Should Sundance stay in Utah? State leaders and locals rally to keep the independent film festival

[January 30, 2025]  By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — With the 2025 Sundance Film Festival underway, Utah leaders, locals and longtime attendees are making a final push — that could include paying millions of dollars — to keep the world-renowned film festival as its directors consider uprooting.

Thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read “Keep Sundance in Utah" in a last-ditch effort to convince festival leadership and state officials to keep it in Park City, its home of 41 years.

Gov. Spencer Cox said previously that Utah would not throw as much money at the festival as other states hoping to lure it away. Now his office is urging the Legislature to carve out $3 million for Sundance in the state budget, weeks before the independent film festival is expected to pick a home for the next decade.

It could retain a small presence in picturesque Park City and center itself in nearby Salt Lake City, or move to another finalist — Cincinnati, Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado — beginning in 2027.

“Sundance is Utah, and Utah is Sundance. You can’t really separate those two," Cox said. “This is your home, and we desperately hope it will be your home forever."

Festival Director Eugene Hernandez told reporters last week that they had not made a final decision. An announcement is expected this year by early spring.

Colorado is trying to further sweeten its offer. The state is considering legislation giving up to $34 million in tax incentives to film festivals like Sundance through 2036 — on top of the $1.5 million in funds already approved to lure the Utah festival to its neighboring state.

Cincinnati approved a resolution allocating $2.5 million to Sundance if festival leaders relocate to southwest Ohio. Yet money may not be the ultimate draw.

Sundance leaders say the festival has outgrown the ski town it helped put on the map decades ago, and they worry it has developed an air of exclusivity that takes the focus away from the films. An ideal home would make Sundance more centralized, affordable and accessible to all who appreciate independent film.

Some festivalgoers and industry leaders worry Sundance would lose its identity outside its idyllic mountain hometown.

Roger and Carin Ehrenberg, major donors to the festival, said they would stop attending regularly if the festival was outside Utah. Sundance is a “magical experience” for the New York City philanthropists, they said, due in large part to the atmosphere in Park City.

“If it goes to Cincinnati, maybe once in a blue moon we would go, but it wouldn't be a regular thing," Carin Ehrenberg said. “For us, it’ll lose its appeal.”

The couple said they would likely continue to donate even if they did not attend.

Attendees of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival hold up "Keep Sundance in Utah" stickers on Main Street in Park City, Utah, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

Nineteen years of fond memories at Sundance helped inspire Dr. Rhonda Taubin to relocate her family from Atlanta to Heber City — Park City's neighboring town. She has no ties to the film industry but has become a fervent advocate for keeping the festival in her new home state.

This year, she and her friends distributed thousands of “Keep Sundance in Utah” stickers — and another that read “NOhio for Sundance” — to show the festival how much it means to the local community.

“I really am not a movie buff, but my other girlfriends are, and being able to share all that we've been through as women, as mothers, as wives, as daughters, I don't want it to end,” Taubin said. “We watch provocative movies that make us talk and think about things that maybe we've never thought about before. Utah would be at a huge loss without those conversations.”

If Sundance stays in Utah, the festival’s former director John Cooper said major adjustments are needed to improve transportation between Salt Lake City and Park City and make lodging for filmmakers more affordable.

Cooper, who led the festival from 2009 to 2020, said he would be sad to see Sundance shift away from actor and filmmaker Robert Redford's original vision. Its very name comes from Redford's character in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“I felt like my role was to be a keeper of the flame for Robert Redford and his legacy," Cooper told The Associated Press. “The mountains of Utah, this was his vision. It’s weird to say ‘Sundance in Ohio.’ But I think it could go anywhere. What it does for a community is so strong.”

On the red carpet this week, many were split on whether Sundance should stay or go.

Actor Elijah Wood urged the festival to remain in Park City, saying the location is part of its DNA.

Others were open to it relocating. Actor Tessa Thompson, who serves on the Sundance Institute's board of trustees, said the festival could maintain its identity in a new city.

“I think that Sundance has more to do with the spirit and community, and I think that's evergreen," Thompson said. "Regardless of where Sundance is, Sundance will always be.”

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