Sundance Film Festival

by REINA ARISTA

Staff Writer

The Sundance Film Festival is an event for filmmakers, directors, agents, and actors to display their best work. Approximately 46,000 people visited the Park City during the festival and 31,000 were out of towners. Local business owners predict that during the Sundance Film Festival, business will be slower, but on Thursday, they expect to see Main Street to be crowded with plenty of new visitors.

The Short Film Awards are the main part of Sundance Institute’s year-round efforts to support creation of film making, daylong workshops, and traveling programs of short films. The Short Film Grand Jury was won by Thunder Storm, directed by Jim Cunnings. The Short Film Jury: U.S Fiction Award was given to The Procedure, directed by Calvin Lee Reeder. The Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction was awarded to Maman and directed by Maimouna Doucoure.

Financial analyst and Cisnero Group CEO Randy Shumway says, “The Sundance Film Festival is the largest international event of this nature of Utah. Last year, the Sundance Film Festival created 1,350 new jobs.” Managing Director, Sarah Pearce, said from her perspective this event has exponentially increased and continues to grow with being one of  main international attractions: “The desire for people to come here and be a part of a community that’s taking these amazing stories, and meeting these artists.” The 2015 Sundance Film Festival made $83.4 million and approximately under $7 million  financial earrings was in state and local tax.