Kim Yutani was appointed Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival in 2018. She began programming short films there in 2006, and became a feature film programmer in 2009, focusing on US and international fiction feature films, overseeing short film programming, and working on the Festival’s Offscreen series of panels and conversations. She was instrumental in the creation of Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong, which she also programs. During her tenure at the Institute, she has represented Sundance internationally by serving on juries, speaking on panels, and working to cultivate relationships with film commissions, industry, and artists around the world. For the past five years, she has also overseen a new collaboration with the Berlinale’s European Film Market — housed within the Sundance Film Festival at EFM program — which has provided exposure and sales opportunities for Sundance films, immediately after premiering at the Festival.

She started her programming career at Outfest Los Angeles, one of the world’s leading LGBT festivals, where she was the Artistic Director and the Director of Programming. She was a programmer for the Provincetown International Film Festival, has been a reader for Creative Capital, and was on the short film nominating committee for Cinema Eye Honors. Prior to her film festival work, Yutani was a film critic and freelance journalist focusing on independent film. She got her start in the industry as Director Gregg Araki’s assistant.