‘Relationship building’ moved to next step

FILM FESTIVAL

Film commissioner says relationships built in Estes helped Boulder win Sundance

By Lucas High

BizWest / Prairie Mountain Media

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.

“The Sundance (Directors Lab was) held last June, and they were a big success,” Zuckerman said. The program, which connects directors with expert creative advisers to help them refine their films and screenplays, will return to Estes Park this summer.

The Stanley Hotel is a fitting location for a high-profile Hollywood gathering, as the 116-year-old, 140-room hotel served as inspiration for Stephen King’s “The Shining” novel, which became a horror-genre classic when it was adapted for the silver screen by director Stanley Kubrick.

The Stanley’s ownership group and Colorado officials have for months been engaged in a complicated transaction that, when complete, is expected to allow a state agency to take over the property and facilitate the completion of the long-planned but notoriously stubborn-to-build Stanley Film Center, which will celebrate the horror genre and could host future Sundance events.

Once complete, the center will be “a two-story building with approximately 64,735 square feet, to include an approximately 864-seat outdoor amphitheater with a fire capacity of 1,200 (including standing room), an event center, a film museum, a sound stage and related amenities, to be constructed adjacent to the main hotel building and connected to the concert hall,” according to state documents. The project also includes the addition of “more guest rooms and building a new guest entrance to take in more guests and further support the success of the film center.”

Blumhouse Productions LLC, the juggernaut production company behind horror films and franchises such as “Get Out,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Purge” and “Paranormal Activity,” will serve as the film center’s exclusive exhibit curator. Boulder beat out Sundance’s long-time home of Park City, Utah, as well as Cincinnati — the two other finalists — in March for the right to host the festival for a decade starting in 2027.