When Sundance Institute announced this year would be the last film Sundance Film Festival in Park City after more than four decades, John Nein, senior director of programming and director of strategic initiatives, began thinking about the event’s impact on the town, filmmakers’ careers and the world of independent film.
In doing so, he came up with the Park City Legacy program, which runs during the second part of the festival — Jan. 27 through Jan. 30 — that pays tribute to the past and the late Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford but also keeps an eye on the future.
“It’s about honoring the vision, a community and a spirit that is still driving this work forward,” he said during a pre-festival meet-and-greet Wednesday at The Park, 950 Iron Horse Drive. “It’s our history and our future at the same time.”
The program features screenings of films from past Sundance Film Festivals, panel discussions with longtime Sundance artists and filmmakers and a special culminating event, Nein said. (See festival.sundance.org for full schedule.)
“We wanted something that would be a fitting tribute to our history, to the founding vision of Robert Redford and to a festival that really became synonymous with more than four decades of independent film,” he said.
The program includes screenings of restored films such as Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris “Little Miss Sunshine,” Reginald Hudlin’s “House Party,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “Cronos,” Gregg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin,” Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson,” Barbara Kopple’s “American Dream,” James Wan’s “Saw,” Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday” and Redford’s own “Downhill Racer,” to name a few.
Many of these screenings are extensions of the Sundance Institute’s film-preservation program, Nein said.
“They are almost all brand-new restorations, including the 20th anniversary screening of ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ one of our most iconic films, that will reunite most of the cast with filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature, ‘Cronos,’ which played here in 1993,” he said. “We also have a brand new restoration of ‘House Party,’ which is one of those films people don’t associate with Sundance but played here in 1990. And we have a beautiful restoration of ‘Mysterious Skin,’ with Joseph Gordon Leavitt, who returns to a festival that is very tied to his career both as an actor and artist.”
“Half Nelson” has a great Sundance backstory, Nein said.
“Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck debuted a short (film) here,” he said. “They went through the Sundance Institute Labs and went on to screen four features.”
Kopple’s documentary “American Dream,” which was about the Hormel Foods labor strike that took place in 1985 and 1986, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1991, according to Nein.
“Then we have ‘Saw,’ which is a great Cinderella story that launched an amazing career for James Wan,” he said.
“Humpday” pays tribute to one of the many Sundance filmmakers who have passed away throughout the years, and “Downhill Racer” focuses on Robert Redford’s legacy, Nein said.
“For many years the talk (Redford) would give to new artists at the director’s brunch would be about ‘Downhill Racer’ and the struggles of protecting creative independence,” he said.
In addition to the film screenings, the Park City Legacy programming include Beyond Film panels such as the “Power of Story,” featuring award-winning filmmakers Alex Gibney, Olivia Wilde, actor John Turturro, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, moderated by New Yorker staff writer Mia Tolentino, as well as Cinema Cafe events and discussions featuring Richard Linklater, Gregg Araki and Nicole Holofcener.
Nein also wanted to highlight a program called “Everyone Has a Story: Four Decades of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah” that is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 30, at the Marquis.
“This is essentially the culmination of 43 years of this festival’s history in this remarkable place expressed through stories from artists from the industry and longtime attendees,” he said.
Nein also pointed out one part of the Park City Legacy program wasn’t anything he could have programmed.
“It’s the community that is going to gather here over the next 10 days,” he said. “(People) who have been coming have literally shaped this festival and this movement. They’re going to celebrate the legacy. They’re going to tell their stories and share their memories. And that’s what this program is about.”
Nein wanted to make sure the Park City Legacy more than aptly honored the festival that changed his life.
“When I first came here in 1996, I shared an apartment with seven other people,” he said. “I stood in the cold outside the box office for two hours every morning to buy tickets, and I saw 23 films in five days.”
Nein’s interest in this “booming, alternative, indie universe” grew by seeing films by Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Greg Araki and Hal Hartley, and he had seen a bootleg VHS of Todd Hayne’s “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” as well as Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs’ on a Laserdisc.
“There were other films like ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape,’ ‘Heathers’ and ‘El Mariachi,’ ‘Cronos’ and ‘Daughters of the Dust’ to hugely impactful documentaries, ‘Paris Is Burning’ and ‘Hoop Dreams,’” he said. “And what they had in common was the Sundance Film Festival.”
While attending the 1996 festival, Nein talked with filmmakers and people on buses.
“I felt something was happening,” he said. “(There were) new voices and new stories made outside the system. Nobody was asking for permission, (and) they were made on low budgets, credit cards and borrowed money. That’s what brought me to Sundance. That’s always been the power of this festival, and that’s what we had in mind when we started thinking about this Legacy program.”
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs through Feb. 1. For information, visit festival.sundance.org.