Sundance plans to make final Utah film festival a ‘celebration full of gratitude and joy’

PARK CITY — The final Sundance Film Festival to be held in Utah will be a “celebration full of gratitude and joy,” featuring events and celebrations, including a nod to Sundance’s founding father.

However, it won’t include an iconic Park City venue.

The final festival in Utah will begin on Jan. 22, 2026, and wrap up on Feb. 1, 2026, with events in Park City and Salt Lake City, Eugene Hernandez, director of the Sundance Film Festival, announced in a public letter on Monday. Online screenings will be available from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1, offering everyone a glimpse of the films within the event’s five competition sections.

Several familiar venues are named in the list of in-person screenings, but Park City’s Egyptian Theatre is not. It wasn’t immediately clear why the venue was left off the list. Still, a “joyful appreciation of 40-plus years of seminal independent cinema” in Park City will begin midway through the festival, featuring “special screenings and legacy talks and events,” Hernandez wrote.

Festivities will also include a special recognition of Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford, who helped cement the festival’s legacy in Utah.

“We’re inspired every year to put on the festival, our largest artist program, where we will be introducing audiences to brand new films and projects created by emerging and established artists alike. We also look forward to showing our appreciation to the Utah community as a whole, who have supported the festival for so many years and laid the foundation,” Hernandez wrote.

Monday’s announcement comes months after the organization announced it would relocate the global event to Boulder, Colorado, beginning in 2027, ending a longtime run in its origin state.

It originated as the Utah/United States Film Festival in 1978, with the first screenings held at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City. It was eventually relocated to Park City in the 1980s, becoming the Sundance Film Festival after the Sundance Institute took over operations. The event has grown significantly since then, generating thousands of film submissions every year.

Over 140,000 tickets and passes were distributed during last year’s festival, which generated about $106.4 million in out-of-state spending and $132 million in state GDP, according to the latest economic impact report compiled by Y2 Analytics.

Utah put together an aggressive pitch to retain the festival, splitting events between Park City and Salt Lake City. Local and state entities offered larger tax incentives and in-kind funding opportunities, as well as more venues to spread out events, but it wasn’t enough to beat the offers from Colorado.

“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town and college town,” Sundance Institute CEO Amanda Kelso said, after the relocation decision was made in March. “It is a place where the festival can build and flourish. … We can’t imagine a better fit than Boulder.”

The decision sparked all sorts of reactions from local leaders. While Sundance officials said politics was not a factor in its decision, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson stated that organizers “used politics as the convenient excuse” to leave as it dealt with “financial headwinds,” calling it a “loss” for both Utah and Sundance. Gov. Spencer Cox said the state would explore a new film festival that could rival Sundance.

In the meantime, next year’s event will honor Redford and Park City in some way as the festival prepares its departure.

An “exceptional evening” honoring Redford will take place at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley on Jan. 23, 2026, celebrating his vision of the festival after taking control of it. Community celebrations will include “archival screenings, restorations and special events” that honor its longtime host city, Hernandez added.

“It’s important for us to take this moment and acknowledge all the milestones and memories that we’ve shared together in Park City,” he wrote.

 

Related: A close look at the film industry in Utah