Sundance to Return In-Person and Online in 2022

The Sundance Film Festival will return in-person as well as online in 2022, the festival announced Thursday, in another mark of pre-pandemic normalcy returning.

“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,” reads a statement from the festival. “Mark your calendars and stay tuned: This summer we will have more details to help you craft your plan and any related travel.”

The festival will take place from January 20-30th in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, returning back to its usual length of 11 days after the 2021 festival was shortened to just a week.

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It took place from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3, consisting of a combination of online screenings and socially distanced, limited capacity in-person indoor and outdoor screenings in theaters and drive-ins spread out to 20 different cities across the U.S. It had only 73 feature films instead of the usual 120 features.

But going online also helped expand the festival’s reach — a silver lining Sundance will incorporate into future events. The 2021 festival was able to reach a total audience 2.7 times larger than at the usual longer Utah-based festival, and had audiences participating from all 50 states and 120 countries.

Sundance has not yet announced how many feature films will be in the 2022 festival. Submissions are set to open this month, though the exact opening submission date has not yet been set.

“Even under these impossible circumstances artists are still finding paths to make bold and vital work in whatever ways they can,” Tabitha Jackson said ahead of the 2021 festival, her first as festival director. “At the heart of all this is a belief in the power of coming together, and the desire to preserve what makes a festival unique — a collaborative spirit, a collective energy, and a celebration of the art, artists, and ideas that leave us changed.”

Main Image: Park City’s Egyptian Theater. Photo courtesy of Sundance