The People, the Parties: Inside the Last Sundance in Park City
Who I saw, what I did and what mattered to everyone this year
At Sundance, I’ve written about the racist attack on Rep. Maxwell Frost, this year’s Sundance It Girl, indie film’s plan to fight industry consolidation and why this year’s fest was make-or-break for film.
As I lurched toward my last days at Sundance this year — my last days in Park City, Utah, perhaps forever — I thought it would be easy to consolidate my final hours, running out of steam as I was, into one last dispatch.
But somehow, I feel like I’ve lived 1,000 years in the past two days.
To give you a sense of this year’s vibe, I had one of my more memorable lunches with three producer/executives: Miramax chief Jon Glickman; producer, podcaster, politics and food commentator Jamie Patricof; and Pinky Promise Films founder/CEO Jesseamine Burgum.
There was interest among the group in watching “The Game,” one of the NFL playoff bouts, so we convened at Collie’s, a Main Street sports bar, and locked up a table near the front just before the game began and crowds formed all around to watch.
It should be noted that Collie’s has shockingly good onion rings.
All three are Sundance veterans, of various sorts. Glickman has been many times since the ’90s with various films; Patricof came with Half Nelson in 2006, Ryan Gosling’s breakout role, and another film in this year’s Sundance retrospective; and Burgum, in just a few years, has had multiple films here, including Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul and The Starling Girl.
As people began to stop by and come and go, the group engaged in the boilerplate Sundance conversation of “What have you seen/What have you liked?”
We talked a bit about AI, which all agreed could have a devastating impact on employment in the business, but as producers of productions that have to make every penny count, they recognize that it can give them tools to take their films to another level at lower costs. Actors will still be the center of the film, and they can never be replaced, but everything around them will change, they agreed. Particularly in post-production. They talked about one film that has been very well-received in the festival that they all enjoyed, and noted that the budget is rumored to have been in the $10 million range, but looked like a $40 million film, speculating whether AI had been used to get it to that level for such a modest budget.
One hotly debated topic that came up — flexible ticket pricing.
One believed it was the key to getting more people to see a movie, allowing it to build momentum and gain the all-important word of mouth (a particularly important factor for non-tentpoles). He cited the massive success theaters enjoy with discount Tuesdays and noted that “affordability” has become a national crisis, and that a night at the movies has become too expensive for many, setting the bar too high for what a film must deliver to be worth the trip.
Another dismissed the affordability question, saying film was still the least expensive thing you could do out of the house and said it’s up to theaters to provide better houses, and studios to make better films, and we need to create great experiences on every level, and that is what will make audiences return.
As the game surged on, Daniel Roher, who has two films showing this year — the already acclaimed Tuner, starring Dustin Hoffman, and The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist — arrived. Seeing me scrawling in my little notebook, Roher snatched the pad away and took out a mini-traveling paint set and began sketching and painting something. A few minutes later, he returned the notebook, with this self-portrait added, entitled “Bleary Eyed @ Sundance”:
Yes, that is my actual handwriting on the left. And no, I can’t actually even read it myself.
As the weather turned deathly cold outside and the game surged forward, the conversation continued on to mergers, consolidation and inevitably, the terrifying state of the world.
And then all looked ahead to the night’s premieres and what wonders were in store.
This is the madness, the hardship and the delight of film festivals. These kinds of conversations — fleeting, intense, strangely intimate — are the connective tissue. Sundance is a kaleidoscope: You only glimpse fragments of the constantly shifting picture, and only for moments at a time.
Under the Sundance banner, there are so many different festivals for so many different people. There are critics who see five movies a day and don’t go near the parties. There are people who come for the parties and don’t even see a movie. I met several people this year who came just for the panel discussions. There are tourists who just want to walk down Main Street and take in the excitement. There are executives taking meetings and professional autograph collectors searching for a big catch. (One told me Natalie Portman, in town to support Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, is the most valuable autograph this year.)
All of them are doing this one last time in the little faux Old West ski resort town where Sundance went from a little niche get-together to a phenomenon that launched a sector that changed Hollywood and culture forever.
In my last two whirlwind days, I stepped through many different phases of the kaleidoscope and tried to find the words goodbye.
Here are a few of the images I passed through in my final laps at Sundance 2026, including my can’t-miss video of Guillermo del Toro singing with a mariachi band, and details on why I could not abide by the Charli XCX afterparty…)
About The Parties
There’s a certain lesson I have had to relearn every year for the past 10 or so.
After seeing the premiere of Charli XCX’s very enjoyable mockumentary self-portrait, The Moment (in theaters this week from A24), I was caught up in the ultra-cool crowd and festive spirits, and I excitedly accepted the invitation to the after-party.
However…