Tabitha Jackson Exits Sundance Institute, Kim Yutani Promoted To Senior Leadership Team
07.06.2022 - 20:55
/ deadline.com
Tabitha Jackson, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming, will be leaving the Sundance Institute.
At the same time, Director of Programming Kim Yutani will join the senior leadership team of the Institute.
Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente made the announcement today.
Jackson will depart the Institute shortly after the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: London. A public search led by Vicente is underway for the Festival’s next director.
Yutani joined the Festival in 2006, and this year marks her fifth leading the Festival’s programming. In addition to this work, she will now manage Festival industry and artist relations, and work closely with Vicente in the planning of the next Festival alongside senior programmers, John Nein, who also leads Strategic Initiatives, and Shari Frilot, who is also the Chief Curator, New Frontier.
Jackson joined the Institute in 2013 as the Director of the Documentary Film Program, where she oversaw the creation of new programs and resources that supported nonfiction filmmakers worldwide – specifically the Art of Nonfiction Initiative in which she worked with form-breaking filmmakers to create a program exploring the creative process by centering the artist rather than the project.
In February 2020, Jackson was named Festival Director, succeeding John Cooper. Both the in-person 2021 and 2022 Sundance Film Festivals were sidelined by the pandemic forcing them online. Also, in 2021 an extensive broadening of the festival to arthouses and drive-ins around the country was implemented. The online audience for the 2021 festival was reported at 600K, +168% from 2020’s live attendance. Despite Sundance going virtual, deals didn’t cease with Apple picking up CODA for $25M and Searchlight