Where Should the Sundance Film Festival Go Next?
Like the character that gave the festival its name, Sundance may be about to take a big leap into the unknown.
After 40 years in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival announced in April that it was welcoming bids for a potential new home starting in January 2027. The festival has played down the reasons for leaving its longtime host, citing only a desire to ensure that “inclusivity and sustainability are always at the forefront.” Reading between the lines, the former seems a reference to anti-LGBTQ laws recently passed by the Utah state legislature, the latter an acknowledgment that Sundance may have outgrown Park City, a town of 8,000 that sees its entire Main Street booked for private events for the duration of the festival, leaving hardworking journalists no other option but to sustain themselves on grocery-store sushi for a week. But I digress!
Fifteen cities reportedly applied to be Sundance’s new home, and last week the festival officially narrowed its search to six finalists. Left off the list were hopefuls like Minneapolis (even colder than Utah), Athens (doesn’t have an airport), Savannah (already has the SCAD Film Festival), and Nashville (not really a film town; it’s more Hawk Tuah than Talk to Her). Sorry to all of them; perhaps they’ll have better luck applying to be the new hosts of Cannes.
A selection committee will visit each of the remaining contenders over the next few weeks, which should absolutely be the setup for a short-form documentary series. But before any final decision is made, it’s imperative that Sundance hear from a very important stakeholder — me. As a festival connoisseur who has learned to type an entire blog post on my phone in between bites of a chicken Caesar wrap, which city would I most like to spend a week rushing between theaters, trying to catch three, four, or even five movies a day?
The contenders will be judged on the following statistical criteria:
— What’s the weather like in January?
— How easy is it to get there, and once I’m there, how easy is it to get around?
— How much of Vox Media’s money will I be squandering to get a decent Airbnb?
— Can I get a tasty, moderately healthy meal in a 45-minute gap between screenings?
— Are there enough movie theaters to host a full-size festival? (Note that this is not necessarily disqualifying: One of the defining experiences of Sundance and Telluride is watching a premiere in a high-school auditorium or a converted ice-hockey rink.)
In addition, I will also offer a more amorphous vibes-based judgment. That the festival is keepings its traditional January date indicates it will attempt to maintain its role as an indie showcase that stands outside the winter awards circus. So we must also ask how well each prospective host fits with the established Sundance atmosphere. I want my celebs doing their Chase Sapphire Lounge photo shoots in quirky sweaters and the world’s most gigantic puffers. I want flat-brimmed hats and big ol’ boots. Sundance should not be Santa Barbara. A sense of being cut off from the outside world is a plus, as is a vague (and false) feeling of roughing it.
Is the grass always greener bluer on the other side? Let’s run down the likely candidates:
6. Louisville
Average January temperature: 36 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: About two and a half hours.
Flight time from L.A.: There are no direct flights; it’s around six hours with a layover.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: $130
Will I need to Uber everywhere? Public transit is “terrible, often late, and difficult to make connections.”
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? Apparently, there’s a food hall downtown. And, of course, there’s also the Hot Brown, a riff on the Welsh rarebit that’s basically an open-faced turkey sandwich topped with bacon and Mornay sauce, which I would absolutely need to try.
How many movie theaters are there already? Not many, though there are a couple performing-arts venues downtown that could be converted. Funnily enough, one local landmark is a marquee for a movie theater that no longer exists.
Louisville is only 100 miles away from another finalist, and they’re both in the same liminal region: not quite the Midwest, not quite Appalachia, and not quite the South. So it’s kind of funny that Sundance put both of them through to the finals, and even Louisvillians aren’t quite sure how they made the cut. (Conspiracy brain: Since Kentucky’s LGBT-rights rating is even worse than Utah’s, either the inclusivity thing is a red herring, or Sundance is stacking the field with red-state tomato cans to clear a path for the two cities it really wants.) Anyway, I guess the best argument you can make for Louisville is that it’s temperate and used to accommodating visitors. The local culture here seems mostly built around whiskey and horse racing, which doesn’t feel super Sundance-y to me.
5. Cincinnati
Average January temperature: 31 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: About two hours.
Flight time from L.A.: The only nonstop option is a Delta red-eye, if you’re up for it. Otherwise, you’re looking at a layover and a six-hour journey.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: $98, which is also the number of degrees in the city’s most famous band.
Will I need to Uber everywhere? Consensus says public transit is “not that bad.”
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? I am perhaps the only member of the East Coast media elite willing to defend Cincinnati chili, but I would not want to eat it more than once a week. Anyway, it seems like most of the places worth checking out are around the university, not downtown.
How many movie theaters are there already? There’s only one theater downtown, though as with other finalists, there are a few performing-arts venues that could accommodate film screenings.
