For the last time, the Sundance Film Festival opens in Park City, Utah

Hollywood stars Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman and Ethan Hawke are expected on the red carpet at the snowy Rockies ski resort, alongside a host of lesser-known filmmakers, during this event, one of the most important in the film calendar.

The Sundance film festival, the first to be held since the death of its founder Robert Redford, kicks off Thursday in Park City, in the mountains of the US state of Utah, where it is being held for the last time before moving next year to neighboring Colorado.

Skip the ad

Amy Redford, the actor’s daughter Butch Cassidy and the Kid who created the festival in 1978, said this year’s gathering would be a moving experience. “I am very proud”she replied when asked what she thought of the legacy of her father, who died four months ago. It will be celebrated during the event.

Also read

Robert Redford to be honored at Sundance

Comedies and early films

“He was someone who created on the ground, not from the top”she told AFP. “He never wanted to be the center of attention in this whole organization. The center of attention is those who tell the stories. »

This year, comedy has an important place in the programming, notably with The Inviteby Olivia Wilde, which features a married couple dining with mysterious neighbors. The stars of Mad Men Jon Hamm and John Slattery also reunite in a new comedy called Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.

In the selection, the feature film The Gallerist brings together Natalie Portman and young star Jenna Ortega. The film follows the epic tale of a desperate gallery owner who wants to sell a corpse at the famous contemporary art fair Art Basel in Miami.

“It’s mental junk food”: the cry of Jenna Ortega and Bong Joon Ho against AI at the Marrakech Festival

With the exception of a handful, the 90 films presented are world premieres, selected from 16,000 applications from 164 countries. More than 40% of them will be their director’s first film. The selection also gives pride of place to foreign films. In the list, we find the British feature film Extra Geographythe Australian film Leviticus or even Cypriot Hold Onto Me.

A festival that has become too big

The documentary programming is also rich, with productions from all over the world, including serious Oscar contenders. Kikuyu Landon corruption in Kenya, will be on display, as will Hanging by a Wirerecounting the frantic race to save schoolchildren dangling from a stranded cable car in a mountainous region of Pakistan.

Having outgrown its current host city, the festival will move next year to Boulder, in the neighboring state of Colorado. This city in the American West, near Denver, has 100,000 inhabitants. A move had been discussed for years. The choice of Boulder comes after a year of investigation. 67 cities applied to host the festival. A university town located about fifty kilometers from Denver International Airport, Boulder has plenty of accommodation.

For the past four decades, Sundance has been held each winter in Park City, a posh Utah ski resort nestled at 7,000 feet above sea level. But faced with the influx of more than 70,000 festival-goers – 100,000 before the pandemic -, a third of whom come from other American states and abroad, the infrastructure of the former mining town of 8,000 inhabitants was struggling to keep up.

Goodbye Utah… The Sundance festival is moving after 40 years and will settle in Colorado in 2027

The move leaves a bittersweet feeling for festival programmer John Nein, who has attended every edition since 1996. Park City “is a special place”he told AFP. And paradoxical. “It’s not particularly practical, it’s really cold, but oddly enough, that’s what attracts people. » They will not be disoriented. Boulder, located in the Rockies, is also a mountain town with renowned ski slopes.