Park City Film is making a shift with screenings at the Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium this weekend, which happens to be the weekend before the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Instead of scheduling one film to screen Friday through Sunday, which it does most of the time, the arthouse no nprofit will host a three-day showing of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” “(O Angente Secreto),” starting Thursday, said Executive Director Katharine Wang. “This will be a slightly different schedule that we normally do,” she said, “because we’re going to show a different film on Sunday.” “The Secret Agent,” rated R, which will screen at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, just won two Golden Globes  — Best Non-English Film and Best Actor for Wagner Moura, according to Wang. “The film is about Marcelo, a technology expert, professor and political dissident, who is fleeing persecution from Brazil’s military dictatorship,” she said. “It was the most awarded film in the Cannes Film Festival last summer and it has been shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature film.” Wang saw “The Secret Agent” at the Toronto Film Festival last year. “It is very intense, and it has the magic realism that I love in that storytelling style that is so specific in South America,” she said. “There are some sideroads the film takes you on that are hilarious and unexpected, which is why it has received so many different awards.” “The Secret Agent” has been the “darling of the award circuit,” Wang said. “That is always great, and it’s fun for us, leading into Sundance, to bring some of the best films of the year to remind people what we’re in for,” she said. Action of “The Secret Agent” will then give way to the serious poignancy of Brandon Kramer’s 2025 documentary, “Holding Liat,” which will screen for free at 6 p.m. on Sunday. The film follows the plight of Yehuda and Chaya Beinin — parents of Israeli-American Liat Beinin Atzili, who, along with her husband Aviv, were abducted during their kibbutz by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Of the 250 people taken hostage that day, The Atzilis, are two of the 12 who are American citizens, Wang said.  “It’s an intimate look at the fight of Liat’s parents and their family as they go to Washington and lobby the U.S. Government to help secure her release,” she said. “It’s a beautifully done film, and the intent is to open a conversation about a very complicated situation in the Middle East through the lens of one family … what they have experienced and the complexity of the situation and people’s reaction to it.” Brandon Kramer and his brother, Lance, who is the producer, are related to Atzili, Wang said. “The filmmakers try to represent the family with empathy and care and separate the political situation from the people involved, which I think is a challenge — associating Israeli people with the Israeli government and Palestinian people with Palestinian government,” she said. “What I also think is incredible is even within the family there is an incredible range of political views and ways of processing grief. These are human beings. This is their experience, and how do we address the situation and solutions with empathy and deeper understanding that hopefully gets us on a path toward healing and reconciliation.” The Beinin family embraces during a scene of Brandon Kramer’s 2025 documentary, “Holding Liat,” which follows the plight of the family’s parents — Yehuda and Chaya Beinin — who lobby the United States Government to secure the release of their daughter, Liat Beinin Atzili, and her husband, Aviv, who were abducted during their kibbutz by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Park City Film will host a special screening and a post-screening discussion with Kramer on Sunday. Credit: Photo courtesy of Meridian Hill Pictures One of the film’s executive producers, Janine Frier, is a part-time Park City resident and introduced the film to Wang. “It won the Winner of the 2025 Berlinale Documentary Film Award and has been doing exceptionally well in the festival circuit,” Wang said. The film is also shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Award for Documentary Feature Film, she said. Sunday’s screening will be followed by a Q and A with Lance Kramer, who will be in town for the Sundance Film Festival. “The film, (which is not part of the 2026 festival lineup), is so powerful and so poignant that it really deserves and demands a conversation afterwards,” she said. “So, the only way we could get Lance here in person with the film is to show it as close to Sundance as possible.” Q and A sessions, Wang feels, are an important part of the theatrical experience. “Seeing a film and experiencing a film on the big screen is powerful, but to be able to talk with someone who is involved with the film brings in such a personal connection,” she said. “Especially since the Kramers are related to Liat, they are connected with the film so deeply.”  Since the situation in the Middle East is complex and polarizing, it deserves an in-person, face-to-face connection and conversation.” While Sundance will move into the Jim Santy Auditorium for the 2026 film festival from Jan. 22-Feb. 1, and return to its weekend screening schedule Feb. 6-8 with Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice,” Park City Film volunteers will be on hand during the festival to sell concessions, Wang said. “(Selling concessions) is our biggest fundraiser of the year,” she said. “We have sold concessions since 1995, when the theater first came online, and this will be, sadly, the last one. But here we are still engaging with the festival in the way we can 31 years later.” Although Park City Film will lose the opportunity to fundraise when the Sundance FIlm Festival moves to Boulder, Colorado, next year, Wang and her board of directors has found other ways to sustain the nonprofit. “We have increased our screening cap for the Santy Auditorium,” she said. “We requested and received permission to host 200 screenings a year, and what that provides is the creativity to have summer programming, which we haven’t had.” Park City Film usually takes a break between mid June to September and does some special events during that time, Wang said.  “Of course, we’ll miss Sundance and miss the opportunity to engage behind the scenes and sell concessions to fundraise, but there are other ways, smaller ways, to do more and lean into what we do best, which is to curate and show films,” she said. “So now, we’re planning on what we will do during the summer months. Will we do regular weekend film screenings, which we do now, or will we screen shorter, more curated film collections? While we already have a very curated film program, we will decide if we want to make it more concentrated and do it for a couple of days.” The opportunity to do something new not only excites Wang, it has shown her how much the community cares for Park City Film. “I have to say people — film patrons, our funders, people who live in the community and are engaged in the film industry — have been very generous,” she said. “So many of them have reached out and asked what they can do.” Park City Film: ‘The Secret Agent’ When: 7 p.m., Thursday through Saturday Where: Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave. Tickets: $8 for adults, $7 for students and senior citizens Web: parkcityfilm.org Also:  Park City Film: ‘Holding Liat’ When: 6 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 18 Where: Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave. Tickets: Free Web: parkcityfilm.org The post Park City Film projects screenings the weekend before Sundance appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less