Boulder] is going to be quite as contained. But people say it is a wonderful town; I look forward to the next iteration.”
“Utah’s such an extraordinarily beautiful state, it’s always a privilege to come,” said Oliver Kassman, Cornwell’s fellow producer on Wicker and Love Lies Bleeding. “But I’m sure Colorado will be wonderful as well.”
The festival has always welcomed newcomers, whether established – Molly Ringwald attended for the first time this year in NB Mager’s Run Amok – or emerging, such as Mason Reeves, the eight-year-old star of buzzy festival title Josephine. “My first thought was it’s really cold and there’s a bunch of snow,” Reeves told Screen. “All the mountains are so beautiful. I’m loving it so far.”
“People say Boulder’s great for venues, projection, theatres, street life,” said Brian A. Kates, an editor on over a dozen Sundance titles including Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist this year, who also flagged up the importance of the Sundance Institute, which will remain headquartered in Utah. “It’s a really important institution, because [as a filmmaker] you need to be free to express yourself without worrying about the financial part. At the beginning, you need to be creative enough and unencumbered; Sundance provides that opportunity.”
“Whenever I come to Sundance, it makes me feel like story will always endure,” said Will McCormack, co-writer on Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, which sold to A24 in an eight-figure deal this week. “No matter whether the business goes up or down, stories will always endure, and Sundance has been a sanctuary for that.”
Documentarian Alex Gibney has screened numerous times in Park City, starting with Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room in 2005, and ending with this year’s Knife: The Attempted Murder Of Salman Rushdie. “It’s very moving for me to be here in the last one in Park City,” said Gibney. “There’ll be a new chapter, but what Robert Redford helped create here is magnificent, and I hope that spirit will live on.”
“This film is the perfect film for me to close out Sundance,” said US Frank & Louis actor Rob Morgan, “for it being originally about giving voice to independent filmmakers and giving voice to the voiceless.
“Having been here seven times, it’s the perfect way for me to put a lid on my Sundance experience in Utah.”
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