Sundancing — Robert Redford's Sundance festival starts Thursday

From its inception more than two decades ago, one of the primary objectives of the Sundance Film Festival has been to provide a place where the work of independent filmmakers — many of them first-timers — could be seen by an audience.

But there's also a commercial side: The filmmakers hope that audience reaction will influence studio executives so that their movies might be picked up for theatrical distribution.

How things have changed.

One 2005 Sundance selection has already been acquired well before the festival opens. The Australian thriller "Wolf Creek" will get a nationwide release — probably in October — after being picked up by Dimension Films.

Sundance remains the premier U.S. showcase for independently produced features and shorts from the United States and around the world, and the 2005 festival starts its 11-day run Thursday with a screening of the "family-values" comedy "Happy Endings," starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tom Arnold, Laura Dern and Lisa Kudrow, in Park City's Eccles Theater.

On the following night, Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City plays host to director Gaby Dellal's "On a Clear Day," which stars Peter Mullan and two-time Academy Award-nominee Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets & Lies," "Little Voice").

And for the first time, the festival will feature a "centerpiece premiere," director George C. Wolfe's made-for-pay-cable drama "Lackawanna Blues," based on the stage play by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The film stars Jimmy Smits, Macy Gray and Terrence Howard and will debut Jan. 26 in the Eccles Theater.

In describing those films — as well as the other 120 features playing in this year's event — festival director Geoff Gilmore used words that have become Sundance catch-phrases: "risk-taking," "diversity" and "aesthetic innovation."

And he singled out "Happy Endings" for praise because it "examines the many layers of relationships in American families and shifting values that are at the heart of our country. . . . The humor and compassion with which they are explored is unexpected and moving." As always, Gilmore and other festival officials insist that the emphasis this year should be on the films and not on the stars who are in them. Sundance may be primarily about seeing movies, but for celebrities, it's just as often about being seen.