The Sundance Film Festival announces its new home: Boulder, Colorado
The Sundance Film Festival will have a new home starting in 2027: Boulder, Colorado. The Sundance Institute made the announcement Thursday after a year-long process.
“Boulder offers small-town charm with an engaged community, distinctive natural beauty, and a vibrant arts scene, making it the ideal location for the Festival to grow,” the institute wrote in a press release.
The announcement says the festival will center in downtown Boulder, at theater and venues around the pedestrian-only Pearl Street Mall, as well as spots on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Our walkable downtown, iconic venues, and beautiful landscape at the base of the Rocky Mountains sets the stage for the Sundance Film Festival to flourish in its next chapter,” said Charlene Hoffman, the CEO of Visit Boulder.
Since 1985, cinephiles have trudged through the snow in the ski resort town Park City, Utah, to be the first to watch new, independent movies. It became an annual ritual after actor and filmmaker Robert Redford founded the nonprofit Sundance Institute to champion independent film.
“I thought, what if we start a film festival where at least the filmmakers could come and see each other’s work and form a community?” he explained to NPR in 2017. “I thought, this is probably not going to work, but slowly it caught on and then it caught fire. Now it’s almost out of control, but the mission was accomplished: to create the space for other voices in film to get their stories told and be seen.”
The community has grown since that first year, when Sundance screened around 25 feature films and a handful of documentaries to about a hundred people. In the past few years, tens of thousands of movie lovers have poured into Park City from around the world. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online offerings have gotten hundreds of thousands of views from fans watching at home.
Last year, Sundance organizers said the festival’s 10-year lease with Park City would end in 2027. When they announced they were looking for a new host city, more than 100 locations indicated they were interested. The finalists were whittled down to Salt Lake City, Utah, Boulder, Colo., and Cincinnati, Ohio.
In a press release announcing the finalists, the institute wrote that the candidates were assessed on their “ethos and equity values, infrastructure, and capabilities to host the Festival, in addition to demonstrating ways in which they will continue to foster the diverse Sundance community and inspire the next generation of independent filmmakers.”
The institute wrote they were looking to preserve their core principles. “Each finalist demonstrated how they would welcome and continue to foster the diverse Sundance Institute and Festival community and culture of independent creativity.”
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will continue to take place in Utah next winter.
Auburn fires coach Hugh Freeze following 12th loss in his last 15 SEC games
The 56-year-old Freeze failed to fix Auburn’s offensive issues in three years on the Plains, scoring 24 or fewer points in 17 of his 22 league games. He also ended up on the wrong end of too many close matchups, including twice this season thanks partly to questionable calls.
In a ‘disheartening’ era, the nation’s former top mining regulator speaks out
Joe Pizarchik, who led the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement from 2009 to 2017, says Alabama’s move in the wake of a fatal 2024 home explosion increases risks to residents living atop “gassy” coal mines.
‘It’s like feeling the arms of your creator just wrapped around you’: a visit to a special healing Shabbat
Members of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham gathered recently for their traditional Friday Shabbat service. But this particular service was different, as could be seen by all the people dressed in their finest pink.
Space Command is coming to Huntsville. What might that mean for first-time homebuyers
While Huntsville has been a more affordable market than other growing cities, what’s it been like for those looking for their first home?
Colorado says relocation of Space Command to Alabama is ‘punishment’ for mail-in voting
The litigation announced by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser asks a federal judge to block the move as unconstitutional.
Breaking down Alabama’s CHOOSE Act
It’s been a year since Alabama legislators passed the CHOOSE Act allowing families to apply for state funds to use towards homeschool expenses and tuition for participating private schools. The Alabama Daily News’ education reporter Trisha Powell Crain has been diving into how the funds are being used. WBHM’s Andrew Gelderman sat down with her to talk about what we’re seeing so far.
