Sundance Is Virtually Inaccessible

Sundance is back, baby! And by “back,” I mean limited to artists and members of the press who have the deep-pocketed funding and the physical ability to attend the Park City, UT film festival in person. Does this seem like a low-level problem, in the grand scheme of things? On its face, yeah. But I think it’s a pretty good example of the way entertainment executives continue to gatekeep who does, and does not, get to say things publicly about the movies they’ll be putting into the world this year.

Back in August, the new Sundance director extolled his vision for the hybrid festival: “This is…a challenging moment as artists fight for a more equitable entertainment industry…. It has been invigorating and inspiring to reflect on the history of this great Festival and dig in with colleagues to shape a sustainable vision for the future that builds and embraces audiences from all walks of life.”

That is, as long as you can literally walk! A lot! As someone who’s made the rounds in Park City, I can tell you a significant part of the in-person experience involves making your way up and down the snowy mountain town streets, waiting for and taking crowded shuttle buses around town, and waiting in long lines to get into your chosen films. If you’re up for it, it can be fun. If you have any sort of physical infirmity,  it’s gonna be a real slog.

The storied festival has scaled its online offerings way back this year after demonstrating their capability to open everything up for remote viewing during the pandemic years and, to some extent, last year as well. This year, they have further limited their online viewing window to only the second half of the festival; they’ve severely cut down on the amount of films that are available to watch online at all; and they’ve created a needless scarcity by listing online films as “sold out” after a certain number of tickets, despite the fact of there being, you know, no actual seats to sell out.

These moves are particularly hilarious given the effusive namechecking of “accessibility” on the website:

“Sundance Institute is committed to improving overall experiences & belonging for our staff, audiences, and artists, in alignment with our core values. We consider inclusion, racial equity, and accessibility the drivers of institutional excellence, and it is our aim, therefore, that all our programs and platforms reflect and embrace these core values at every level. Our goal is to make all experiences (in person and online) as accessible as possible for all participants. This is an ongoing effort with many improvements still in process. Your feedback is critical to creating the most inclusive experiences possible.”

Well, since they asked:

I’ve attended Sundance in person and remotely, and I have preferred the remote experience for a number of reasons. I’m nearing my five-year cancerversary, which has meant lingering health issues that made navigating a film festival in person damn arduous. That experience has made me hyper-aware of what people with chronic conditions deal with all the time.

Given the increasing awareness around chronic conditions, we know that a lot of people simply don’t have the mobility and energy to fly out for a weeklong jaunt in the snow. Making the full list of titles available to press and cinephiles who can’t do the in-person stuff seems like the least Sundance could do if they want to truly, um, “make all experiences (in person and online) as accessible as possible for all participants.”

Also, I’m not a networker. And I bet I’m not the only one. I like to stuff as many movies as I can into my eyeballs, but I’m not dying to physically rub elbows with the rest of the press. It’s perfectly feasible to screen a movie in your living room on a decent-sized screen. And as much as I miss sitting in a crowded theater full of lingering coughs and phones that light up, this is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

And finally, I don’t work for an outlet with deep pockets, though BFG does have a big heart. No one is bankrolling my hotel room and airfare and meals, and I’m sure as hell not shelling out my own money to do it. The fact that Sundance only deems corporate-funded journalists worthy of access to its full slate makes their crowing about “deepening and expanding our connections to diverse communities, cultures, languages, and regions across the United States” ring fairly hollow. The people with the means to go to Sundance are still, by and large, a more homogenous group than the people writing for the smaller outlets.

And I get it: There is magic to seeing a movie on the big screen that simply can’t be recreated at home. That’s absolutely true. But it also doesn’t negate the equally simple truth that Sundance’s current faux-hybrid policy means they really only care about showing new films to the wealthy and the able-bodied. That’s about the farthest thing from inclusive that I can think of.