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Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall at the 2026 Sundance screening of the film \u201cCookie Queens.\u201d Credit: David Jackson\/ Park Record<\/p>\nFour families from across the country and their shared world of Girl Scout cookies brought Salt Lake City together Saturday night as the Sundance Film Festival marked its final celebration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The world premiere of Alysa Nahmias\u2019 documentary, \u201cCookie Queens,\u201d brought Girl Scouts new and old together to celebrate the cookie season, including former scout Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who was an executive producer on the film with her husband, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. <\/p>\n
Before the film, community leaders, Girl Scouts and filmgoers reflected on the legacy of Robert Redford and the nearly five decades of independent film and storytelling the festival has brought to the state.<\/p>\n
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall spoke before the screening at the Rose Wagner Theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a familial kind of feeling every year. This is how we kick off Sundance together,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a cultural tradition. It\u2019s an artistic investment. It\u2019s an expression, I think, of the values and culture of who we are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Remembering her own experience as a Girl Scout, and joking about the familiar ritual of hiding her favorite cookie boxes from the rest of the family, Mendenhall reflected on why Sundance creates space for community through story. The festival invites audiences not just to watch films, but to ask questions and make connections, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who is the girl behind the cookies?\u201d Mendenhall asked. \u201cTonight, we get to see four incredible young women who, through this pursuit of becoming cookie queens, are almost certainly our future leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson turned the audience\u2019s attention to the broader moment surrounding this year\u2019s festival, speaking about the weight of Sundance\u2019s history in Utah following the death of founder Redford, who passed away in September 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of memories have been shared since the passing of Robert Redford,\u201d Wilson said tearfully. \u201cIt\u2019s been really meaningful. It\u2019s been thoughtful and kind of heartbreaking for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said Sundance helped redefine how Utah, and Park City in particular, was seen, contributing to economic growth and positioning the community on the global stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the day, he made us cool, right?\u201d said Wilson. <\/p>\n
She also described Sundance as a place that invited audiences and artists to be challenged.<\/p>\n
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall at the 2026 Sundance screening of the film \u201cCookie Queens.\u201d Credit: David Jackson\/ Park Record<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we saw a film that we thought was a little too much and it made us think,\u201d she said. \u201cOr maybe it was a film that made us laugh, or a film that challenged us.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a former Sundance staffer, Wilson said Redford\u2019s influence shaped careers and lives, inspired by the conversations, expectations and the culture he created.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those early years, we showed up,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWe built infrastructure. We built better projectors. We found new places to showcase film. Our people were the snowplow drivers and the volunteers. Year after year after year, Utah showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Amy Redford, the founder\u2019s daughter, and steward and board member of the Sundance Institute, the celebration brought an outpouring of support and remembrance for her father, creating a space for her personal grief to make way for gratitude for the community he helped shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat affirmation,\u201d she said, \u201chas given my family and I great comfort in a moment of grief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redford spoke about her parents putting down roots in the Wasatch Mountains in the 1960s, and how that love of place led to the protection of thousands of acres around Sundance Mountain Resort, where her family has served as stewards for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is not only a steward of place,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is also a steward of story.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cCookie Queens\u201d by Alysa Nahmias is an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. It is also the Celebration of Film selection that premiered in Salt Lake City on Jan. 24. Credit: Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute<\/p>\n
The Sundance Institute emerged directly from these mountains, she said, from the land itself and from the people who lived and worked here. And her father believed that the environment could nourish storytellers from around the world. She spoke about his curiosity and his frustration with the disconnect between the stories he heard and the stories the film industry was willing to tell.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he did something about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that the festival itself is evolving, Redford said the Institute\u2019s year-round programming remains rooted in those original commitments, recognizing the people, labor and shared beliefs that have sustained the festival for nearly five decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Dad could have built an empire,\u201d Redford said, \u201che built a nest. Meant not to contain, but to nourish, nurture and set free.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so with sorrow and pride for the end of Utah\u2019s Sundance, Eugene Hernandez, Sundance Film Festival director, introduced the story of \u201cCookie Queens,\u201d awarded the title of the official Salt Lake Celebration Film for the joy and hope it offers for the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of those films that was just an immediate, unanimous yes, and you\u2019ll see why. But it\u2019s that joy, it\u2019s that hope that we see in the girls who are portrayed in this film that brought us to a place where we just knew we wanted to share it with you tonight here,\u201d said Hernandez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a film about Girl Scout cookies,\u201d Nahmias said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s also about more than Girl Scouts and cookies. In this moment in our world, I believe it\u2019s important to look, to listen to young people\u2019s perspectives and draw lines of connection, to remember that we might have as much in common with others as that which seems to divide us.\u201d<\/p>\n
And closing with a bittersweet goodbye to the festival, Wilson said, \u201cIt\u2019s been an incredible journey. These years \u2014 they\u2019re ours. What we\u2019ve accomplished together as a community around this incredible event, Sundance, heart and soul, is still here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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