Park City » At the same time George W. Bush was saying farewell, Robert Redford said good riddance.
"Nerves. Anxiety. Worry. Pain. Panic. Fear," Redford intoned, beginning his remarks on the opening-night premiere Thursday at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Park City's Eccles Theatre.
"I'm not talking about the festival," the Sundance Institute's founder continued. "I'm talking about what's going to be exiting the national scene on Tuesday." The Eccles audience cheered.
In his remarks -- coincidentally taking place as Bush delivered his final presidential address on TV -- Redford acknowledged the nation's precarious economy, and urged the filmmakers attending Sundance to use art as a force for hope.
"When things are bad, there's always a chance for opportunity," Redford said.
Then the opening-night audience settled in for the first movie of the 11-day festival, "Mary and Max." The clay-animated drama from Australia tells of a pen-pal friendship between two lonely souls: An 8-year-old Melbourne girl and a 44-year-old Manhattanite suffering from obesity and Asperger's syndrome.
"Did we pick it because it's animated? No. Did we pick it because it's Australian? No," said festival director Geoffrey Gilmore. "We picked it because it's great."
In introducing the film, director Adam Elliot said he and his animation crew spent five years painstakingly moving the characters and their world. Stop-motion animation, he said, is "like making love and being stabbed in the chest at the same time."
After the screening, which received a mildly enthusiastic response from the Eccles audience, Elliot acknowledged the movie's serious subject matter -- which touches on depression, alcoholism and electro-shock treatment -- may shock people used to kid-friendly animation. "It's not 'Wallace & Gromit,' it's not 'Shrek,' it's not 'Nemo,' " Elliot said.
Two-thirds of the movie's financing came from government sources, said producer Melanie Coombs. Elliot added most Australian films wouldn't get made without such support.
It's the kind of support Redford would like to see more of from the U.S. government. In a pre-festival press conference Thursday, Redford expressed high hopes for art subsidies when Barack Obama takes office. "We're going to see art and culture return to the national agenda, more than it has been," Redford said.
Redford recalled a recent trip to Washington, D.C., joining actress Kerry Washington and musician John Legend to lobby for more funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Everyone they lobbied was polite and supportive, Redford said, but said there was no money to be had. Redford recounted his response: "You could have told us that up front, and save us the trip."
The coincidence of Obama's inauguration falling during Sundance, Redford said, "draws attention to the fact that we're going to be seeing changes coming when it comes to art."
When asked about the possibility of a cabinet-level position dedicated to the arts, Redford endorsed the idea of more federal subsidies for culture. When asked if he'd serve in such a job, he offered an emphatic "No."
The 2009 Sundance Film Festival takes off in earnest today, with a full slate of screenings in Park City, as well as in Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon. Tonight also sees the gala opening at Salt Lake City's Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts, with the premiere of R.J. Cutler's documentary "The September Issue," an inside look at Vogue magazine and its imperious editor, Anna Wintour.
