“I remember the first time I came here,” a producer with a film at this year’s Sundance told me in January while devouring a sandwich at the Annex Burger bar, situated on Main Street in Park City. “Seeing the mountains as you drive in, getting to know your neighbors and bartenders, watching people in their winter gear. It’s just such a unique vibe. With love to Ohio, I don’t think you’re going to get this energy and beautiful setting in the Midwest.”
Although the Sundance Film Festival still has one more year left in its Park City location, the talk of this year’s fest was its departure to a new home in 2027. Boulder, Colorado, Cincinnati, Ohio and Salt Lake City and Park City are the three candidate spots, per the organization, and a final decision is expected any day now.
Related Stories
VIP+
Why the Theatrical Window Debate at CinemaCon Feels Hopeless
'Paradise' Season 2 Casts Shailene Woodley
The topic was nearly unavoidable in Park City this year, with debates about the fest’s future taking place at nearly every street corner. The consensus among the creatives and attendees I spoke with? Cincinnati doesn’t feel like home to the Sundance community.
Popular on Variety
While waiting for the bus outside of the Eccles Theater after the premiere of the Palestinian family drama “All That’s Left of You (اللي باقي منك),” many attendees were huddled against the cold. Yet one Los Angeles-based film student who is attending his first Sundance told me he didn’t mind the freezing weather, because the festival gave cozy vibes distinctly at odds with Southern California.
“This just feels like a vacation with some great films around,” he said. “I’m meeting so many people, and things are so compact that you bump into interesting folks. I grew up in the Midwest, and it’s just different.”
Different, indeed. One huge change is the lack of ski culture in Cincinnati, where the closest slopes are hours away. I spoke to one screenwriter, while waiting in the rideshare pickup lane, who said the times she has been to the festival have been a blend of seeing old friends, partying and hitting the slopes.
“I definitely treat Sundance as a vacation,” she said. “I see a few movies, but it’s usually more about checking out the discussions and looking for free cocktails. But we always pair it with skiing on the best weather days, and Cincinnati isn’t exactly known for great snowboarding and skiing.”
While grabbing a latte at Java Cow on Sunday morning, one publicist lamented not seeing Jennifer Lopez’s surprise appearance and performance at TAO Park City the night before. But it only strengthened their position that Sundance shouldn’t move to Ohio.
“I hate to say it, but there’s just nothing sexy about Cincinnati,” he said. “J.Lo isn’t going to play a secret party in Ohio. Is there a scene out there? Are there film lovers there? People don’t want to be honest about this, but there’s an exclusivity to Park City, and just nothing seems cool about Cincinnati.”
When Cincinnati was named as one of the final three potential locales in Sept., the mayor, Aftab Pureval, and the president / CEO of Film Cincinnati, Kristen Schlotman, released a statement advocating for their city, writing, “We are ecstatic to continue being considered as the next host city for the Sundance Film Festival. As long-time attendees, we believe Cincinnati’s dedication to the arts, hospitality, and historic theaters make it a great fit. We are inspired by the idea of partnering with the Sundance Institute to celebrate the festival’s rich legacy while introducing a dynamic, walkable and accessible new venue. Cincinnati’s blend of creativity, culture, and community promises to be an unforgettable experience for both filmmakers and audiences.”
Pureval attended the festival, according to the city’s local news reports, as well as a delegation of leaders from the city. Film Cincinnati was also a sponsor of the festival’s opening night Taste of Sundance event.
Yet that doesn’t alleviate vocal concerns that dealmakers won’t follow the festival out east. While the compact Main Street setup of Park City allows for brands to have spashy signage in a concentrated area, a more spread out fest in Cincinnati doesn’t allow for the same ubiquity.
Yet some members of the filmmaking community who know Cincinnati best advocate for the city as a vibrant potential home for the festival. Brandon Harris, a critic, filmmaker and former development executive at Amazon Studios, was born and raised in the city and shot his 2012 feature “Redlegs” there. He points to the city’s booming filmmaking scene, which has attracted directors like Todd Haynes and Steven Soderbergh,as well as its solid infrastructure and rich cultural history as benefits of heading to the midwest.
“I think moving to Cincinnati would certainly speak to a desire to be in a less rarified and more accessible place, not just geographically but socioculturally,” he said. “It’s a blue city in a red state that is vastly more diverse than Boulder or Park City. It’s the home of both the National Underground Railroad Museum and the birthplace of Reform Judaism. It feels to me like a place is more representative of the America that Sundance is trying to reach than the other potential candidates, and the America that the film industry is struggling to figure out how to reach with its wares.”
Furthermore, a source close to the Sundance organization waves off criticism of Cincinnati as “coastal elitist bias” and maintains that “the festival is focused on film, not activations and parties at TAO.”
What remains to be seen is who would follow the fest to the Midwest. One director screening a short film at this year’s Sundance said he wasn’t sure if he’d submit to a version held elsewhere.
“I feel like the legacy of Sundance is decades of cool storytellers trudging up and down a snowy main street,” he said. “There’s a vibe, there’s a hipness to it. You think of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape,’ and Robert Redford in winter gear. It’s iconic. What’s iconic about Cincinnati?”
