Robert Redford’s legacy and mission was all the time going to be a key element of the 2026 Sundance Movie Pageant, which would be the final of its form in Park Metropolis, Utah. However within the wake of his loss of life in Septemberat 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 affect 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,” competition 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,” competition director Eugene Hernandez advised The Related 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 embody “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 number of the filmmakers anticipated to attend as nicely.
“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 competition 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 competition, which runs from Jan. 22 by way of Feb. 1, go on sale Wednesday at midday Jap, with on-line and in individual choices. Some planning can be already underway for the competition’s new house in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027, however programmers are heads down determining the slate of world premieres for January. These shall 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 loss of life has added a poignancy to every little thing.
“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.”
