Yet another event has fallen victim to the new Omicron variant. Slamdance, the film festival that prides itself in showcasing talented work from independent filmmakers from several countries, has dropped the in-person portion of its 2022 event. The festival was already planned in a hybrid format, with public events previously set to take place in Park City, but now those events have been cancelled.
The Festival organization decided to make this decision based on the growing concern over the coronavirus variant Omicron and decided it was better for the filmmakers, staff, and audience’s safety to only keep the online portion of the festival going.
Due to this change, the festival pushed back its virtual segment a week (it was originally planned to run between January 20-23), and now it will take place between January 27 and February 6, 2022, which provides the time needed to accommodate and organize the transition from physical to virtual to events like live Q&As, screenings, and others planned for film lovers and other attendees.
When talking about the sudden change, Peter Baxter, Slamdance President and Co-Founder, shared his disappointment and decided to look on the bright side of being able to have the festival online:
“Although we are disappointed that we won’t be able to participate in the communal, in-person experience, we know we can create a unique festival experience for all of our filmmakers through Slamdance’s online platform. We are looking forward to utilizing the expertise we've already gained in attracting a global audience, building upon our accessibility goals and pushing the boundaries of what a decentralized festival can be.”
First held in 1995, Slamdance has the objective of providing a platform for feature-length directorial debuts from filmmakers who don’t have US distribution of their films, which have budgets of under $1 million. For 2022, the films that made the line-up have been selected out of thousands of submissions hailing from countries like Iran, Germany, China, Poland, Canada, and many others.
Slamdance will take place online from January 27 to February 6, 2022. You can check out the official line-up, buy passes and discover further details on the Slamdance official website.