I used to live in Cincinnati. Here’s my review: good playgrounds, excellent Chuck E. Cheese, gigantic kindergarteners. (I was a toddler.) I haven’t been back since I learned how to read, so I boned up on the copious “Louisville vs. Cincinnati” posts online to see which to rank higher. Cincy seems to edge it in terms of infrastructure and vibrancy, but let’s be honest — unless one of them knocks the pitch out of the park (which would be great for the aforementioned short-form doc), Sundance probably isn’t choosing either of these random midsize red-state cities.
4. Salt Lake City
Average January temperature: 31 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: Around five hours.
Flight time from L.A.: Around two hours.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: $80.
Will I need to Uber everywhere? There’s a light-rail system called TRAX and a bus network. Residents hail the public transit as “reliable.”
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? Enough to fill up an entire online listicle!
How many movie theaters are there already? There are a few multiplexes downtown.
This is actually a hybrid bid for Sundance to be jointly based in Park City and Salt Lake City, with the assumption that the larger locale would pick up more of the slack. Essentially, it’s the continuity option: SLC has hosted Sundance in the past, and the festival already schedules multiple events downtown. (Plus, unless you’re among the PJ set, you fly in here anyway.) There is an argument that SLC is the best of both worlds. It gives the festival all the infrastructure of a proper city while still feeling indisputably Sundance-y. Reporters would barely have to change their tweets! However, the home of the Jazz comes with one major sticking point. If Sundance really does want to leave Park City because of Utah’s anti-trans laws, simply moving 30 miles down the road won’t cut it.
3. Atlanta
Average January temperature: 44 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: Over two hours. (In fact, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives within a two-hour flight of the Atlanta airport.)
Flight time from L.A.: Sorry, L.A., you’re in the 20 percent. It’s about four hours.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: $120.
Will I need to Uber everywhere? Atlanta has the MARTA rail network, which is underwhelming.
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? When I was a kid, I used to love the Varsity, and the city is now a pioneer in the grain-bowl space.
How many movie theaters are there already? This is the eighth-largest metro region in the entire country, so there are a bunch.
Over the past decade, Atlanta has become a center for film and TV production. I’ve heard from people who work there that they often feel left behind or ignored by the power centers on the coasts. Sundance coming to town would fundamentally change Atlanta’s relationship with the industry. Considering that what gets made there is usually more commercial than the typical Sundance fare, it would also fundamentally alter the nature of the festival itself. This would be the opposite of sticking with Utah — a vote for Atlanta is a vote for radical change. (It’s worth noting that Georgia’s record on LGBTQ issues isn’t great, either.)
2. Santa Fe
Average January temperature: 30 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: No direct flights; it’s around seven hours with a layover. You could also fly into Albuquerque, which is an hour away, but there are no direct flights there from New York, either.
Flight time from L.A.: Albuquerque is only a two-hour flight. Flying into Santa Fe requires a layover, making it a four- to five-hour journey.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: $170.
Will I need to Uber everywhere? There are buses, but they’re slow and not always reliable.
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? Are breakfast burritos and green-chile burgers necessarily conducive to a lifestyle where you’re sitting in a movie theater nine hours a day? Perhaps not, but who cares.
How many movie theaters are there already? A couple independent theaters downtown — one of which is owned by George R.R. Martin — and a Regal in a mall about 15 minutes away.
It’s really expensive and a trek for New Yorkers. But otherwise, there’s a lot to recommend about Santa Fe, including a thriving local arts scene and the scale that’s ideal for a festival town: small enough to feel cloistered in a world of pure cinema, big enough to handle an influx of dorks in lanyards. I sense that the local vibe is kind of kooky, which is worth a lot of points in my book.
1. Boulder
Average January temperature: 34 degrees.
Flight time from NYC: Around four hours to Denver, which is 45 minutes away by car.
Flight time from L.A.: Over two hours to the Denver airport.
Average per-night cost of a “guest favorite” 1BR on Airbnb: There are almost no such 1BRs in Boulder on Airbnb.
Will I need to Uber everywhere? Transit is decent, and many residents say they’re able to get by without a car.
Are there copious fast-casual restaurants? Alongside cannabis shops, Patagonia fleece, and microbrews, my mental image of Boulder includes health-conscious fast-casual dining, and I’m pleased to report that the stereotype is correct.
How many movie theaters are there already? There’s the Art Deco Boulder Theater downtown and a Cinemark a mile away.
Boulder is the Goldilocks pick. It’s got the same small-city vibe as Santa Fe, but it’s cheaper and easier to get to. It’s conveniently located next to, but not in, a major urban center. If my map is correct, Colorado is only one state over from Utah, so the aesthetic won’t change too much. And it even has a Robert Redford connection — the star attended CU Boulder in his pre-fame days. The lack of quality Airbnbs is a bummer, but all things considered, I can live with it. THR’s Scott Feinberg says Boulder is the odds-on favorite, and though he notes some potential awareness around the preexisting Boulder International Film Festival held in March, he holds out hope for “some sort of an alliance that would keep all parties happy.” Redford’s daughter Amy is apparently helping out with the search, but I don’t think they’ll need to cajole her: In the eye of this beholder, it’s Boulder!