Sundance’s final Park City edition ends with tributes to Robert Redford
The Sundance Film Festival’s last edition in Park City closed on an elegiac note on Jan. 30, 2026, marked by tributes to founder Robert Redford and the announcement that the festival will move to Boulder, Colo., next January after 41 years in Park City. The program included a gala framed as a “meaningful tribute” to Redford, who died in September at 89, and the inaugural Robert Redford Luminary Award, given this year to the actor Ed Harris and the Hungarian filmmaker Gyula Gazdag.
Clips of Redford were shown at screenings; “It’s my hope,” he said in one clip, “that if we can give people the opportunity to express the unexpected perspective then that will open eyes and minds.” Other standouts included Stephanie Ahn’s subtle Bedford Park, which draws strong performances from Moon Choi and Son Sukku, and a range of documentaries: David Shadrack Smith’s Public Access, Rachael J.
Morrison’s Joybubbles about phone‑phreaking figure Joe Engressia, and Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a project begun by William Greaves and completed by his son David Greaves that gathers Harlem Renaissance writers, artists and historians for a roughly 100‑minute conversation. Many practical details about the move to Boulder remain unknown; there was chatter about whether the city has enough acceptable housing for V.I.P.
attendees and broader questions about what the festival will look like without Redford’s aura.
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