Saying goodbye to Sundance carries a melancholy sadness. There is a Portuguese word for this feeling: saudade. The definition is to miss something that will never return. For many Parkites, saudade embodies the ache of losing the Sundance Film Festival after a run of more than 40 years.
On March 27, 2025, Sundance Institute announced that the annual festival would move to Boulder, Colorado. “I’m heartbroken,” says Katy Wang, executive director of Park City Film. “What we captured was lightning in a bottle.” One more Sundance will light up Park City before the final credits roll. The last run, from January 22 to February 1, 2026, will carry both the joy of celebration and the sting of saudade.
“I began working at Sundance Institute in 1993, drawn by my love of storytelling and filmmaking,” says Meredith Lavitt, former director of Sundance Institute Ignite, which supports new voices and talent from the next generation of filmmakers and fosters young audiences for independent storytelling. Over the next 25 years, Sundance helped shape her career. Park City grew with Sundance too. “Sundance brought the world to Utah. It opened windows into new perspectives and challenged us to think differently,” she says.
One moment stays with her. At Park City High School, students watched the documentary Salma. Salma herself was there. At 14, she had been locked away by her family simply for becoming a woman. When she told the students that every girl in their class would have been locked away in her village, stunned silence filled the room before a powerful discussion erupted. For Lavitt, that was the imprint of Sundance: films that opened minds, ignited dialogue and showed the courage of freedom.
Casey Metzger’s journey began with a jolt. “If it wasn’t for Sundance, my business wouldn’t exist,” he says. On a slow night in 2007, he quit his bartending job on Main Street without a plan. That same night, a patron mentioned a new pop-up bar for Sundance’s ASCAP Music Cafe. He begged for the chance. “That was my first gig as Top Shelf,” he claims. From that leap, a business was born.
Seventeen years later, Metzger, owner of Top Shelf Professional Bar Services, feels he has finally nailed it. “Sundance gave me the opportunity. It gave me the confidence. We do more than just show up and serve drinks, we navigate building permits, make connections and build relationships.” For Metzger, Sundance was proof that bold risks can spark lasting possibilities.
After landing in Park City in 1981, the Sundance Film Festival transformed a small mountain town into a global crossroads for more than 40 years. Each January, snowy streets filled with dreamers. Venues all over Park City became stages for stories. On any bus, you might hear five languages, proof that people travel in from almost everywhere. “For 10 days a year, the whole world came to me,” says Ginger Tolman, a longtime Parkite and film patron. She remembers seeing Whiplash in 2014, when the feature premiered after debuting as a short. It became a major winner that year, taking both jury and audience awards. The energy in the room was electric. “The crowd jumped to their feet before the credits rolled,” she recalls. It was the first emphatic standing ovation she ever witnessed, a moment of pure magic.
Brian Marquez joined Sundance in 2017 as a seasonal volunteer coordinator while working for OCEARCH. Before connecting with Sundance, he worked for Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper and Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Nebraska. The night before his first festival, he joined 400 volunteers at Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium for a screening of Chasing Coral. The film about endangered marine ecosystems felt like worlds colliding. Surrounded by people from around the globe, Marquez realized he had stepped into something special.
“My mind was blown. I fell in love with the Sundance Film Festival,” he recalls. Each year, 1,300-plus volunteers arrive, with nearly 60% coming from Utah. “It was an amazing moment for me,” Marquez says. “Someone like me, who felt lost at the time, could see that there is something for everyone. Everyone has an impact they can make. Everyone has a story.”
Wang reflects on what Sundance brought to Park City. “What I love about Sundance is the excitement around ideas while also being entertained.” She also recalls the energy when Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, attended and when Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, walked into a room. People were starstruck, not just because of fame, but because of the vision and humility these leaders carried with them.
For a small mountain town, moments like that felt extraordinary. That spark is what Park City Film hopes to carry forward in Sundance Film Festival’s absence, continuing to ignite conversations that matter and encourage greatness. The nonprofit is stepping forward to keep independent cinema alive. The plan is to grow from 130 to 200 screenings a year, with a quarter of them free.
As Sundance leaves Park City for Boulder, many here see it as both a loss and a gift. “Boulder is getting something special,” Tolman says. “I hope they know what a gift it is.” The festival may change locations, but the spirit remains.
The true impact of Sundance was always the dialogue it sparked and the inspiration it offered, and that legacy endures. A business built on nothing but nerve. A crowd rising to its feet in awe. Volunteers arriving from every corner of the world, giving their time and finding purpose. Metzger emphasizes, “We have one last Sundance. Hopefully, it’s a banger. I hope we send it.”
All of it was magic, lightning in a bottle, too rare to last forever. These are the closing credits of Sundance in Park City, a final ovation filled with love and longing. Saudade.
