Paz de la Huerta, Saffron Burrow and director Amy Redford at the premiere of "The Guitar" in Park City on Friday afternoon. (Robert Hirschi/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Amy Redford knows her name will bring attention to "The Guitar," which premiered Friday at the world-famous film festival her father founded. But she hopes the film's redemptive story will find its own audience.
    Ask about issues of favoritism, even nepotism, and Redford faces the questions head-on. "I'm sure that people might have those thoughts," says the 37-year-old actor-turned-director. "The comforting thing I know is that the process, the selection, has nothing to do with that. I believe in the democratic template they use to choose movies."
    Her father says "The Guitar" was selected on its own merits, describing the work as "very much a Sundance film."
    "She will probably have a rougher time than anybody," says Robert Redford. "It's very, very low-budget. She did it on her own. It's something pretty exciting for me. It's something I balance because it's my own daughter, but I'm pretty proud."
    In a career working as a TV, movie and stage actor, Amy Redford knows her last name has gotten her invited to the table. But like other industry kids, she knows the weight of that privilege, as well.
    "It takes double the effort to be able to be seen in your own light," she says. "You have to work twice as hard to prove you're not there for your handout."
    She's not even the first Redford kid to have her work screened at Sundance. That would
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be brother James, a screenwriter credited as one of three directors of "The Kindness of Strangers," a 1998 documentary about organ transplants.
    "The Guitar" soars on the sunken eyes and etched cheekbones of Saffron Burrows (''Reign Over Me" and TV's "Boston Legal"), who delivers a gritty performance as Melody, a young New Yorker who sheds her own skin and becomes somebody new after a terminal cancer diagnosis. "A whimsical fairy tale," is festival director Geoffrey Gilmore's summary.
    As Melody runs up debts she doesn't think she'll be around to pay off, she befriends delivery people, buys a guitar that represents a long-forgotten childhood dream, and eventually transforms a rented loft into something like a womb. When the woman throws her old clothes out of the window, and later swaddles herself, mermaid-like, in sheer curtains, such scenes show off Redford's directorial eye.
    Despite a lifetime steeped in conversations with her father about the value of storytelling, Redford found it difficult to claim the authority of being a director. In the early days on the set, the actor wanted to apologize to every director she had ever worked with. "I found it very difficult to call 'action' my first week," she said. "I felt like the biggest fraud."
    But she was inspired by the story, written by indie filmmaker Amos Poe. For a time, she considered taking on the lead role, but realized she would rather tell the story than be in it.
    She's thrilled to come home to promote the film - and the lead performance - which carry personal significance. "As she discovers the guitar," Amy Redford says, "I think I discovered my own."
    Next screening: Monday, 6:30 p.m. Peery's Egyptian Theater, 2415 Washington Blvd., Ogden.