The Sundance Film Festival is going all in again with a hybrid model for 2022:
“All official feature film selections will play both in person and online. We will hold in-person screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City, and at the Sundance Mountain Resort. As always, films will premiere in the opening half of the Festival, which this year will be from Thursday, January 20, through Tuesday, January 25, 2022, with additional screenings to follow through the end of the Festival. Online premieres will follow the in-person premieres, using our custom-built online platform that was home to last year’s festival. Awards will be announced on Friday, January 28, leading to a final weekend of award-winner screenings in person and online.”
Basically, six days of world premieres.
I’m sure COVID put a stop to a lot of indie productions that couldn’t afford mass testing their crew/actors, so the amount of quality films available to screen will again be similar to this past January’s lineup, maybe a little better.
Some of the highlights from this past January’s “COVID lockdown” Sundance included “Passing,” “Flee,” “CODA,” “Summer of Soul,” and “Pleasure.”
Will this be a regular thing going forward? Sundance seems to be embracing the digital era. Also, worth pondering, if every film screen in Park City will be available digitally then A24 will be very nervous to bring their stuff to the festival - judging by the studio’s absence at most of the digital fests we’ve seen, they seem to absolutely want their films screened in a theatre.