PARK CITY, UTAH — The evening before the Sundance Film Festival kicked off its final appearance in Utah, Amy Redford stood on a temporary stage in a temporary gathering space and addressed a roomful of people.
“My dad loved this place and its people,” she said of her father, Robert Redford, and the state where, for more than 40 years, the Sundance Institute — with its series of labs for emerging filmmakers — and the festival have shaped the film industry, and to some extent American culture.
Robert Redford died last September at 89, and his absence, as well as his vision, permeated this installment of the first festival without the Sundance Kid turned Elder Statesman. It’s hard to decide if it was fitting or a poetic injustice that Redford will not be following the festival to Colorado, a state he knew well, where Sundance will move in January 2027…