Straight out of college, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson was one of the original employees at the Sundance Institute when it was created by Robert Redford in the 1980s.
Wilson, who is also a filmmaker, watched the institute’s film festival quickly grow over the ensuing decades with the release of cult classics like “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Memento” and Utah’s own “Napoleon Dynamite.”
“There was a sense that they needed to sort of pull back from what became quite crazy, especially in the town of Park City, as it related to celebrities and parties,” Wilson said. “I remember at the time, the organization taking a very focused, very deliberate decision to return the festival and its programming back to the core mission of Sundance, which was to foster independent storytelling and independent filmmaking.”
She said the COVID-19 pandemic had a massive impact on Sundance and the film industry as a whole.
“Then also just as we get further and further away from the foundation of [Sundance] almost 50 years ago, there’s less involvement directly by some of the initial people who, along with [Robert] Redford, had really created this dynamic organization,” Wilson said.
Last year Sundance announced it was considering leaving Park City due to the high costs and accessibility challenges that come with hosting a large event in a ski town. The organization launched a request for proposals, or RFP, to solicit bids from cities interested in becoming the film festival’s new home in 2027 and beyond.
The institute narrowed the list to three finalists, which included a revised Utah bid, and announced last week it will be moving to Boulder, Colorado, after one final festival in Park City.
Colorado lawmakers have approved a bill that offers the Sundance Film Festival $34 million in tax credits over 10 years. Utah was offering Sundance more than $12 million in cash and in-kind contributions annually for the festival to remain in the state. However, Colorado’s financial package was front-loaded with more guaranteed funding.
The Salt Lake County mayor said she was proud of Utah’s work to keep the festival and wanted Sundance to be in the state long-term. But she feels the film institute should have considered other changes to make the annual event more sustainable.
“[Sundance], like many nonprofit organizations, are facing the new normal after COVID,” Wilson said. “It’s your job to go back and determine what can we do differently? What is that right mix? Is 10 days the right amount of days?”
As a former Sundance employee, Wilson said she felt the RFP process was “ill-advised.” She said the organization was acting more like a business than an arts nonprofit.
“I really felt that it was not government’s role to solve their problems,” Wilson said. “They were very clear about it. They were courting money. They were looking at other cities and saying repeatedly to us, ‘How much more can you put in?’”
Park City Chamber CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff told KPCW that Sundance officials brought up the new Utah law banning Pride flags in schools and on government property in discussions before their final decision. The mayor said Utah’s conservative politics likely played some role in negotiations behind the scenes.
“I know people who have seen a film at Sundance that has been really impactful in their life for a variety of reasons, because it was and is a place for storytelling and a different type of story that you see in a traditional movie theater,” Wilson said. “I kept emphasizing with the board that you have more power in a state like Utah, in a red state, to change lives, than in a Colorado. And I believe that.”
Wilson, a Democrat, said she always felt there were Sundance board members who had a bias against Utah because of its politics.
“I just think it’s easy for the new board to say, ‘Not good enough Utah,’” she said. “But it seemed to be a very curt rejection of the legacy and history, not just the vision of [Robert] Redford, but the steps that have been taken year after year by this state – the investment – and that seemed to be, in my opinion, completely overlooked in this process.”
In the hours after Sundance’s announcement to leave its home of over 40 years, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced his intention to create a new local film festival.
“I don’t think that our governor can recreate what we had,” Wilson said. “As much as he may be very well-intentioned, I think that the next phase of film in our community needs to be organically grown,” Wilson said. “But I think we need a little time to figure out what that is. And to me, again, it should be community driven, not driven by government.”
Wilson said she’d be happy to help continue building Utah’s film ecosystem.
She also said she isn’t worried about the economic impact of Sundance leaving Salt Lake County, citing the ongoing redevelopment of downtown Salt Lake City and the return of the Winter Olympics in 2034.
Park City and Salt Lake City will host the last Sundance Film Festival in Utah from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1, 2026.
