Hollywood hasn’t begun packing for the fall festivals in Vencie, Telluride and Toronto, but the Sundance Film Festival has dropped in with a reminder that January is around the corner.
On Wednesday, leadership at Sundance sent out a mid-year update on the fest’s seismic move from Park City, Utah to the Colorado mountain town of Boulder, setting the stage for state-of-the-art movie theaters, expanded competition slots and a much larger swath of ground to cover for industry types and filmmakers.
“In the new footprint, our venues are all within about a 2-mile radius,” wrote festival director and head of public programming Eugene Hernandez in a missive, pointing to key venues that will house the festival’s trove of indie films.
That includes the University of Colorado Boulder’s Macky Auditorium, the Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder Theater and the honest-to-God multiplex Cinemark Century (any Sundance veteran will be confounded by watching screenings in an actual modern movie theater, not a makeshift public building or school auditorium).
To call the location change an adjustment might be an understatement. To combat the shock, Sundance has been hosting “industry orientations,” as one source put it, for major stakeholders on the ground. Agents, artists, PR teams and more have been shuttling to Boulder to get the lay of the land. They’re also getting more opportunities for Sundance glory.
