The Sundance Institute announced that the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 18-28, 2024.
Sundance returned to in-person screenings this past January for the first time since 2020. I stayed home to cover it because 99% of the lineup was available to stream for press. What’s the point of going all the way there?
It’s unclear if next year’s online version will be as exemplary as 2023’s but Sundance did mention in today’s press release that there will be a “robust selection of films available online.”
I’ve been covering Sundance now for over ten years, whether it’d be on this site, or for other outlets when I used to freelance. You could tell just how much the pandemic stifled the quality of the films.
Don’t get me wrong, 2023 had some breakout titles like “Past Lives,” “Passages,” “Talk to Me,” “Rotting in the Sun,” and “Fair Play.” And yet, unlike past pre-pandemic editions, I don’t think I would have been able to even muster up a top ten must-see list.
This pales in comparisons to the abundance of riches we got the last decade, films such as “Whiplash,” “Manchester By the Sea,” “Get Out,” “Call Me By Your Name,” “The Witch,” “Certain Women,” “A Ghost Story,” “Hereditary,” “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Before Midnight,” “Boyhood,” “The Big Sick” ..
An Eric Kohn op-ed tossed some unexpected truths at us. The gist of Kohn’s reasoning for this year’s lacklustre Sundance edition didn’t necessarily reside in pandemic disruption, but, rather, filmmakers’ fear of cancel culture.
Coincidentally, Variety also had a story, right before Sundance began, about how these last few years film fests have tended to avoid “problematic” films. I remember a time when Sundance was about free speech and rattling the status quo. Not anymore.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival marks the first program under Eugene Hernandez as festival director. He’ll be the head of public programming, succeeding Tabitha Jackson, who left the position in June. I know Eugene, I trust, and hope, he’ll steer the ship in the right direction.