TheWrap teamed up with agent, film producer and Sundance fixture Cassian Elwes on Tuesday to host a “Farewell to Park City” reception as the 2026 Sundance Film Festival began rolling the credits on its last year in Utah.
With a guest list that included storied indie legends like Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Roadside Attraction co-President Howard Cohen and “I, Tonya” producer Rosanne Korenberg, power players like Kareem Daniel and Jo Cronk and even some familiar faces from “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” TheWrap’s reception at 710 Bodega toasted another year of stellar films, famous faces and overnight bidding wars in style.
“We’ve been here every single year,” founder and Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman said, reflecting on TheWrap’s 17th anniversary this week. “It’s been really important for us to provide our platform to the new voices, the innovation in the industry. We first and foremost serve our readers, but our readers are the filmmakers, they are the creatives and the business people in the industry.”
Best known for producing award-winning features including “Blue Valentine,” “The Butler” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” Elwes said in his toast that Sundance has long been the home of genre-defining works that stand the test of time.
“People make movies at the studios, but we make, I believe, films. We make cinema. We make the things that people actually remember later on,” he said in his remarks Tuesday, acknowledging that the guests in the room help make Sundance what it is.
“We’re moving to Boulder, Colo. We’ll see what that turns out to be like, but I know that one of the great things that we’ll have when we go there is the sense of all ourselves being a part of it,” he added.
“The best of what we have, I think, the best of the creativity comes from independent filmmakers,” Waxman echoed. “We have to nurture this community and we have to keep it alive.”
Read on for TheWrap’s full photo gallery of attendees from our “Farewell to Park City” cocktail reception below.
Cassian Elwes, producer and Sharon Waxman, CEO and Editor-in-chief at TheWrap
Mason Plotts, Head of Films at Killer Films
Cassian Elwes, Sharon Waxman and Mason Plotts
Christine Vachon, Founder at Killer Films and Cassian Elwes
TheWrap’s 2026 awards magazines
Christine Vachon, Howard Cohen, Co-President and Co-founder at Roadside Attractions, and guest
Rosanne Korenberg, producer (“I, Tonya”), and Jennifer Levine, Partner at Untitled Management
Kareem Daniel, adviser at KKR and former chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution and Sharon Waxman
Kareem Daniel
Cassian Elwes and Sharon Waxman
Sharon Waxman
Cassian Elwes and Sharon Waxman welcome guests
Christine Vachon
Social Media Influencer Peter Chung, April Bosworth, Andrew Bosworth, CTO, Meta, and Jo Cronk, President, North America at Whalar
Inside TheWrapBook
Kaelan Dickinson, screenwriter and Cassian Elwes’ 2026 Independent Screenwriting Fellow and Mitchell Kenrick, Executive Assistant at Atlas Entertainment
Sharon Waxman, Kareem Daniel, and guests
Temi Ojo, Founder and CEO at Topijo Films
Sara Spain, Account Director at Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, Avanti Peters, Executive Assistant at Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, and Emily Vogel
Temi Ojo, Kaelan Dickinson and Mitchell Kenrick
Xiye Bastida, climate activist, Franco Campos-Lopez, filmmaker, Sara Spain
Mason Plotts and guest
Sara Spain, Xiye Bastida, and Franco Campos-Lopez
Ed Winters, producer
Kevin Iwashina, Sharon Waxman, Cassian Elwes, and Jamie Patricof, producer (“Roofman”)
Dr. Katherine Pieper, PhD, Program Director at the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Amanda Rothenberg, Account Director at Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, and Sara Spain
Emily Vogel and Jo Cronk
Ashley Avis, filmmaker, and Ed Winters, Co-Founders at Winterstone Pictures
Cassian Elwes and Sharon Waxman
Robert Fyvolent, producer (“Summer of Soul”) and Cassian Elwes
Christie Marchese, Founder and CEO at Kinema
Wrap interns Paige Flake, Amanda Nelson and Allyson Sloan
Emily Vogel (Center) with Jack Barlow, Emmerson Lee and John Barlow of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”
