This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

At the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the hustle and bustle of Park City came to a brief, happy halt on a Tuesday morning.

Many people parked outside the lounge where CNN had set up large-screen TVs on Old Main Street, tuned to the live coverage of the inauguration of Barack Obama. At other locations, movie producers were hosting viewing parties over brunch buffets.

The first Friday of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, the first full day after opening night, will also fall on Inauguration Day — but it's unlikely the Park City visitors from Hollywood and New York will be celebrating Donald Trump's ascension to the presidency so heartily.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the stage may be set for demonstrations or protests on Trump's first day in office.

A spokesperson for Keri Putnam, the Sundance Institute's executive director, told THR: "We always look to create a safe space for artists and will facilitate requests from outside groups that want to host demonstrations at our 2017 festival by connecting them with the city of Park City to organize."

Perhaps the biggest indicator that Sundance is ready to offer a counter-argument to Trumpism is the festival's just-launched initiative to discuss environmental issues, "The New Climate." (The name carries an implied double meaning, referencing both the planet's climate — a longtime cause for Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford — and the changing political winds.)

Eight documentaries on the festival slate will be part of "The New Climate," along with three virtual-reality presentations in the New Frontier program. Panel discussions and other conversation starters are also planned.

Festival programmers had one eye on the political news as they picked this year's slate, officials told The Salt Lake Tribune last week.

But the movies they watched didn't dwell on partisan divides, said festival director John Cooper, but the opposite. "We'd see a lot of people working through situations that, in the end, were bringing people together, actually."

Added programming director Trevor Groth, "if everyone in the world had our job, and had to watch all of these stories from all of these different voices, I know the world would be a better place."

Meanwhile, THR notes that several filmmakers who would usually attend Sundance will instead be in Washington, D.C., for Trump's inauguration.

Producer Jim Stern will be shooting footage for a Trump documentary on Jan. 20, then flying to Utah for the premiere of a movie he produced, "The Discovery," a science-fiction romance starring Jason Segel, Rooney Mara and Redford.

Documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus, whose "What Happened, Miss Simone?" opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, will be part of the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21. Garbus' husband, Dan Cogan, is co-founder of Impact Partners, which is financially backing six movies at the festival. (Cogan's business partner, by the way, is Utah-based movie mogul Geralyn Dreyfous.)

Garbus told THR that, "while he was disappointed I wasn't going to be there to celebrate [his slate], he understood [and] supported the decision."