Sundance Film Festival announced the addition of a new award for 2026, honoring late founder Robert Redford in the first festival since his death. The Robert Redford Luminary Award will be bestowed upon Ed Harris and Gyula Gazdag for its inaugural year.
Harris and Gazdag will receive the Robert Redford Luminary Award at the annual festival fundraiser, this year named Celebrating Sundance Institute: A Tribute to Founder Robert Redford. The event — honoring Redford and furthering his mission of supporting independent storytellers and the medium of film — will be held Friday, Jan. 23 at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Utah.
“This will be a profoundly meaningful year for Sundance Institute as we honor our founder, Robert Redford. This special evening supports the mission that he built this organization upon,” Ebs Burnough, Sundance Institute Board Chair, said in a statement. “This annual event enables the nonprofit Institute to continue to launch and uplift the work of independent artists from all over the world through labs, grants and public programs. We look forward to our guests joining us in honoring and celebrating the vision that we will carry forward.”
Harris will be one of two recipients for the Redford Luminary Award in its first year. The famed actor has been nominated for numerous awards across his career, including four Oscars and three Emmys. Harris made his feature directorial debut in 2000 with “Pollock,” a film for which he also received a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. For more than 20 years, Harris has worked as a creative advisor for the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs.
“My association with Sundance Institute has primarily been with the Directors Lab,” Harris said. “I’ve fortunately been asked to take part in the lab as an advisor for the past 19 years. Those weeks have been at the top of the list of the most rewarding, fulfilling, invaluable experiences of my life. The work and the people I’ve met and learned from and loved have enriched my life considerably. I’m eternally grateful to Robert Redford for his vision and passion. And I humbly accept this honor.”
Recognized alongside Harris is Gazdag, a screenwriter, director and educator whose credits include “A Poet on the Lower East Side: A Docu-Diary on Allen Ginsberg,” “A Hungarian Fairy Tale” and “Elveszett illúziók.” In addition to his own cinematic and theatrical efforts, Gazdag has served as a distinguished professor emeritus at UCLA, a creative director at Amsterdam’s Binger Filmlab and a mentor at Berlinale Talents’ Script Station. Like Harris, Gazdag has a history with Sundance, working as a creative advisor for the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs since 1994 and an artistic director for the Directors Lab since 1997.
“The Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs became my second home throughout the years, where everything is about nurturing independent art, and that is second nature to every person who is part of it,” Gazdag said. “It has provided me with fresh air, inspiration, camaraderie, moral support and love. I always felt that making an effort to reciprocate all of that results in a fruitful process of free creation. Becoming part of the Sundance Institute family is one of the best things that ever happened to me. This award, bearing Robert Redford’s name, to whom I am eternally grateful for what he created, is a great honor for me. It is extremely precious, since it is coming from the place that I cherish and admire.”
The new year marks a time of change for Sundance. On top of being the first year without the festival’s founder, 2026 will also mark the final iteration to take place in Utah before Sundance moves to Boulder, CO in 2027.
“We are immensely honored to recognize the legacy of Robert Redford through this annual event,” Amanda Kelso, Acting CEO of Sundance Institute, added. “We are pleased to introduce the Robert Redford Luminary Award to Ed Harris and Gyula Gazdag, who have played crucial roles in the Sundance Institute labs for over two decades and strongly exemplify the mission that Mr. Redford set for the organization. By dedicating their time to mentoring artists and collaborating with the fellows who have come through the labs, they have been influential in the development of generations of filmmakers. We are proud to continue this important work with them.”
