Redford Kicks Off Sundance on a Political Note
By Bob Tourtellotte
The Sundance Film Festival kicked off
on Thursday with a political tone
struck by founder Robert Redford, who
called independent film a voice of
dissent and encouraged movie-makers to
speak their minds.
The curtain rose at the premier U.S.
gathering for independent movies on the
same day President Bush was inaugurated
for his second term, which was not lost
on Redford, the Oscar winning actor and
director of movies like "The Sting"
and "Ordinary People."
Redford told a packed house at
Sundance's opening-night premier of the
tolerance-themed comedy "Happy Endings"
that a goal of the festival was to give
a platform to a diverse group of
filmmakers with something to say about
the times.
"This is really a festival about
different voices in film that really
reflect, a little more accurately, the
world we live in," Redford said.
People believed the times were
either "chaotic" or "on course,"
depending on their place on the
political spectrum, he said. Redford
has been a champion of environmentalism
and free expression and a longtime
Democratic contributor. Many
conservatives deride the Hollywood film
industry as a hotbed of liberalism
antagonistic to their values.
"I like to think of this festival as a
festival of dissent, and I'd like to
celebrate that," Redford said.
A DIVERSE U.S.
"Happy Endings," directed by Sundance
alumnus Don Roos and starring Lisa
Kudrow, Tom Arnold and Maggie
Gyllenhaal, is not so much about
dissent as it is about alternative
lifestyles, keeping secrets, telling
lies and, in the end, tolerance.
Festival director Geoff Gilmore told
Reuters before the festival that the
film was a good way to kick off
Sundance 2005 because it explores
modern American values and mores in a
rapidly changing world, and that many
of this year's movies explored similar
themes.
The film tracks the intertwined lives
of three different groups of people.
Kudrow portrays a counselor at an
abortion clinic who remains conflicted
over her decision to have a child at a
young age.
Arnold is the father of a gay teenage
boy who ends up dating the girl, played
by Gyllenhaal, who claimed his son's
virginity.
Roos took a swipe at last year's
battles over gay marriage when he
introduced "Happy Endings." He thanked
his boyfriend for supporting him
through the making of the film and told
the audience: "We had a very busy year
threatening the sanctity of marriage."
Sundance runs for 10 days in Park City,
a mountain resort town east of Salt
Lake City, that swells from a
population of around 7,500 to somewhere
up around 45,000 at festival time,
Gilmore said.
Those film fans will be treated to many
more festival movies that, like "Happy
Endings," explore American values and
mores.
Among the 120 other films are a range
of documentaries such as "Murderball,"
about quadriplegic athletes, as well as
feature films including "The
Chumscrubber," a satirical look at life
in the American suburbs.
The festival reaches its climax on
Saturday, Jan. 29, in which awards will
be handed out for U.S. documentaries
and dramas, as well as international
documentaries and dramas.
