Sundance organizers visit Louisville to vet the city as finalist for international film festival's future

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville is a contender to host one of the biggest film festivals in the world, and organizers were in the city Wednesday getting a tour of what could be.

The Sundance Film Institute named Louisville earlier this month as one of six finalists to "move forward to the next phase as potential host cities for the Festival beginning in 2027." The other five finalists are:

Atlanta, Georgia
Boulder, Colorado
Cincinnati, Ohio
Park City/Salt Lake City, Utah
Santa Fe, New Mexico

After 40 years in Park City, the festival is eyeing locations across the country for festivals starting in 2027 when its existing contract will be up for renewal. The snowy mountain town, along with Salt Lake City, will still be home to the 2025 and 2026 festivals, and the Utah cities are one of the six options for future festivals.

The Sundance Institute said its members will visit each city to survey the potential sites. This week, they're in Louisville, and the marquees at the Brown Theater, Louisville Palace, Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts and even Lynn Family Stadium showed a message of welcome to Sundance organizers.

Michael Cunningham, a film professor at the University of Louisville, said with the state's film tax abatements, the city would be a perfect place for a festival like Sundance.

"Louisville knows how to put on a good event for people as we witness in the Derby parties every year," Cunningham said Wednesday. "I think we are on the map. I think we are a natural location to come and I think we know how to entertain visitors."

Sundance said a final decision is expected in early 2025.

"For over 40 years, Sundance has supported, sustained, and helped shine an essential spotlight on independent filmmakers and their work," Ebs Burnough, board chair of the Sundance Institute, and Amanda Kelso, acting CEO of the Sundance Institute, said in a news release Friday. "We very carefully consider this important decision for our Festival, we believe these six finalists allow us the best opportunity to not only secure a sustainable future for our Festival, but also to build upon its legacy while continuing to support the next generation of storytellers and highlight bold new works of art. We are grateful to all the communities who have expressed interest and been a part of the process, and we have valued the opportunity to learn about the uniqueness of each location. We look forward to the site visits in each of the finalist cities."

Sundance has long been a launching pad for independent filmmakers and has supported the early careers of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and more. Festival winners often become some of the year's most acclaimed films. Last year's festival produced Celine Song's "Past Lives," nominated for best picture and best screenplay. Other Sundance titles to reach the Oscars include 2022 best picture winner "CODA," "Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" and "Minari."

The Sundance Institute noted that each of the finalist cities have strong arts communities with varied cultural backgrounds and potential for growth. Cunningham believes the festival being held in Louisville would be great for local film students to realize their dreams of working in entertainment, no longer having to move to Los Angeles or New York.

"There is a lot of talent in town, and we are developing an infrastructure that can support more and more production," he said.

The Robert Redford-founded festival has grown significantly since its inception. Redford, who stepped back from the Sundance spotlight years ago, expressed concern in 2016 that the festival as it existed might have outgrown Park City and was thinking about ways to evolve. He and his daughter, Amy Redford, who is on the board, have been involved in the process according to an April announcement about the location search.

Deadline reported earlier this year that the 2023 festival brought more than $118 million to the state of Utah's economy.

During a news conference about the announcement Friday afternoon, Greenberg said more than 90 cities wanted to be considered on this list of finalists.

"Hosting the Sundance Film Festival could generate up to $170 million or more in economic activity for our local economy here in Louisville and it would certainly establish Louisville globally as a leader for creative and innovate people in general, and in the film industry in particular," he said.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said when announcing Louisville's place on the list that, in order to "pull this off," Louisville will also need support from the state.

"Kentucky has a rich history of storytelling and will whole-heartedly embrace Sundance's 40-year tradition of exploratory filmmaking," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a news release Friday. "I'm proud to have Louisville — a vibrant, diverse city full of talent — represent our state in this very competitive process, and out entire commonwealth is united behind the effort to welcome Sundance to its new Kentucky home."

Senate President Robert Stivers stood alongside Greenberg at a news conference earlier this month and said bringing the Sundance Film Festival to Louisville would be something great for the entire commonwealth.

"I am going to make my best effort to convince my colleagues to come and work with the mayor, as we did in this past session, to make Louisville and Kentucky — the rural and urban areas — better, and this is one of the ways we can do it, by trying to attract and bring quality, big-time, sophisticated events to our cities and our commonwealth," he said. "That's the pledge here today and that is an act and series of events that we must try, because, if we don't try, we will be doomed to failure. So to the mayor and his team, congratulations on getting to this point."

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