Sundance Film Festival takes place Jan 28.-Feb.3rd VIRTUALLY! The beloved festival often takes over Park City, UT for 2 weeks has opted to take the film festival virtually for the first time ever.

In addition to the time frame change, the Sundance Institute has also announced a smaller, more focused lineup for the upcoming festival. From 128 films from last year to 72 feature films. With that said, there certainly won’t be a shortage of entertainment and talent set before you.

“The year has been tumultuous for everybody,” explained festival director Tabitha Jackson. “But the whole form of the festival being upended has given us the opportunity to experiment with things that would have taken us longer to get to had it not been for the pandemic. Our ambitions around the reach and accessibility of the festival have been massively accelerated, both by technology and by necessity,” she said.

One for the Road Makes its Sundance Debut! Photo Courtesy of Sundace — **One for the Road** Makes its Sundance Debut! Photo Courtesy of Sundace

The COVID-19 pandemic may have thrown a wrench in plans, however Sundance Film Festival has acclimated to the changes pretty swiftly. It also forces attendees to focus on the sole purpose of the film festival – for the films! As the festival has gained notoriety as a celeb hot spot, the spotlight has been turned on the entertainment and pop-ups that occur during the festival and not enough on the true art of storytelling. This year, although unfortunate circumstances, Sundance attendees can appreciate the films and panels from a different view.

Acclaimed filmmaker Nanfu Wang navigates the origin and spread of COVID-19 from Wuhan to the United States through a lens both personal and geopolitical in scale in the film “In the Same Breath”. Photo Courtesy of Sundance — Acclaimed filmmaker Nanfu Wang navigates the origin and spread of COVID-19 from Wuhan to the United States through a lens both personal and geopolitical in scale in the film “**In the Same Breath**”. Photo Courtesy of Sundance

Sundance Film Festival has been trying to increase their diversity and inclusion efforts across all platforms affiliated with the festival. This year, there are even moore noteworthy examples of diversity in the lineup which includes: “R#J,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,’ “Coda,” “My Name is Pauli Murray,” to name a few.

“In independent filmmaking, the notion of resistance or providing the counter-narrative to the dominant narrative has always been important,” Jackson said. “This year, that has been the political response to the times — telling stories from who you are about things you consider to be important — and it’s those fragments of the bigger tapestry that provide something incredibly powerful. That’s how I’m interpreting why we’re not seeing lots of literal current affairs approaches to the Trump administration.”

Click HERE to see the full film selection this year!