BURSTThe Sundance Film Festival announced that it will be moving from Park City, Utah - its home for over four decades - to Boulder, Colo., in 2027, according to its organizers.
“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town. It is a place where the Festival can build and flourish,” Sundance Institute Acting CEO Amanda Kelso said in a Thursday press release.
“This is the beginning of a bold, new journey as we invite everyone to be part of our community and to be entertained and inspired,” Kelso added. “We can’t imagine a better fit than Boulder.”
The year-long process to find the next host included looking at the finalist cities’s “infrastructure, ethos and equity values, event capabilities” and how each spot could “sustainably serve and support the Festival’s ever-growing community of independent artists and audiences.”
Apart from Boulder, a city with a population of 100,000 near Denver, the other three finalists were Cincinnati, Ohio and Salt Lake City, Utah.
“This decision was informed by a detailed evaluation of the key components essential to creating our Festival. During the process, it became clear that Boulder is the ideal location in which to build our Festival’s future, marking a key strategic step in its natural evolution,” Sundance Institute Board Chair Ebs Burnough said.
The influential movie festival, which was founded in 1978 by Robert Redford, will be hosted in the center of Boulder, with the institute looking to utilize various venues, theaters and spaces around the Pearl Street Mall.
The annual festival draws a host of artists, celebrities and filmgoers who watch critically acclaimed movies.
While Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and Boulder’s Mayor Aaron Brockett were thrilled with the organizer’s choice, Utah’s Gov. Spencer Cox (R) argued the decision to depart Utah is a “mistake.”
“As I’ve said from the beginning, we wanted Sundance to stay. We made that clear to their leadership and put together a highly competitive package,” Cox wrote in a Thursday post on social media platform X. “Ultimately, this decision is theirs to make — but I believe it’s a mistake, and that one day, they’ll realize they left behind not just a place, but their heritage.”