Sundance Institute to Honour Four at Boulder Fundraiser

Sundance Institute will honour Jesse Eisenberg, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Beth de Araújo and Dawn Porter at its annual fundraiser, according to Variety. The event, titled Celebrating Sundance Institute: The Boulder Debut, will take place on Jan. 22.

The Sundance Institute is the non-profit organisation behind the Sundance Film Festival. It also runs labs and grant programmes that help film-makers develop their projects before they reach audiences.

Eisenberg will receive the Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award. Prince-Bythewood will receive the Robert Redford Luminary Award. De Araújo and Porter will each receive a Vanguard Award Presented by Acura, with de Araújo honoured for fiction and Porter for nonfiction.

The fundraiser comes ahead of the 2027 Sundance Film Festival, which will run Jan. 21-31 in person in Boulder, Colo. An at-home programme will also be available online from Jan. 28 to 31, so people who cannot travel to Colorado can still watch.

The name of the event points to the festival's home city. The Boulder Debut places the fundraiser in the place where the 2027 festival will be held in person.

Sundance's fundraisers help pay for the institute's year-round work, from development labs to the festival itself. Honorees are chosen to recognise careers in film, and this year's list spans both fiction and documentary filmmaking.

For film-makers hoping to premiere a project at Sundance, the dates now set the calendar. The festival and its fundraiser will sit in the same January window, and the online programme will extend the reach of the screenings beyond those who attend in person.