Sundance is back in Park City. Is this the jolt the industry needs?
Hey, have you noticed the past couple of years have been kind of tough for the film industry? The pandemic shook everything up—starting with SXSW in 2020, all the major festivals were sidelined, and they’ve only recently begun to recover.
Sundance Film Festival has been virtual for the past two years, in the midst of general Hollywood panic and distribution shake-ups. COVID-19 had major studios throwing all their big titles onto streamers, for instance. Under pandemic restrictions, new projects were few and far between. Buyers weren’t walking Main Street or partying in chalets; they were watching early screeners or online premieres, communicating on Slack, and very much in new territory.
This environment probably drove a lot of the biggest Sundance sales of the past few years. In 2020, it was Palm Springs. The next year, it was CODA, which went on to be an Oscar movie for Apple. Last year, the fest was definitely more subdued, with no huge acquisitions and some subtle genre hits, some of which are just now trickling onto various platforms.
Author: Jo Light
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
