Robert Redford’s legacy and mission was at all times going to be a key part of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which would be the final of its variety in Park City, Utah. But within the wake of his dying in September at age 89, these concepts took on a brand new significance.
This January, the institute that Redford based over 40 years in the past, plans to honor his profession and influence with and a screening of his first really unbiased movie, the 1969 sports activities drama “Downhill Racer,” and a sequence of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from “Little Miss Sunshine” to “House Party,” pageant organizers stated Tuesday.
“As we were thinking about how best to honor Mr. Redford’s legacy, it’s not only carrying forward this notion of ‘everyone has a story’ but it’s also getting together in a movie theater and watching a film that really embodies that independent spirit,” pageant director Eugene Hernandez informed The Associated Press. “We’ve had some incredible artists reach out to us, even in the past few weeks since Mr. Redford’s passing, who just want to be part of this year’s festival.”
Archival screenings will embrace “Saw,” “Mysterious Skin,” “House Party,” and “Humpday” in addition to the thirty fifth anniversary of Barbara Kopple’s documentary “American Dream,” and twentieth anniversaries of “Half Nelson” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” with a few of the filmmakers anticipated to attend as effectively.
“Over the almost 30 years of Sundance Institute’s collaboration with our partner, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, we’ve not only worked to ensure that the Festival’s legacy endures through film preservation, but we’ve seen that output feed an astonishing resurgence of repertory cinema programming across the country,” stated pageant programmer John Nein. “The films we’ve preserved and the newly restored films screening at this year’s festival, including some big anniversaries, are an important way to keep the independent stories from years past alive in our culture today.”
Tickets for the 2026 pageant, which runs from Jan. 22 by means of Feb. 1, go on sale Wednesday at midday Eastern, with on-line and in particular person choices. Some planning can be already underway for the pageant’s new dwelling in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027, however programmers are heads down determining the slate of world premieres for January. Those will likely be revealed in December.
“There’s a lot more to come and a lot more to announce,” Hernandez stated. “This is just laying a foundation.”
Redford’s dying has added a poignancy to the whole lot.
“Seeing and hearing the remembrances took me back to why I felt compelled to go to the festival in the first place,” Hernandez stated. “It’s been very grounding and clarifying and for us as a team it’s been very emotional and moving. But it’s also been an opportunity to remind ourselves what Mr. Redford has given to us, to our lives, to our industry, to Utah.”
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.