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The organizers of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival won't just be introducing the world to new movies and new voices. They aim to also start conversations about protecting the environment.

Sundance programmers announced 66 titles Wednesday, filling the four competition slates of dramatic and documentary films, as well as the Next program of smaller films. The festival — running Jan. 19-29 in Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City and at Sundance resort — also announced a new initiative, New Climate, to spotlight films and discussions about global climate change.

The environment is a subject close to Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford's heart, said festival Director John Cooper. The festival has been the springboard for such acclaimed documentaries as "An Inconvenient Truth," "The Cove," "Blackfish" "Gasland" and "Chasing Ice."

In the past couple of years, Cooper said, the environment was an issue fewer filmmakers seemed willing to tackle.

"They seemed to be tapering off, even though it's such a huge subject," Cooper said. "I thought maybe the funding was going for much poppier, happier things, and climate change was just getting to be a problem that seems sad."

But once Sundance organizers decided to create the New Climate initiative, a funny thing happened: An abundance of good documentaries about environmental issues were submitted for this year's festival.

"Most of the films end with solutions, which is uplifting," Cooper said. "There are a few films that made me, for a second, want to give up my job and do something much more in the trenches."

Three such films made it into the U.S. Documentary competition: "Chasing Coral," which follows scientists working to keep coral reefs from vanishing; "Trophy," about the industry behind big-game hunting; and "Water & Power: A California Heist," about the powers benefiting from California's arcane water system.

Two more environmental-themed films are in the World Cinema Documentary slate: "Machines," a look at life in a massive textile factory in India; and "Plastic China," a look inside a Chinese recycling facility.

New Climate will include panel discussions and roundtables "to see if we can raise awareness about the importance of this issue," Cooper said.

The festival works to be as environmentally friendly as an event that drops 40,000 visitors on a Utah ski town can be. Cooper cited the festival's recycling efforts and the free distribution of reusable water bottles.

The decision to launch New Climate was made well before the Nov. 8 election, though "it was not lost on us that in the thick of programming, the election was all going on," Cooper said.

But while partisan divides deepened during the campaign, Cooper said that in the submitted films, "we'd sort of see the opposite. We'd see a lot of people working through situations that, in the end, were bringing people together, actually."

Trevor Groth, the festival's programming director, echoed that sentiment: "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."

A recurring theme in the documentaries was "how remarkably unfiltered they are," Groth said. "There's a lot of footage now available from people in the middle of an issue or a conflict, and the filmmakers are shrewdly adapting that footage into their stories. It really is adding a power that we haven't seen before to this degree."

The festival's opening night, called Day One, on Jan. 19, will spotlight five films: The crime drama "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore," starring Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood; the documentary "Whose Streets?," which looks at the protests in Ferguson, Mo.; the rural coming-of-age drama "Dayveon" (in the Next program); the Thai drama "Pop Aye," in which a man is reunited with the elephant he raised as a child; and the British-made documentary "The Workers Cup," which follows migrant workers in Qatar creating their own soccer tournament in the shadow of the 2022 World Cup venues.

Twitter: @moviecricket —

The full slate, online

For full information about the 66 films in the competitions and Next program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, go to sltrib.com/sundance. —

How to Sundance

Details on the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

When • Jan. 19-29

Where • Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City and the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon.

Passes and ticket packages • On sale now at sundance.org/festivals. Some are sold out, but many are still available.

Individual tickets • On sale to Utah residents, Jan. 11-13, then available to everyone. Tickets are $25 for the first half of the festival in Park City (Jan. 19-24), $20 for Salt Lake City screenings and for the second half in Park City (Jan. 25-29).

Information • sundance.org/festivals