Park City's answer to losing Sundance: Let's do another one

PARK CITY — Ever since the Sundance Film Festival made it clear that its 2026 showing was to be its last in Utah, people in the arts-loving community of Park City started posing the obvious question: How on earth will we even begin to fill the void?

One group they turned to for ideas was Park City Film, the grass roots nonprofit organization that shows independent films on weekends in the Santy Auditorium on Park Avenue.

Park City Film owes its very existence to Sundance. It was started in 1995 when the film festival was growing by leaps and bounds and needed another venue to show its movies. A deal was struck: The city would turn the auditorium on the third floor of the town's library building into a proper movie theater. In return, the new venue would be able to show Sundance-type movies to locals throughout the year.

The result was a classic 424-seat theater that was named after Jim Santy, a beloved band teacher when the library building used to be Park City High School (Santy was the driving force to preserve the 1927 building when developers wanted to tear it down).

As Sundance continued to grow, so did Park City Film, evolving from showing indie films in the Santy maybe once a quarter to showing them every weekend.

The Park City Film Series "became a locals, quirky kind of thing," is how Katie Wang, who became the nonprofit's first full-time executive director in 2012, describes it. "Our tagline was: 'What locals do in the dark.'"

Knowing of the loyal support from an extensive number of local followers and supporters, it did not take long for Park City Film executive director Katharine (Katie) Wang and her staff of three to come up with an answer as to how to replace the recently departed iconic film festival:

Let's start another one.

Says Katie, "We have this great tsunami effect from Sundance. The idea was let's build on that, let's continue to celebrate the art of independent storytelling and the conversations it sparks.

"We're not replacing Sundance. They're a $26 million organization that's been around for 40-plus years. But we do have the opportunity to get back to the roots of what Robert Redford created, which is connecting audiences with independent filmmakers."

And this time without the parking hassles, the crowds — and the cold midwinter weather.

The first "Park City Film Festival" is scheduled to be held Oct. 23-25, featuring nine movies and one block of short films. They will all be shown at the Santy Auditorium, beginning with a premiere Friday night and four films each on Saturday and Sunday. The traditional Q&A sessions with filmmakers will follow, in addition to four panel discussions on Saturday and Sunday at Prospector Square. (For details go to parkcityfilm.org .)

It's a far cry from the 151 films aired at 10 venues during Sundance 2026. But nobody's going to charge you $50 to park in their yard.

The way Katie sees it, the new mini-festival has a huge asset in the movie theater the enormous festival couldn't take with it.

"It's a beautiful venue," says Katie, "and at 424 seats, it's quite large. The average movie theater size is 120. Another advantage is that we're in a space we know intimately. As much as you can control the variables, the better."

That's important, she points out, because of the quick turnaround from the old festival to the new one.

"Sundance ended in February, we decided in March to see if we could get this off the ground. We wrote some grants, got early support from sponsors of the Park City Chamber and Summit County restaurant tax grants, and by June we'd raised enough that we're like, OK, this is going to be a go, so let's start really activating and booking films."

And stop looking backward.

"I loved Sundance," says the newest resident film festival director in Park City. "I was heartbroken, honestly, when Sundance left. It is absolutely not the future I had envisioned. But what's the alternative? Sit here and cry in your tea and be sad that they left us? What fun is that? I'm a firm believer in you create the world you want to live in. I want to live in a town and a community that invests in and celebrates the arts. And film is the medium I work in. We have this great opportunity. People are supporting us. It's fun, it's terrifying, it's exciting, all at once — and we're going to go for it."

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