Too bad Dallas
Robert Redford graced: Sundance Film Festival to stop in Houston thanks toAngelika replacement
- Sundance Film Festival will venture outside of Park City and the EgyptianTheater for one night onlyPhoto by Jemal Countess, courtesy of Sundance Institute
- Sundance founder Robert RedfordPhoto by Jane Howze
- The shuttered AngelikaPhoto By Nic Phillips
For many film buffs, there are a few deterrents to attending the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival: The cash (premium, all-access tickets run $3,000) and the weather (January in Utah is cold, especially compared to balmy Houston winters).
But this year, Houstonians have a chance to experience the festival on their home turf. Sundance will be here, for one night only, on Jan. 26, 2012. And it's largely thanks to Houston getting that Robert Redford-approved Sundance Cinemas to replace the shuttered Angelika Film Center in Bayou Place.
Houston is one of nine cities selected for Sundance Film Festival USA's 2012 initiative, along with Ann Arbor, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Nashville, Orlando, San Francisco and Tucson.
Dallas — which still has an Angelika — isn't getting a Sundance stop.
Selected filmmakers will leave Park City, Utah, on the second Thursday of the festival and fly to theaters across the country. Directors will introduce and screen their films, then participate in a Q&A with the audience afterward.
On Nov. 23, Sundance Cinemas will open the doors to its new venue at Bayou Place — only the third Sundance theater in the States (others are located in San Francisco and Madison, Wisc.) — in the space deserted by the Angelika in an overnight rush in August 2010.
In December, Redford's Sundance Group (which runs both the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Cinemas movie theaters) will announce the film selected for the Houston theater, and tickets will be available at the local Sundance Cinemas.