Sundance Film Festival Utah

Charter a Private Jet to the Sundance Film Festival Utah

What do the movies, Little Miss Sunshine; Sex, Lies, and Videotape; Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Fruitvale Station have in common?

They all got their start at the Sundance Film Festival where winning an award almost always leads to a distribution deal. The festival is held every year in late January.

Quentin Tarantino was made famous after Reservoir Dogs premiered in 1992. And The Blair Witch Project, which cost two college buddies $25,000 to make, went on to earn $249 million.

Getting a Sundance stamp of approval wasn’t always the coveted accomplishment it is today. Sundance – then named the Utah/US Film Festival – was founded in 1978 to attract more independent filmmakers to Utah.

By 1985, it was taken over by Robert Redford and renamed the Sundance Film Festival after his character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It has skyrocketed since then.

Film submissions have risen from hundreds in the early years to almost 13,000 in 2016. Of those 13,000, some 200 were chosen to be screened. Even the best Ivy League colleges have a higher acceptance rate than that. And, while a few hundred people attended those early festivals, more than 46,000 came in 2016.

We Can Get You There

If you want to see the year’s best independent films at the Sundance Film Festival, Paramount Business Jets can arrange a flight for you into any airport near Park City, Utah, including:

• Mc Donald Field Airport, K36U, 36U, Heber Valley, United States (13 miles)
• Russ McDonald Field, KHCR, HCR, Heber , United States (13 miles)
• Salt Lake City Municipal 2 Airport, KU42, U42, Salt Lake City, United States (26 miles)
• Salt Lake City International Airport, KSLC, SLC, Salt Lake City, United States (27 miles)
• Skypark Airport, KBTF, BTF, Bountiful, United States (27 miles)
• Camp Williams Airfield Airport, UT08, UT08, Camp Williams, United States (28 miles)
• Provo Municipal Airport, KPVU, PVU, Provo, United States (33 miles)
• Cedar Valley Airport, UT10, UT10, Cedar Fort, United States (34 miles)
• Morgan County Airport, K42U, 42U, Morgan, United States (37 miles)
• Spanish Fork-Springville Airport, KU77, U77, Spanish Fork, United States (37 miles)

Getting Tickets

You can buy passes for as many or as few movies as you want.

In 2016, a pass for all movies in the first week, including a spot in the priority ticket line, was $3,500. Those passes sold out.

For the 2023 editions of the festival, tickets are available for $20 – $750.

Here’s a tip: Be prepared to wait in line – for tickets and for admittance. Dress in layers because even though it’s cold outside, many lines are inside heated tents.

Fast facts

2015 marked the 30th anniversary of the Sundance Film Festival. Here are some festival highlights:

• 1985: Sundance Institute takes over the U.S. Film Festival and, over 10 days, screens 86 films including Blood Simple and The Killing Fields.
• 1995: Out of the 375 film submissions, 172 were screened.
• 1998: The festival added 1,300 seats and presented panels on digital filmmaking. The number of submissions rose to 2,538 with 187 of them screened.
• 2000: The more than 20,000 festival-goers that year got to see 197 films including You Can Count on Me and American Psycho.
• 2001: Sundance not only embraced the rise of digital filmmaking, it participated in it with the launch of the Sundance Online Film Festival to showcase the best in new short films and work created specifically for the internet.
• 2005: Showing its global commitment, Sundance launched its World Cinema Competition. That year, some 47,000 attended the festival to see the 237 screened films.
• 2009: On the festival’s 25th anniversary, 218 films were presented, 42 of which by first-time directors.
• 2023: The festival will take place in various venues in Park City and Salt Lake City.

Beyond the films

Keep your eyes and ears open for a chance to score an invitation to one of the hundreds of industry parties that take place during Sundance. Many bars and restaurants will be closed for private parties or charge a cover to get in.

But, really, the parties sound a lot more intriguing than they are. Of course, there’s always a possibility they could be a packed with stars, but they are much more likely to be packed with film industry people talking a lot of inside baseball. Don’t be disappointed if you can’t get on a list of VIP invitees. Look for stars in other places.

Ty Burrell, who plays Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, owns a beer-and-brat-focused bar – Bar-X – and a restaurant – Beer Bar – in downtown Salt Lake City, where he has lived since 2008.

And, check out the slopes. Ski resort operators say they are relatively empty during Sundance when most people are hunkered down in theaters.

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