Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Get to Know Our Satellite Screens: The Stars Align for Digital Gym

27/01/2022

By Stephanie Ornelas

Digital Gym is ready to deliver a slice of Sundance Film Festival to San Diego.

Almost two years ago, when the California-based independent micro-cinema lost the lease to its location and was forced to close during the pandemic, Mois s Esparza (Exhibitions Manager) was concerned that the cinema wasn't given a proper send-off. Today, instead of a goodbye, they're ready to introduce their brand-new home to their community as a 2022 Sundance Film Festival Satellite Screen partner.

It all aligned itself really nicely, says Esparza via Zoom. We're making up for the closure of the previous location with this amazing grand opening and [we're] pairing it with the Satellite Screen experience.

As a single-screen cinema, Esparza noted how it took some time for Digital Gym to cultivate supporters. Caught between two other independent cinemas, he explains, It took a while for us to carve out our space in the film community here in San Diego. But it felt like we hit our stride in the last couple of years. With the pandemic, so much was paused, but we're ready to pick up where we left off with this new sense of momentum.

Uniquely part of two entities - Esparza also manages the San Diego Latino Film Festival - he provides an important perspective when it comes to the cinematic depth of the community.

The film festival community here is so strong. It really is the cinephile's dream, he says excitedly. From the San Diego Asian Film Festival, to the Jewish Film Festival, the G.I. Film Festival and San Diego Film Week, there are so many opportunities here to not just appreciate, but also discover film. We really advocate for independent films made from all over the world, so we're honored to be the in-person ambassadors for the Sundance Film Festival.

Being one of the only in-person aspects of the Festival is what really kept the Digital Gym team not just encouraged, but exhilarated.

The pandemic brings on so much stress, and it's kind of hard to see a path through all the noise, but producing this event has given our team so much to hang on to, Esparza says. It's giving us a bit of renewed purpose.

In terms of what's changed [since Sundance Institute's announcement of a primarily online festival], the cinema is limiting capacity and will be rethinking some of its reception-type events to promote social distancing and an overall safe environment. But they will still be hosting Q&As, something Esparza stresses is so important to the overall experience.

The real magic happens during that audience-filmmaker interaction after the film plays, he says. You can see it on peoples' faces. They just want to interact with special guests and talk about the film.

He continues, we project so much onto the screen while we're watching, but we almost, in a way, want the film to talk to us after it's over, and how we do that is by having these filmmakers, actors, producers, editors, and other special guests provide that context.

But more importantly, Esparza is excited to bring a small taste of the Sundance Film Festival to the energetic and fast-evolving community that is San Diego.

I want to create a Sundance experience that's really accessible. Bringing films to the community, setting up the red carpet, having Q&As with filmmakers - those are the things I'm really looking forward to.

The pandemic challenges have prompted Esparza to have conversations within his own community. And despite the 2022 Festival's pivot to online, many agree that the most crucial facet - the core reason we're all gathered here in the first place - will always be present.

This just allows us to [examine] the reason why we're coming together in the first place, which is to watch and support movies, he says. All of the supplemental events are amazing and create a vibe, and they're so valuable, but what are we really here for? To watch films communally. That important aspect of the film is still there.
LINK: https://www.sundance.org/blogs/festival-blogs/get-to-know-our-satellit...
See more stories from sundance

Most recent headlines

23/12/2025

Nielsen, Roku Expand Measurement Partnership

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

PwC: Streaming Market Shifting to 'Scale and Sustainability'

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Inside the Gray Innovation Lab

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

ESPN Renews Deal for Heisman Trophy Coverage

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Gray Media to Acquire WBBJ from Bahakel Communications

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale

Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...

22/12/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captivate and Resonate Platforms in Sports Production

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...

22/12/2025

Hitting the Bullseye: Sky Sports Readies Itself for the Biggest PDC World Darts Championship to Hit Ally Pally Yet

Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...

22/12/2025

Unique Skillset: Bringing New Directors to the World of Darts at The Worlds with Sky Sports

Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...

22/12/2025

Gravity Media Prepares for a Flight of Fancy With the PDC World Darts Championship 2025 for Sky Sports

Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...

22/12/2025

One Hundred and Eighty: Gravity Media on Hitting the Production Bullseye at the World Darts Championship 2025

One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...

22/12/2025

The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content Experiences

The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...

22/12/2025

ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Sports, Expanding Growth of Internal Production Team

ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...

22/12/2025

ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats' NFL Altcasts

ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...

22/12/2025

A Decade of Giving: Fest & Flauschig' Christmas Circus Celebrates Record Turnout and Generosity

For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...

22/12/2025

Paramount and Netflix Boast Double-Digit Gains in Nielsen's November Media Distributor Gauge

Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...

22/12/2025

Nielsen and Roku Expand Strategic Measurement Partnership

New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...

22/12/2025

Allen Media Group to Deploy Infillion TrueX for Streaming Services

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

22/12/2025

Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories

Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...

22/12/2025

Marine Biological Laboratory Explores Human Memory With AI and Virtual Reality

The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...

22/12/2025

Space42 and LatConnect 60 Expand Access to Advanced Geospatial Intelligence

Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...

22/12/2025

Simplify Playlist Management with Workflows in WO Automation for Radio

Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...

22/12/2025

Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Sports remains the unrivalled home for golf fans in the UK and Ireland

Monday 22 December 2025 Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...

22/12/2025

Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026

Back to All News Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026 Entertainment 22 December 2025 GlobalJapan Link copied to clipboar...

22/12/2025

Christmas with Oliver Callan on RT

Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...

22/12/2025

Monaghan's McKenna family crowned Ireland's Fittest Family 2025

Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach Th...

22/12/2025

RT lyric fm Choirs for Christmas 2025 Winners Announced

The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm. Ove...

21/12/2025

Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Final Season Part 2' Premieres March 2026, Main Trailer Out Now

Back to All News Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...

21/12/2025

Rory McIlroy caps stellar year by winning the RT Sport Sportsperson of the Year 2025

John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year ...

20/12/2025

Atomos Updates Ninja TX GO-Ninja TX With ProRes RAW and C...

Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...

20/12/2025

CJP Broadcast Completes Digitisation of European Gymnasti...

CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...

20/12/2025

Bitmovin Launches Stream Lab MCP Server

Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...

20/12/2025

Gracenote Unveils New Immersive Features for Sports Hubs

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Morgan Murphy Media Promotes Jill Shiroma to VP of Digital Strategy

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Samsung Makes GameBreaks Ad Format Available Programmatically

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

FCC Extends Deadline for Comments on Upper C-Band Proposals

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Scripps Sports Inks Deals for Soccer and Professional Cheerleading

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Atomos Unveils Firmware Update For Ninja TX and TX GO

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List

Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...

20/12/2025

December 19, 2025

Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...

19/12/2025

With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout workflows forward on macOS.

With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...

19/12/2025

SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Creating the Smart Venue'

SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...

19/12/2025

2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?

2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...

19/12/2025

Gamified Fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night Ambitions with Hungry Bear Media

Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...

19/12/2025

College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familiar Saturday of Production

College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...

19/12/2025

AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Embracing the Use of Agentic AI

AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...

19/12/2025

Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to NFL Christmas Doubleheader

Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...

19/12/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captivate and Resonate Platforms in Sports Production

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...

19/12/2025

US Marine Corps Increases Affordable Mass Demonstrations with Successful Red Wolf Low-Altitude Live Fire

Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...