DENVER — While the Sundance Film Festival won’t debut in Boulder until 2027, the festival’s organizers got a taste of Colorado hospitality last year. The Sundance Institute hosted its 2024 Directors Lab program at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which officials say helped tip the scales in favor of the Centennial State.
“By engaging with Sundance and getting the (Directors Lab) to come to Estes Park and the Stanley, we developed relationships,” Colorado Film Commissioner Donald Zuckerman said this week during a meeting with the Colorado Economic Development Commission. “We had dozens and dozens of meetings where people from Sundance came to Estes Park and got to know Colorado and understand us. It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, hello,’ it was hundreds of hours of relationship building. That got us to the next step.”
Last year marked the first time that the Sundance Directors Lab was held outside of Utah, offering a preview of sorts to the institute’s decision to move the main festival out of Park City, Sundance’s home since it was founded by Hollywood icon Robert Redford more than four decades ago…