Here’s how the Sundance Film Festival will say goodbye to Park City, and to Robert Redford

Robert Redford is gone, and Park City will soon be a memory for Sundance Film Festival attendees — and organizers of this final edition say they will pay tribute to both, on and off the screen.

Programmers announced Tuesday that they will show one of Redford’s favorite movies, along with screenings of seven films that premiered over the years in Park City, the festival’s host since 1981. That relationship is ending after 2026, with the festival moving to Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027.

Senior programmer John Nein, who’s overseeing these tributes, noted in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the move is “an evolution of independent storytelling, and Redford’s commitment to that over the years — and we have to be joyful about that. … We can hold both those things in our hearts at the same time.”

Festival director Eugene Hernandez emphasized that the Sundance Institute “is still anchored in Utah. A third of our staff live in Utah. … We want to continue to build in Utah, outside of the festival.”

The festival is scheduled to run Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City and Salt Lake City. A “culmination event” on Friday, Jan. 30, will be “a thank you to Park City and the local Utah community.”

Ticket packages and passes — both for in-person screenings and online screenings — went on sale online Wednesday at 10 a.m. Mountain time, and most sold out quickly. Single-ticket sales start Jan. 14.

The 90 or so new feature films expected to debut at Sundance, plus shorts and episodic programming, will be announced in December, programmers said Tuesday. Nein said only that “there are going to be some amazing films, and [the slate] is going to lean into the very legacy that we are celebrating with this program. It’s going to keep that legacy going.”

Ending the festival in Park City, Hernandez said, “is a weight that we all feel, and these are real emotions that we all feel. ... We will be ready to come together and experience this moment together.”

Ticket deals for locals

Among the ticket packages and passes going on sale Wednesday at festival.sundance.org/tickets is the Locals Ticket Package, available exclusively to Utahns. For $675, the buyer gets 10 in-person tickets, earliest access to ticket selection (starting Jan. 9), and access to premiere and award-winner screenings. (The locals package sold out Wednesday.)

Two passes cater to folks who don’t go to Park City:

• The Salt Lake City Pass, for $600, allows unlimited access to screenings in the capital city, as well as priority access at all Salt Lake City theaters, and access to award-winner screenings. (Sold out.)

• The Salt Lake City Youth Pass, for $300, also allows unlimited access to screenings in the city, and priority access to all Salt Lake City theaters. This pass is limited to attendees between the ages of 18 and 25.

For those who do venture up, Park City’s Egyptian Theatre, one of the original venues, will be back as an event location, organizers announced. Theater manager Randy Barton had previously said the live theater space would not reinstall projectors for one last year.

Instead, Sundance said Tuesday, the Egyptian will play host to talks in the “Beyond Film” discussion series. Other talks will be held in the Cinema Cafe in the Filmmakers Lodge, the old Elks Lodge on Park City’s Old Main. The schedule will be announced in January.

Honoring Robert Redford

To pay tribute to Redford — the actor, director and Sundance Institute founder who died Sept. 16 at age 89 — organizers will show his 1969 classic “Downhill Racer,” in which he played a world-class skier determined to win at any cost, directed by Michael Ritchie. (The date and theater for the screening were not announced Tuesday.)

Redford intended “Downhill Racer” to be the first in a series of films about winning in America. It was meaningful to him as the first movie he produced independently.

Every year, Nein said, Redford would tell the young filmmakers he invited to the festival’s Directors Brunch about making the movie. Sharing the story at Sundance Mountain Resort, Nein said, “expressed the desire that [Redford] had to connect with them as artists, to say that we are all here together.”

Redford often talked about how “Downhill Racer” failed at the box office, which he blamed on the studio, Paramount Pictures, for not nurturing it properly. That experience prompted Redford to think about other ways independent filmmakers could make movies and find their audiences — which led him to create the Sundance Institute, as an incubator and showcase.

(“Downhill Racer” also is the only movie starring Redford to have been given a Criterion Collection DVD release, a notable distinction for film buffs.)

These other events during the festival will honor Redford:

• The institute fundraiser will pay tribute to Redford’s vision.

• There will be a “celebration event” dedicated to Redford in Salt Lake City. Details are still being finalized.

• The Directors Brunch — always one of Redford’s favorite festival events — will pay tribute to him.

‘Park City Legacy’ screenings

The screenings of past movies that premiered in Park City will occur during the festival’s second half, Tuesday-Friday, Jan. 27-30; exact dates were not announced.

Most of the movies have been restored and represent Sundance’s efforts with the UCLA Film and Television Archive to preserve classic independent movies, Nein said. That’s not always easy, he said; for example, one of the titles, “Half Nelson,” has been out of print for years because the distributor’s parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.

The films to be screened are:

• “American Dream,” director Barbara Kopple’s landmark 1990 documentary, which followed workers at a Hormel plant in Minnesota who went on strike after their wages and benefits were cut. The movie, which won three awards at Sundance in 1991, is being presented in a 4K digital restoration. Kopple is scheduled to attend the screening.

• “Half Nelson,” the 2006 debut of the filmmaking team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (he directed, they co-wrote). Ryan Gosling received an Oscar nomination for his performance as an inner-city junior high school teacher who befriends a student (Shareeka Epps) after she discovers he is a drug addict. Fleck, Boden “and others” are scheduled to attend.

• “House Party,” writer-director Reginald Hudlin’s 1990 comedy, centered on the hip-hop duo Kid ‘n Play (Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin), hosting a party that turns into the wildest night of their lives. The 4K restoration has been supervised by Hudlin and cinematographer Peter Deming. Hudlin and his brother, producer Warrington Hudlin, are scheduled to attend.

• “Humpday,” director Lynn Shelton’s 2009 comedy about two guys (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) who decide to enter a notorious Seattle event dedicated to amateur porn films. Shelton died in 2020 at age 54 from undiagnosed leukemia. Sundance said the screening will pay tribute to “all the festival artists who have passed away but whose work remains with us.”

• “Little Miss Sunshine,” the 2006 comedy about a dysfunctional family coming together to get their 9-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) to a child beauty pageant. Steve Carell and Toni Collette play the parents; Alan Arkin won an Oscar as her grandpa. Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have supervised a 4K restoration, and are scheduled to attend the screening, along with screenwriter Michael Arndt (another Oscar winner for this film) and co-stars Breslin, Paul Dano and Greg Kinnear.

• “Mysterious Skin,” writer-director Gregg Araki’s 2005 drama about two former friends (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet) whose lives are changed in different ways by a strange event in their youth. Araki supervised the 4K restoration. Araki “and others” are scheduled to attend.

• “Saw,” the 2004 horror movie in which two men (Cary Elwes and co-writer Leigh Whannell) are chained to walls in a room with a dead body between them — and instructions from the mysterious Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) to escape or kill each other.

“Saw” might be the most successful movie ever to premiere at Sundance, launching a 10-movie franchise that has earned more than $1 billion worldwide. Director and co-writer James Wan, who supervised the 4K restoration, went on to direct “Insidious,” “The Conjuring,” “Furious 7” and two “Aquaman” movies. Wan “and others” are scheduled to attend the screening.