PARK CITY, Utah, May 13, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — The Sundance Institute has announced dates for the 2022 film festival.
“We can’t wait to return to Park City, Salt Lake City — and beyond — for next year’s Sundance Film Festival,” said a statement released Thursday. “The 2022 festival will take place in-person and online Jan. 20-30. We are in the process of designing a safe and accessible festival where our audiences and artists can come together to celebrate and discover new work, and each other. Mark your calendars and stay tuned: This summer we will have more details to help you craft your plan and arrange for any travel.”
In February, the institute released attendance information for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which took place both online and in-person in 20 cities across the country from Jan. 28 through Feb. 3.
“The seven-day festival reached a total audience 2.7 times larger than at the typical 11 day Utah edition, despite the shorter duration and with fewer feature films, 73, than the festival’s typical 120 features,” said a news release from the institute. “Audiences participated from all 50 states and 120 countries.”
Audiences watched the online program of 73 feature and 50 short films, four Indie Series, 23 talks and events, participated in the New Frontier exhibition including 14 projects, and showed up at the Satellite Screens across the country, the news release said. Online seat limits for feature films were set by individual rights-holders, and the film and series programs were geo-blocked to the U.S.
Over 70% of the feature film program unspooled on 40 satellite screens run by 20 partner cinemas and organizations. Early data shows attendance of 20,000 at the drive-ins and socially-distanced indoor or outdoor seated screenings; drive-ins approximated 2.5 attendees per one car ticket.
This results in a total of audience views of more than 600,000 — 2.7 times or 168% more than in 2020.
Festival Director Tabitha Jackson said: “We talked about this year’s festival as a grand experiment, and now we are in the process of analysing the results — a vital part of informing the expression of festival in 2022. There is a lot still to learn, but we are delighted that a combination of online and in-person participation, innovative social spaces, hard work, and a lot of crossed fingers came together to expand and connect audiences for the incredible slate of work we were lucky enough to program this year.”
