Sundance: Today's the start of reel excitement

This year, Sundance Film Festival officials say they "are taking Sundance back from the stars."

That statement might seem ironic as the festival gets under way today, because it comes from one of Sundance's biggest stars — actor, filmmaker and environmental activist Robert Redford.

He's going to be there as the head of the Sundance Institute, which organizes the festival, and said he's become disgusted with the "starry-eyed" mentality that has dominated recent Sundances.

"We've said it many times, and we mean it. We're here to focus on film," Redford said. "Celebrities, their entourages, the paparazzi and the accompanying media circus? We're just not interested in it. That's not what Sundance is all about."

Redford's no-stars dictum means additional responsibilities for Sundance Film Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore and his programming staff, who already have the job of watching more than 4,000 feature-length and short films that are submitted annually.

Or as Gilmore puts it, "We watch everything that's submitted to us. Good, bad, head-scratching, thought-provoking, mind-blowing. All of it. We watch it."

That might sound like a complaint, but the veteran festival chief says he still loves his job. Even when that means he and the other programmers are still watching films "up until the very last minute."

Making matters even more complicated are the limited feature-film slots. Fewer than one in 20 submitted movies will make it into the festival.

For the 2008 festival, more than 120 features were selected for various festival programs, which include the Dramatic and Documentary competitions, World Cinema, Premieres, Spectrum, Park City at Midnight and New Frontier, as well as a separate Shorts category.

"Our job as a programming committee is to make sure that we select the best, strongest films of the bunch. But we also have to make sure these ones are Sundance-appropriate," he said.

"There are always a few films that you really enjoy but don't fit the festival or the Sundance, independent mind-set," Gilmore continued. "And there are some that are no-brainers. They just have to be in Sundance."

According to Gilmore, one of these "obvious choices" was "In Bruges." The centerpiece of the Opening Night festivities, the comic thriller stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as killers who are ordered to hide out in a Belgian community after they botch a "hit."

"I think it's a brilliant piece. The writing, the acting, all of it is absolutely brilliant," he said.