Locals can get a last taste of the Sundance Film Festival through the Sundance Institute’s annual Local Lens program this month. The free summer series features four 2026 festival favorites.
While it has run in one form or another for around 25 years, it may be the last Local Lens in Utah. With the Sundance Film Festival moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027, senior programmer Basil Tsiokos said the program’s future is unclear.
“Our intention at this point, given that our institute is still based in Utah, we'd still like to continue doing public programming of some sort,” he said. “Whether that's Local Lens or something else, it's too early to say.”
The Sundance Institute applied for Summit County RAP Cultural Grant funding to support the program this year, but its application was rejected.
A grant committee memo says the Institute didn’t provide “solid evidence of [it’s] commitment to either Park City or Summit County.” The application also lacked specifics on dates or showings and only agreed to host summer programming.
Still, Tsiokos said the Sundance Institute calls Utah home, and the team will work to provide local programming.
“We have lots of staff still based in Utah. We have audiences that know us and love us, and we wanted to still be able to give back with public programming in some form or another,” he said.
Tsiokos said Local Lens is designed to do just that.
This year’s program is July 18 and 19 in Salt Lake City and Park City. The free series will bring back a mix of 2026 festival films that have not been released commercially.
“It's really our way of sort of paying tribute to the audience in Utah, being able to show films that played really well during the festival and giving audiences another opportunity to see them,” said.
This year’s picks are “The Lake,” “Take Me Home,” “TheyDream” and “Union County.”
Directed by Parkite Abby Ellis, “The Lake” focuses on the crisis surrounding the Great Salt Lake. The film won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact for Change.
“Take Me Home” won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for U.S. Dramatic feature. It follows a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability as she cares for her aging parents. “Union County” is about a young man’s journey to addiction recovery.
Tsiokos said “TheyDream” has a special place in his heart. The documentary is about family, loss and grief and won the NEXT Special Jury Award for Creative Expression.
“It's a filmmaker and his mom sort of working together to kind of reanimate people in their lives, family members that have passed, passed on through animation and other techniques,” Tsiokos said. “It's a really beautiful, beautiful moving film.”
Tickets are still available for Local Lens screenings at the Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium.
Reservations are required.
