The Last Dance: Did Distractions Weigh on the Last Sundance Sales Market in Park City?

It was hard to go to a party at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and not hear Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” spun by the DJ. The recognition that this would be the last time the festival would be held in Park City, Utah in over 40 years was just one of the themes weighing on the market as buyers considered the 70+ films and episodic series looking for distribution.

Combine that with the mourning devoted to Sundance founder Robert Redford, as well as the national news that broke just as Sundance was kicking off that Alex Pretti had been killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Headline after headline found celebrities speaking about injustice and the larger world, rather than what was going inside this little bubble of talking about movies.

Sam Pressman, one of the producers on Josephine Decker’s romance and comedy “Chasing Summer,” said he helped organize three solidarity gatherings in response to the shooting, including one that took place during the premiere of his film, because he and others realized “they have to do something to recognize the world outside our snow globe at Sundance,” he said.

Julie Christeas of Tandem Pictures, producer of competition title “Run Amok,” said she spoke on a panel for the ACLU about the future of film, only to find that none other than Ava DuVernay was sitting in the audience asking where freedom and filmmaking will meet and why she wanted to take her own camera to Minneapolis.

“I don’t know about the marketplace, but it felt very surreal to be in this beautiful, artistic bubble,” Christeas told IndieWire.

If you ask Christeas and others, 2026 at Sundance was already an improvement on last year, in which virtually no films sold during the festival and things were so slow that the health of the market was tested. Plenty of good movies eventually found homes, but seeing the immediate reaction to a film like “Leviticus” and the honest-to-god bidding war around Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite,” there’s been a noticeable uptick in activity, even if a lot of other films remain unsold.

“There’s no big acquisitions personality that’s making decisions on their own anymore; it’s people going back and engaging with the rest of their team about, ‘how are we putting this out to the audience,’ and that makes better opportunities for our film too,” Christeas said.

‘Josephine’Greta Zozula

There’s a lot of hype around “Josephine,” the Audience and Grand Jury Prize winner starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan, so that one should sell timely, and the Olivia Colman comedy “Wicker” also seems poised to close a sale soon.

“The Invite” though was a package that, given the cast and director, buyers had been tracking for some time, and while nothing is a sure bet anymore, it felt more certain than anything on the market. Little else had that extreme level of enthusiasm, leading some to wonder if this was just a weak year for the films, but with A24 ultimately winning that bidding war for an 8-figure deal, it opens the door for other distributors to now take chances elsewhere.

“Given the stars and the tested material, I can see why that was snapped up off the table. Now it’s like, OK, who’s feeling creative and excited to take some artistic risks with their slates? I think those people are always there,” said Chris Quintos of Unapologetic Projects, which produced the Rob Lowe film “The Musical.”

Quintos’ partner Tyler Boehm noted Sony Pictures Classics quickly snapping up two films, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” and “Bedford Park,” with the former a good sign that there were some companies out there willing to be bold and make fun, interesting choices.

“It’s really feeling like we’re rooting for indie movies that are indie for a reason and are bold and distinctive,” Boehm said, adding that there are filmmakers and financiers who take such chances, so it’s up to the distributors to take the same level of risks.

Now the look ahead is to Boulder and what that can do for the marketplace. It’s an opportunity for Sundance to reshape the festival, but also the market, and the feeling among producers and agents alike is that with more theatrical spaces, a bigger city, and just more money flowing, it puts the attention back on the films and leads to a lot of growth in the space.

“I just hope next year everyone is really kind to the festival,” Boehm said. “We’re figuring things out. We need Sundance, and we need it to be healthy. Everyone just needs to give it its time to get its legs underneath it.”