The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has been home to “The Impact Lounge” for two years. It has become the centerfold where filmmakers and change-makers meet and connect in an effort to promote societal change.
Heather Mason, the CEO and founder of the lounge, feels that her life is a series of full circle moments that have led her to stand on the Sundance stage.
Where Impact Began
After leaving her home state of Idaho, Mason moved to Utah on a leadership scholarship to Utah State University. During her tenure, a member of the Utah FIlm Commission gave a speech that brought film to the forefront of her mind.
“I basically harassed her until I got an internship,” Mason said.
In 1994, she was introduced to the Sundance Film Festival where she helped run the press office as a volunteer.
“I think it is important for people to know that if you want opportunities, sometimes you’re not paid for them,” Mason said.
It was through Sundance that she was able to connect with other people within the film industry including Julie Sisk, the manager of The American Pavillion at the Cannes Film Festival in California.
With nothing but sheer determination and a load of credit card charges, Mason traveled to LA and became the volunteer spokesperson for the Sundance Channel. After graduating from college Mason got her first job with Sisk and moved out to Hollywood.
She worked 18 hour days with little income because she believed in herself and her ability to rise in the industry.
“I didn’t have money, I had nothing,” Mason said. “But sometimes you have to gamble on yourself.”
Mason soon got a job in development with Fox Studios that came with very little money and realized that something needed to change in order to bring herself out of debt. She began searching for opportunities in the online world and came across an internet entertainment database that wanted to launch at Sundance.
Mason said, “I can do that, I know Sundance.”
Return to Sundance
Mason then launched the largest non-officially sponsored event that had ever happened at the festival entitled “The Interactive Lounge.” She liked the idea of a lounge because the word is connotated with a comforting aura as opposed to other brands that host “houses” akin to those you might see on a collegiate greek row.
“Lounge is just such a welcoming word,” she said.
She went on to work in the events industry for three years, and it was during that time that she decided that she wanted to work with people. She quit her job, gambled on herself again with more credit card charges and started her own company, Caspian, that is now celebrating its 20th year.
In the wake of her father’s passing in Nov. 2023, Mason decided it was time to do something big at Sundance again.
Seven weeks out from the 2023 festival, Mason got to work on creating an event that combines her two greatest loves. She decided to call it “The Impact Lounge.”
“I truly think that if I bring together social impact and film, that is the nexus that creates the alchemy for social change,” Mason said.
This connection was exemplified this year at the Impact Lounge’s two day event called Pull Focus at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Director Gregroy Nava spoke at the event and announced that he would be directing the biopic on American Rights icon, Dolores Huerta. The Fithian Group, an important channel for direct to theater distribution, was also in attendance and approached Nava about releasing his film.
“That type of spark, when you put the right people together at the right time in the right mix, is my gift to the world,” Mason said. “It creates an experiment of atoms that run into each other and create catalytic explosions of opportunity.”
Storytelling Works
Mason expressed gratitude for the people that have helped her along her journey, and urged others to do the same. She is steadfast in her belief that you should always thank those people because she would not be where she is today without their support.
“You don’t do it alone,” she said. “Someone is always putting the chips on the table so you can gamble on yourself.”
Mason’s vision for “The Impact Lounge” is for it to become a traveling nucleus for social impact and connection to film. She is adamant that film is at the center of societal change and the lounge is an epicenter for filmmakers to inaugurate those stories into the world.
“You can’t make people cry with a white paper, you can’t make people’s hearts soar with a plea of guilt, that doesn’t work,” Mason said. “Storytelling works.”
