Sundance announces 2027 venues, dates

BOULDER — When the Sundance Film Festival makes its Colorado debut next January, venues in central Boulder and on the University of Colorado campus will play a starring role. 

The festival, which is moving to Boulder for at least a decade from its longtime homebase in Park City, Utah, will take place Jan. 21-31, Sundance organizers revealed Tuesday. 

“Working closely with the Colorado community, the 2027 Sundance Film Festival is already in our sights as we build towards an exciting debut in Boulder where our programming will meet audiences next January,” Sundance programming director Eugene Hernandez said in a prepared statement. “Nestled at the base of Colorado’s iconic Flatirons, venues across the city and CU Boulder’s campus provide an ideal setting for festivalgoers from across the world to come together, revel in art, spark conversation, and create unforgettable memories. Boulder offers a renowned creative arts and tech scene, paired with the vibrant CU Boulder students, faculty, and staff. We’ll share more details in the coming months and hope you’ll join us on our journey to Boulder as we build the Sundance Film Festival’s new home.”

As Colorado film industry representatives were participating in a Longmont Economic Development Partnership-hosted panel about Sundance’s local future, festival organizers unveiled Tuesday the locations where Sundance events will take place:

Theaters:

• Boedecker Theater, Dairy Arts Center.
• Boulder High School Auditorium.
• Boulder Theater.
• Casey Middle School Auditorium.
• Chautauqua Auditorium.
• Cinemark Century Boulder.
• eTown Hall.
• Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center.
• Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, University of Colorado Boulder.
• Muenzinger Auditorium, University of Colorado Boulder.
• Roe Green Theatre, University of Colorado Boulder.

Talks and festival programming:

• Canyon Theater, Boulder Public Library District.
• Dairy Arts Center.
• eTown Hall.
• Old Main, University of Colorado Boulder.

“Across these engaging locations, artists will showcase their captivating works, audiences will experience the debut of entertaining and trailblazing storytelling, and attendees will join in thought-provoking conversations and lively events, with additional information to follow in the coming months,” Sundance said in a news release. “The Festival will bring these experiences to a variety of vibrant neighborhoods across the city allowing attendees to immerse themselves in the thriving and innovative arts landscape.”

Jeff Levine, Sundance’s head of audience development, told Longmont officials and business leaders that “we are bringing upwards of 90 feature films and documentaries and 60 short films to the festival” next January.

Uprooting the festival from its longtime Utah homebase “is a massive undertaking for the institute. This is really unusual. I’ve been involved in a couple of big transformations, but this is wild, I think it really speaks to (Sundance founder) Robert Redford’s appetite for risk at the Sundance Institute.”

While the official festival programming, at least in Year One, will take place exclusively in Boulder, there are plenty of roles for other nearby communities, organizers said during the LEDP panel. 

Festival goers “will be spending money on lodging, they will be spending money on restaurants” in communities all along the Front Range, Levine said. “We are open to talking about ways we can collaborate outside of the programming itself and make Longmont and other towns feel engaged in the festival. … You’re dealing with an attendee who is interested in trying new things. So don’t assume that they wouldn’t want to spend a few hours and come visit your community.”

Leadership at the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit festival organizing body that was founded more than four decades ago by the Hollywood icon Redford, “really see all of these communities as essential to the success of the festival,” he said. 

In addition to tapping into the region’s existing spirit of community, festival organizers hope that Sundance will help foster new community connections. “Beyond (film screenings), there’s panels and there’s talks and there’s activities to do together,” said Boulder-based film producer Paula DuPré Pesmen, who is also Sundance’s relocation managing director. “You’ll be in a coffee shop and you’ll have a conversation with someone who you didn’t know. (Sharing festival experiences) I think really does create this organic community.”

While major film festivals might have a reputation for existing mainly as an excuse for the rich and elite to hobnob with celebrities, Levine said it’s Sundance’s intent to make its new host community feel welcome. “The question that I get asked most often is, ‘Can I get tickets?’ And yes, you can get tickets. This is very much a public film festival.”

But the festival, of course, will draw Hollywood bigwigs and the global entertainment industry’s focus to Boulder. State officials view Sundance as a chance to pitch industry mucketymucks on Colorado as a potential production and/or filming location for future projects, 

Colorado film commissioner Lauren Grimshaw Sloan said. “Next year they’re going to be in our backyard. So we’ll say, ‘Have you thought about Colorado? Don’t you like what you see?’”

Colorado governmental agencies, workforce-development organizations and educators, she added, must use Sundance’s arrival as an opportunity to redouble local efforts to make sure the human resources infrastructure is in place when producers and directors decide to set up shop in the Centennial State. 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated.

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