When I heard that Boulder was in the running and, in fact, one of three finalists, to get the Sundance Film Festival, all I could think of was my tête-à-têt with Jennifer Aniston..

It was January 2002. Jen and I were in downtown Park City, Utah, her promoting one of her first indie films, me covering the festival for The Gazette. We enjoyed a lovely brunch at some tony restaurant. It’s always delightful when a celebrity is so down-to-earth, as interested in me as I was in her.

My wife reminds me there were a half-dozen other journalists at the table. Sure, but memories can be so kind when you let them …

All of which to say, I’m excited about the possibility of Sundance moving to somewhere in our Front Range backyard. Rubbing elbows with celebs and up-and-coming filmmakers, having in-depth conversations with other film lovers, and watching some of the most fascinating, nonformulaic indie films on the planet (along with some delightful stinkers) — that’s what Sundance is all about.

The Sundance Institute announced in July that, with its contract with Park City expiring in 2027, it had selected six possible host cities to carry on the 40-year tradition.

On Thursday, it was narrowed down to three: Park City (with Salt Lake) is vying to keep it, and they’re competing with Cincinnati and Boulder.

Founded by Robert Redford (who attended the University of Colorado) and often showcasing work from his Sundance Institute’s labs, the festival has become a kind of backdoor to the movie industry, showcasing the artsy, sometimes low-budget films everyone will be talking about the next year.

Movies such as “Clerks,” “The Blair Witch Project,” “Get Out,” “Coda,” “Whiplash,” “Precious,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Blood Simple,” “Big Night,” “Minari,” “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Memento,” as well as great international and documentary films that may not have hit your radar but should have.

Movies such as “Scout’s Honor,” a 2001 documentary by Tom Shepard. I hope that name rings a bell. Shepard’s a hometown boy from the Springs, and Sundance made his career. His uplifting film documenting the efforts in a small town to fight the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policies premiered at Sundance and won the coveted Audience Award as well as the Expression of Freedom Award.

Shepard went on to have a successful career as a producer and editor and founded the Youth Documentary Academy here in the Springs. It’s Shepard’s way of giving back to the community, training and showcasing the next generation of filmmakers.

Shepard recently wrote a letter to the Sundance Selection Committee, urging a move to this state.

“Colorado has been an extraordinarily positive environment in which to run the Youth Documentary Academy,” he wrote. “The nonattachment to Hollywood and TV industries in California and New York has fostered meaningful independence, both in storytelling and in style. … Of course, Sundance, has been doing this for decades. Colorado is a perfect environment in which to continue this vision. We look forward to continuing our deep partnership with the Office and all the ways we can support Sundance should it relocate in the state.”

Dylan Nelson, a Colorado College film professor, shares Shepard’s excitement about the possibility of a Sundance move to Colorado.

For a decade, she has taken CC students on an annual nine-hour pilgrimage (by bus and van) to Park City for the festival, and the prospect of a two-hour drive instead of nine sounds attractive.

But she also thinks Boulder is a better fit from a cultural perspective.

“I know many filmmakers are reluctant to give their work to a state that has banned abortion and has restrictive laws around trans people,” Nelson said.

“I know that Sundance has worked to provide an inclusive, welcoming space, so there’s just a cognitive dissonance. Boulder is well positioned to be the kind of welcoming place that better fits with Sundance values.”

I get the feeling, though, that no matter where Sundance lands, Nelson and her students will follow. For Nelson, the joy is in experiencing the festival through the eyes of her students.

“For students, this is the first time they’re seeing film as an industry,” she says. “They see the cogs turn. They see the role a distributor might play, how distribution is structured. And they’re so excited to meet the directors of the films they like. The Q&As have been fantastic.”

But some of Nelson’s favorite moments have happened after the screenings and Q&As are done.

“We come back to the house, and we’re making tea, getting lunches packed for the next day, and we have these great conversations about the things that surprised them or outraged them or that they loved. The films that blew their minds. Every year, there’s a film that blows my mind, and students have that experience, too.”

I think that nails it. The mind-blowing experiences of edgy, avant-garde, quirky-funny and horrifying films, and sharing those experiences.

That’s what attracts my friend and fellow film lover Anne-Marie Pacitto, a local event producer and publicist who regularly attends the festival for personal enlightenment.

Although a move to Boulder would make it an easier trip for her, she bristles at the idea.

“Oh, god! Boulder?” she said. “So pretentious. So predictable. Everything so already expensive, like Park City. … Everyone full of themselves.”

Hey, I have some good friends in Boulder. But, yeah, Boulder can be pretty Boulder.

And I have to say, as much as I like Sundance, there’s already a smugness there, the idea that its independent voices are so much better, so much more significant than Hollywood’s.

One of my favorite moments at Sundance came during a Q&A with indie filmmakers, and after one of them hammered mainstream cinema as being a painkiller for the masses, Sherman Alexie shook his head.

The famous native American novelist and poet wrote the screenplay for the outstanding quirky comedy “Smoke Signals,” which was premiering at Sundance that year. He responded, “We’ll take the painkiller. I’d rather watch ‘T2’ (‘Terminator 2’) than 95% of the movies at this festival.”

The silence that followed from the crowd was priceless. I worry, as Pacitto does, that moving to Boulder might double down on the pretension and smug.

Of the six finalists, Pacitto thought Santa Fe — now out of the running — might be a better fit, especially if you consider the spiritual dimensions of the place.

“It is sacred native land, and it just feels right,” she said. “That’s my vote. You want indie? That’s indie.”

I really like that idea.

Unfortunately, like just about all film festivals, Sundance, no matter where it lands, is bound to remain somewhat elitist. Passes are more than $800 each, and lodging has been through the roof.

I know how fortunate I’ve been to get press passes, which not only got me in free to all the films but gave me access to so many amazing filmmakers and performers. And speaking of Jennifer Aniston. …

OK, so maybe it wasn’t quite a brunch date, but it was fascinating to meet Aniston at that moment, as she was trying to shed her beloved “Friends” persona.

She came to Sundance to promote her role in the small-budget 2002 drama “The Good Girl” (which co-starred a very young Jake Gyllenhaal.)

“When you get known for one role, people forget that you’re an actor,” she told me.

“We become victims of our circumstances, and it’s difficult to look outside the box.”

That place outside Hollywood’s box has been what Sundance has been all about, and, regardless of the host city, I don’t expect that to change.