Friday film reviewers Rick Brough, Linda Jager, Andrea Buchanan and the Executive Director of Park City Film Katy Wang have all had to travel to the Salt Lake valley to watch new film releases.
That’s because both theaters in Park City are closed. The Holiday Village 4 Cinemas on Kearns Blvd. have closed indefinitely. The Redstone 8 Cinemas at Kimball Junction are undergoing a major renovation and won’t open until the end of the year.
Wang said while that has provided an opportunity for the local film series to pick up the slack, their agreement with Park City limits how many screenings can be shown.
“For us, we would love to do more films, but we are restricted by the lease that we have with the city for the Jim Santy Auditorium, so they're only allowed to do so many screenings per year,” Wang said. “So that's been a limitation on us in terms of what else we're able to present.”
Wang said they had to get a special exemption this summer so they could show more films as part of the Studio Ghibli Film Festival.
“That's an ongoing conversation that we're having with the city, and certainly, we would love to do more films, but as an independent theater, there's only so many films that are out there that we're able to show,” Wang said.
“A lot of the films in the summertime tend to be big blockbusters, which are not totally in align with our mission and the films that we like to present," She added. "But yeah, the film exhibition industry has definitely not bounced back from Covid in the way that other art forms have, and that's an ongoing conversation within the industry itself.”
Wang said she’s looking forward to attending the 51st annual Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day weekend.
With the leaders of the Sundance Film Festival considering moving to a new venue after the 2027 festival wraps in Park City, Wang is hopeful Sundance stays put because it offers what no other festivals can.
“Telluride is a very different experience,” Wang said. “I love it and it’s fun to go there and obviously it's a beautiful town. But it’s a much more curated experience. What’s delightful and unique about Sundance is one, there’s probably three times as many films, but you're seeing films that haven't gotten distribution, films that may never get distribution. So, you're seeing kind of the beginning of the arc of some of these films, whereas at Telluride, all of these films are either scheduled for release and have release dates or are about to be picked up. So, it's more of the award winners.”
Meanwhile, Park City Film is wrapping its summer season with two more Studio Ghibli films on Aug. 15 and 22 at the Jim Santy Auditorium and two more outdoor screenings at the Park City Library patio on Aug. 9 and the Kamas Town Park on Aug. 16.
Indoor films at the Jim Santy Auditorium begin Sept. 6.
