The Sundance Film Festival marks its 40th edition this year. Above, the Egyptian Theatre is pictured during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
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The Sundance Film Festival — which begins on Thursday — is celebrating its 40th edition this year. But beyond a gala and some retrospective screenings, you won’t see a lot of looking back.
“You won’t see us being too nostalgic,” says festival director Eugene Hernandez. “We really feel like the best way to honor the history of Sundance and the history of independent storytelling is by looking ahead.”
This year, Sundance organizers say they received a record 17,000 films from around the world submitted for consideration. That’s a lot of growth; the first year featured “maybe 25 films” and a handful of documentaries and “maybe 100 people wandered around out in front of the theater,” Robert Redford told NPR in 2017.
“I thought this is probably not going to work, but slowly it caught on and then it caught fire,” Redford said. “Now it’s almost out of control, but the mission was accomplished: To create the space for other voices in film to get their stories told and be seen.”
The festival began in Salt Lake City in 1978, to promote indie films as well as the state of Utah. After it moved to the ski resort town Park City, Redford took it over under the auspices of his Sundance Institute. (If you’re scratching your head over the math that the festival is celebrating its 40th in 2024 after beginning in 1978 that’s because it skipped a few years.)
Ever since, filmmakers and film lovers have gathered there for weeks of movie premieres, panels, parties and deal-making. Sundance earned a reputation for scouting talent and…
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