The spinning wheel of death. That’s what I’ll remember most from Sundance’s last hurrah in Park City. As that’s what I got whenever I tried to open the app, show a ticket, get on a waitlist, figure out what movie to go see since the Press & Industry screening line had filled for my preferred film an hour earlier than normal (because of oversold passes, ahem) and I needed a back-up to my back-up option. It got so bad that the festival staff just told everyone to take photos of their tickets and use those instead.

I’ll also remember the lack of snow and ice, an issue not just in Park City but throughout the region this year. I’ll remember the nostalgia overload for us old-timers, and the excitement of the numerous newcomers who came for the first time, just to experience the last hurrah. While I did Sundance “wrong” this year and had too many speaking gigs and meetings, I’m lucky that the films I did see were all good. Buzz was strong among audiences, if muted among buyers, but that to me is a story as old as Sundance.

This was a difficult Sundance experience to reconcile with everything else going on in the world and particularly in Minneapolis. As I sat there, watching films, taking meetings and speaking on panels about whatever nonsense, a good friend of mine from MSP was organizing a contingent of battle-hardened journalist-documentarians to get to town to capture what was really happening. We need more people like her; that’s about all I know to say.

As for Sundance now and in the future, the bottom-line is – everyone wants Sundance to succeed. Needs Sundance to succeed. All cynical takes you might hear, including my own, are a testament to what Robert Redford built – along with a big dose of brilliance from Michelle Satter and legions of others over the years who helped bring that vision to life, as the naysayers and doubters are only worried because the stakes are real. Sundance could fail, not just at moving, but at surviving the issues facing all film fests right now, or at rising to the changes and challenges of the sector. But everyone wants it to succeed, but with changes. What those changes should be are different for everyone.

I spend the first few days of the fest running between Sundance and the BrandStorytelling Conference up in Deer Valley. The BST event is great and has been adapting with changes in the times (more on that below) and will undoubtedly change more under its new ownership. But the fact that I must run between them is telling, as the worlds remain too separate right now. Everywhere I go in Park City, people wanted to meet with me about working with brands. Or I was meeting with brands who wanted to work with more Sundance-type filmmakers, and on films that might be good enough to premiere in Sundance. There needs to be more convergence between these two worlds, both of which would benefit from a tighter relationship. 

Let’s just say there’s a lot of hucksterism in the brands/film world, and it’s only increasing as more Hollywood companies have moved into the sector, trying to steal the latest dollars on the scene. While great work is being made, overall, the quality of a lot of the work remains below the standards of Sundance, and the sector could benefit from the kind of nurturing the Institute brings to its programs. Brands would also benefit from talking more to distributors, exhibitors and others in the real marketplace and less to the paid media teams of these same organizations, so they’d know what the market wants, not what a sales team can package and sell. 

At the same time, the traditional indie film world is facing dire financial straits. Whether within originals teams at studios/streamers, or at the truly indie level, there’s a lot of room for collaboration on budgets. There’s also a need for more funding for P&A, impact campaigns, and new ways to reach audiences. The indie world doesn’t know from marketing, where the brand world excels. There’s a need for more connections, for breaking down silos (I can’t mix these groups on my own, but I try), and for shared learnings on what works. And in a world that values authenticity over artifice, there’s value to be found in a more natural marriage around storytelling and reaching audiences, instead of brands doing meaningless activations on Main Street, with Sundance getting none of the value. Tighter integration between the two could lead to a new “Catalyst” mixing brands and storytellers and distributors to bring better films to audiences. The people doing the good work in both sectors want these relationships, but they need to work more closely for the sector to move forward.

BrandStorytelling was ahead of the game in another area, bringing the “Creator Economy” to the scene with its Creator Day a year ago, and with continued integration of the two worlds this year. As the folks at Open Gardens noted, “Creators aren’t replacing independent filmmakers. They’re becoming what independent filmmakers used to be.” Sundance remains behind the times on that front – not that the Creator world isn’t showing up in Park City (and they’ll follow to Boulder), but all of the conversations were happening on sidebars to the festival. They were taking place at BST, at the Impact Lounge, at every sponsor house, at gatherings I didn’t even attend. 

And here’s where I’m torn. On the one hand, Sundance should embrace these sidebar activities that are missing from the official program and line-up. On the other, that’s how Sundance has always been. Slamdance started to back when it was clear that a more rebellious indie spirit needed a home. For many years, folks working on social impact were a sidebar, and while they’ve become movers and shakers (and SUV-chauffeured, VIP badge wearing cognoscenti of the fest), they also had their own sidebar events going in multiple locations. There have also been sidebar homes focused on other things the fest has missed, or can’t completely serve – places focused on DEI, or public media, and now there are ones for AI, FilmStack, anti-monopoly activists, new business and artistic models, and so on. 

Sundance can’t do it all and never has. It stays focused on what it does well – programming movies and nurturing artists – while the circus comes to town and takes place around it, and slowly the best elements of those sidebars seep into the DNA of Sundance a bit. But you can also look at the better of these sidebars as nascent movements needing leadership to fulfill their potential.

As Sundance gains its own new leadership, makes a move to Boulder, and considers what it wants to be next as it grows up, there’s a golden opportunity for Sundance to take the lead in some of these side conversations, and put forth a vision of where the field can go next. Sundance can lead here or others will do so, either alongside them in Colorado, or at another festival somewhere else in the world – an existing or a new one. You only get one opportunity to start fresh. Walking around Park City and talking with friends and strangers about where the world is and where it’s going, there was a palpable sense of love for Sundance and an equally appreciable sense of dread that they won’t be capable of rising to the challenges. My hope and bet is that they figure it out. But they’ll be more likely to succeed by collaborating smartly with all of those pushing them from the outside, from the margins, showing them glimpses of where they should go next. Whatever they do next, all of us seem ready to show up in Boulder and see what they build, and we hope it’s a start down a path to the future we need.