Picturehouse and Sundance won’t be bringing Sundance London back in 2025 – but Picturehouse Create might fill a bit of the gap.
It feels like transitional times for Sundance and the Sundance Film Festival. The main festival, that’s just completed, has been taking place at Park City in Utah. It looks like it’ll be moving from that venue in a year or two though, if reports are to be believed.
Furthermore, we now learn that Sundance London, which has been running for over a decade, is not coming back for this year. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of the road for the UK arm of the festival, but it doesn’t really look good.
It’s been staged at the Picturehouse Central venue in London for the past few years, save for a lockdown-enforced gap. The decision to skip a 2025 event was made by Sundance and Picturehouse in conjunction with one another.
It seems little coincidence, and it looks a positive step, that Picturehouse has launched a new event called Picturehouse Create. It sounds like this is planned to run annually, and the first is set for 3rd to 5th of April.
It’ll feature a mix of screenings, masterclasses and panel discussions, so looks set to plug some of that Sundance gap. Its ethos of supporting independent filmmaking is clearly dear to our own hearts, and ideally, events such as these wouldn’t be confined to London. Hopefully, if the maiden event works out, then Picturehouse will be open to broadening it out further.
A mix of news here, then. The heft of Sundance was an obvious appeal, even if the Sundance London programming didn’t necessarily favour British independents. We look forward to seeing what Picturehouse Create comes up with, and are keen to see it succeed, as well as events of its ilk.
There’s a website for the event that’s gone live, and you can find it here.
