By james art 
The Sundance Film Festival is underway, and this year’s event could be the beginning of the end. Utah’s Marquee Film Festival has been held in Park City for the past 40 years, but its future is up in the air like other cities host bidding The festival. The last festival in the Beehive State could be held in 2026.
Even with possible big changes, some local filmmakers say the loss of the festival won’t affect their work much.
Sundance is well known for showcasing Hollywood-connected directors and actors. That’s part of why it’s so competitive to get a film accepted. In 2024 the acceptance rate of shorts and films across the board was very low come to 0.4%. Filmmakers Lizde and Luis Puentes made a cut in 2023. with his short film “I have no tears and I must cry. “
“It was a film that was very deliberately made for Sundance,” Liz explained. “It was definitely a project made with the intentions of catering to those developers and those audiences.”
The married couple call Salt Lake City home, and Lewis studies media arts at Brigham Young University. So for Puentes, Sundance became more than just a movie showing. It had a lasting impact on them as creators.
“It definitely caters to the filmmaker experience and it really feels like a community there,” Lizde said. “I feel like some of the closest friends we’ve made this year with this film have come from Sundance.”
The film’s number of potential eyeballs didn’t hurt either. Almost 140,000 people attend Sundance in 2023 and the number of attendees increased in 2024.
Ben MangelsdorfA global content and tour specialist for the Utah Office of Tourism, said Sundance leaving the state would deal a major creative and economic blow to everything from filmmakers to the overall economy. As an example, he explained that Kevin Costner’s latest Western movie “Horizon: An American Saga”It was filmed here and brought about 120 million dollars to the economy of the state.
Film tourism is also a pretty penny in Utah. Mangelsdorf said the industry generated approx 6 billion dollars in the last decade. The state has a large stake in the game and wants to keep it.
“That’s why the Utah Film Commission is part of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity,” Mangelsdorf said. In its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. Governor Spencer Cox recommended $3 million to keep Sundance sticking to its roots.
“I think it would be a huge mistake” if the festival left Utah, Cox told reporters from Utah January 16 monthly press conference. “I think it would really be a death for Sundance.”
Lani Hansen
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Daily Utah Chronicle
Colin Cunninghaman actor with several television credits and a role in Costner’s Horizon, lives in Utah County. His current project is “Curse of Crom 2”Filming a horror game in Spanish Fork. As he puts it, it’s a movie built on “Two Nickels and a Basket of Corn”—a budget picture unlikely to make the Sundance lineup.
“Even as big as Sundance is, there’s content to be overlooked,” Cunningham said. “There are gold bars on the sidewalk here and no one is picking them up.”
Cunningham said the festival’s exclusivity has led many local filmmakers to go rogue and create their own festivals to showcase their work.
“There was a time when Sundance was so big that they held alternative film festivals in the back of their vans,” he said.
One of these alternatives became Slamdancefilm festival that goes by the tagline, “By the filmmakers, for the filmmakers.” However, that too ultimately left Utah for Los Angeles.
Because of its Hollywood focus, Cunningham doesn’t believe Sundance catapulted local filmmakers that far. Rather, he believes that filmmaking in Utah would be more creative without the influence of a massive festival.
Sundance did not respond to Kuer’s request for an interview, but the festival has several grants, scholarships and workshops Specially aimed at independent filmmakers and emerging storytellers. These are open to applicants all over the world.
Despite the positive experience with Sundance, the Puentes agree with Cunningham to an extent. According to them, Sundance was an open space for Utah creators when it started in the 80s. But for young, local filmmakers today, that feeling is fading.
“Utah isn’t necessarily a major part of the festival’s identity,” Liz said. “I’m hoping that maybe with the conversations that have opened up, maybe that can change positively in the future.”
Both agree that maybe it’s time for Utah to go Hollywood and focus on the new stories that local filmmakers are creating here at home.