Could the Sundance Film Festival leave Park City?

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For the first time in 40 years, moviegoers, stars and drug dealers will not be filling the theaters, bars and streets of Park City this January.

Park City restaurateur Brooks Kirchheimer wonders how many will be back in 2022, after the coronavirus pandemic that pushed this year’s shortened festival online and on screens in other cities.

“This is a concern that not many people want to voice,” he said, “because they are really concerned that it could actually come to pass.”

But downsides also arose, with digital premieres less likely to generate the festival’s buzz for films.

And the Sundance Institute – the non-profit arts organization founded by Robert Redford that runs the festival – has a contract with Park City to host it until 2026.

Redford has long rejoiced in the vibe of Park City as the home of the festival, especially when Angelenos with inadequate footwear complain about the mountain weather. “The snow and the downsides – I love it,” Redford said in a 1996 interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. “That’s sort of what the idea was: do it in the winter, move it to Park City, create a little rougher atmosphere to make it fit the image of what a movie is. independent.

Still, Betsy Wallace, the institute’s financial director and Utah chief executive, said the festival was looking forward to returning to Utah next year. “Park City and Utah are our home,” Wallace said. “In 2022, we’re going to work very hard – assuming COVID allows us to – to get back to a certain level.”

How Park City’s 2021 split developed

City council this fall approved easing its 70% requirement for 2021, at the institute’s request, when it became clear that a full in-person festival would be a health risk from COVID-19 said Jenny Diersen, Special Events and Economic Development Program Manager for Park City Municipal Government.

“We have worked hand in hand with them throughout 2020,” said Diersen, “… trying to find the best thing to do for the health and safety of our community, as well as their staff and their talent and organization. “

But due to the high number of COVID-19 cases in parts of the country, that list has been reduced to 20, with most of the remaining sites having access to drive-ins. Plans for Park City’s The Ray, a theater built in a former sporting goods store on Park Avenue, have been canceled.

The concept of “satellite screens” is nothing new – Jackson’s predecessor, John Cooper, launched the Sundance Film Festival USA in 2010. One evening of the festival, some Sundance films were shown in a handful of cities. of filmmakers. This program ran until 2014. And from 2001 to 2005, the Sundance Online Film Festival ran alongside the physical event, showing a small collection of short films.

“I want to be humble enough to understand what we’re learning by having this great experience,” Jackson said in December. “I can’t see a world in which, as the festival director, we wouldn’t want to have increased access to an online expression of the festival.”

At the same time, Jackson said, “I know I’m hungry to go back to Park City and these people, these audiences.”

Virtual premieres are not the same springboard

Some films at these festivals struggled to generate publicity or find distribution when they made their virtual debut, Kohn said.

“Without the physical component, it’s not really a great marketing opportunity,” he said, because these movies are very similar to the content that the big streaming distributors are already putting out.

The exception among the fall festivals, Kohn said, was Venice, “the only type of A-level festival that had a truly traditional physical event with a red carpet, a flashy jury led by Cate Blanchett, and a winner, ‘Nomadland,’ which got that boost to awards season that these types of festivals [give]. “

The challenge for Sundance in an online format, Kohn said, is to continue to be “a festival of discovery,” a launching pad for new films and new talent, “which is what Sundance has done well. over the years.”

Online, he said, a breakout movie “still won’t make the same kind of noise it used to be.”

Even the films that were shown in person in Park City at the 2020 festival struggled to reach audiences due to the pandemic, he said. He quotes “Minari,” the Korean-American immigration drama that won the Sundance Jury Grand Prize in the American Drama Competition.

“It was a film that was ready to ride the wave of Sundance hype and critical enthusiasm to be a true awards player,” Kohn said. Films about such a campaign would typically be reintroduced to viewers and critics at fall festivals, such as Toronto, Venice and New York.

Without the high-profile rallies in Toronto and New York, Kohn said, “Minari” “just doesn’t seem to have that kind of momentum.”

On the flip side, another Sundance 2020 title, Garrett Bradley’s documentary “Time,” which chronicled a woman’s struggle to get her husband out of prison, benefited from a distribution deal with Amazon, has Kohn said. “He seems to have a really strong life until awards season.”

The unique energy of being together

All film festivals will want to come back in person as soon as it is safe, Kohn predicts, even those who might continue certain offerings online. “There is something about site-specific events,” he said, “that cannot yet be replicated in our culture.”

And as the Sundance Film Festival continues to evolve, “it’s a little hard to imagine Sundance abandoning Park City,” Kohn said, “because any other option would be competing with an incredibly dense market, which that it happens.

Its setting now gives it a unique draw, he added. “This idea of ​​getting people to Main Street, where you can still have a luxurious experience, but at the same time you have to wear snow boots, you have to be in the thick of it. … It is a unique type of energy.

British filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, who will see his film “Life in a Day 2020” premiering online at Sundance this year, has said he will miss the experience he had in Park City with his prequel.

“Life in a Day 2020” is a documentary produced on YouTube showing life around the planet on July 25, 2020. Macdonald, whose credits include the mountaineering documentary “Touching the Void” and the drama “The Last King of Scotland ”, created it using scenes from over 300,000 clips submitted by people in 192 countries.

For his fellow “Life in a Day,” which premiered at Sundance 2011, he shared the stage of the Eccles Center Theater with 30 filmmakers who submitted a video.

“It was a beautiful kind of event,” he said, “unlike anything I had experienced in the movies – people who came from the ends of the earth, who had never met. , which were all part of that.