Sundance Film Festival To Move To Boulder, Colo., Beginning In 2027

After more than four decades in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival said it will move its home east to Boulder, Colo., outside of Denver, beginning after next year’s fest.

“This decision was informed by a detailed evaluation of the key components essential to creating our festival,” said Ebs Burnough, Board Chair of Sundance Institute, the non-profit organization that owns the festival. “During the process, it became clear that Boulder is the ideal location in which to build our festival’s future, marking a key strategic step in its natural evolution.

Boulder, located about 25 miles northwest of Denver along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, has long been a center of art and music. It is home to the University of Colorado’s flagship campus, and about 105,000 residents, part of a metropolitan area estimated at more than 300,000. Boulder is also a long-time center for technology companies and tech-oriented federal agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

“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,” according to the announcement by the Sundance Institute.

Initial plans call for the festival to be centered in downtown Boulder, which includes the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a nearby creek and parks, and the Dushambe Teahouse, along with offices for tech and health startups. The X Games’ new CEO, former World Cup skier and University of Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom (no relation), has also long had offices near Pearl Street.

“Together with the Boulder host committee, the Institute envisions the heart of the festival centered in downtown Boulder utilizing a wide array of theaters and venues, and incorporating spaces around the Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian-only street,” according to the release. “Nearby spaces will offer dedicated locations for our community to gather, including select spots on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus.”

“Creativity, innovation, and expression are at the heart of what makes Boulder special, and we’re ready to welcome storytellers and cinema lovers from around the world,” said said Charlene Hoffman, Visit Boulder CEO. “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.”

Sundance was founded by actor/director Robert Redford, filmmaker Sterling Van Wagenen, film teacher John Earle, and organizer Cirina Hampton Catania. The first Sundance-connected festival was held in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1978, before moving in 1981 to Park City, a ski town with a year-round population of around 9,000 located a 40-minute drive northeast.

The festival’s films have regularly gone on to more prominent recognition, including 2022’s section winners CODA and Summer of Soul, which respectively won the Oscar Best Picture and Best Documentary Feature in the following spring. Other Oscar-winning Sundance debuts over the years include Precious, Little Miss Sunshine, and Whiplash. Documentary projects that debuted at Sundance have gone on to win Oscars 20 times.

Over the decades since, Park City has increasingly strained to accommodate the burgeoning festival, as numerous elaborate brand activations and social events, record filmmaker submissions and festival attendance, and seemingly intractable traffic combined with below-freezing temperatures to routinely complicate logistics for the mid-winter gathering.

In the years since the pandemic, the festival has had some turnover in its leadership, with Eugene Hernandez taking over as director last year, as well as head of public programming for the Sundance Institute. Hernandez previously was a co-founder of IndieWire, a long-time online publication tracking independent film, and was director of the New York Film Festival and deputy executive director of film at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The institute announced two years ago that it would consider a new home for the festival. Other finalists included Salt Lake City, with an ongoing Park City satellite presence, and Cincinnati, Ohio. Next year’s festival, in January 2026, will be held again in Park City and Salt Lake City before moving to Boulder.