The penultimate Sundance Film festival to run in Park City ended over the weekend in a flurry of awards.
There was scarcely any on-site activity by way of completed acquisitions, although deals will follow in the weeks and months ahead. And there were genuine discoveries, reflecting the accepted wisdom that Sundance is a complicated beast and is many things to many people.
The big talking point is where will the revered soul of independent cinema house itself starting in 2027. The festival hierarchy will reveal all before long. Screen looks at some of the key talking points to emerge from the festival, which ran January 23-February 2.
Sales market
The slowest Sundance market in living memory may be the confluence of unfortunate events (the LA wildfires made it hard to focus; the long-tail impact of the 2023 Hollywood strikes), the continuation of a trend that began during the pandemic (US buyers have become ultra-cautious in an unforgiving distribution landscape and deal-making can play out on Zoom well beyond a festival or market’s end date), or simply timing (there just weren’t that many commercial films ready). Most likely it was a combination of all three, but buyers bemoaned the fact that the selection was, on the whole, sobering and bleak.
Michael Shanks’ body horror Together, starring real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco, was the big sale, going to Neon in a worldwide deal believed to be in the $17m range. No other acquisition title came close to being as commercial appealing. Netflix snapped up the Felicity Jones-Joel Edgerton drama Train Dreams, and A24 is closing a deal for Eva Victor’s excellent feature debut Sorry, Baby. Beyond that, deals will eventually close on titles like, among others, Nadia Fall’s Brides, The Thing With Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jimpa with Olivia Colman and John Lithgow – solid films led by strong performances. But who will step up to buy Bill Condon’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman, a story that has gone through multiple iterations in book, film and play form, which is said to have cost between $50m and $60m?
Discoveries
Sundance’s new-ish festival director Eugene Hernandez has emphasised the festival’s return to its discovery roots, a theme the hierarchy has repeated since Geoff Gilmore’s tenure when it was common to see the biggest names in Hollywood turn up to support their Park City world premieres of studio films. The good news is Sundance has indeed been bringing back the discoveries and in 2025 there were several that caused a stir for all the right reasons. Anybody who saw Sorry, Baby in particular will know that writer-director-actor Eva Victor is a major talent. Her feature debut blends a deep sense of unease over a shocking event with a touching and darkly humourous character study wrapped in a puzzle. Props must also go to Rashad Frett’s accomplished and sobering feature debut Ricky, starring another standout, Stephan James, as a young man who is released from prison after spending half his life behind bars and struggles to adapt to life on the outside.
Documentaries were strong
As usual, Sundance wore its world-class non-fiction credentials on its sleeve and programmed some absolute corkers that should remain in the conversation throughout the year with robust festival lives and perhaps the odd Telluride screening and awards season run. While this season may not emulate last year’s exceptional crop, which has delivered four out of the five current Oscar nominees, there were acclaimed entries. It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, Seeds, 2000 Meters To Andriivka, Come See Me In The Good Light, André Is An Idiot, and Sly Lives! each packed a punch in different ways.
2027 and beyond
Visitors and locals arguing for and against Sundance in Park City is nothing new, but the debate has intensified since the pandemic and Sundance acted, inviting bids from would-be hosts. Commonly heard refrains: Sundance has outgrown Park City and become too corporate. Prices have soared. The ski community looks down its nose at the festival and hotels don’t like the distraction. Local businesses love Sundance and will miss it. The state will miss the income. In the coming weeks or months the festival hierarchy will reveal where Sundance will situate itself starting in 2027.
Of the three possible choices, Cincinnati seemed to be the destination on most people’s lips during this year’s festival, and Screen has heard the same. But whether it is in Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado, or a hop down the Utah mountain to Salt Lake City (with Park City taking a back seat), the festival will still need to make some noise to capture attention. That said, it won’t want those activations and corporate take-overs on the main drag to become too noisy or risk upsetting the locals. Boulder is a big college town and has a population of roughly 105,000 according to the 2023 Census – small by the standards of a major city, but much bigger than Park City’s 8,250. Salt Lake City is two times more populous than Boulder, and Cincinnati three times.
Sundance 2.0 will not be Park City in the mid-1980s, or present-day Telluride, where filmmakers and attendees rub shoulders while lining up to watch movies. But it will feel new, and the powers that be are privately adamant it will carry with it the independent spirit of a festival that has thrilled and inspired for decades. In the eyes of a lot of people who confided in Screen, that may not be a bad thing.
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