Storytelling Takes Center Stage
Oddball pen pals Mary and Max animate Opening Night, handily demonstrating the Festival’s 25-year-strong commitment to promoting diverse voices, the human experience, and truly great storytelling.
“I’m a firm believer in the strength of art. When the economy gets tough, it will survive. It always has.”
– Robert Redford
– Robert Redford
Robert Redford took the stage of the Eccles Theatre last night and welcomed a packed house to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival before the screening of the Opening Night film, Mary and Max, the first animated film to ever open the Festival. “This is the 25th year of our existence as a festival. And of course times have changed over the years, yet I’m excited by what I’ve always been excited about…the idea that you don’t know what’s coming, you don’t know what’s around the corner, or what’s next. I find that exciting because it means you’re going to get surprises. Discovery always brings surprises and that’s what we’re about.”
During an interview this November in Northern California, Redford shared some insight into his commitment to art and storytelling. “Storytelling is the way we get informed from an early age and also the way we connect to each other as humans,” he said. “Film – and all types of art – can show us the truth beneath and within the human experience.” Redford’s belief in the power of art and independent storytelling was his original impetus for founding Sundance Institute in 1981 and for launching the Sundance Film Festival shortly afterwards in 1984.
Last night, Sundance Film Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore followed Redford and confessed that he didn’t select Mary and Max for the Opening Night film because it’s the Festival’s first Opening Night animated feature but because “it’s just a great story.” Gilmore also thanked the Festival’s sponsors for their support, calling out Presenting Sponsors Entertainment Weekly, HP, and Honda by name. Before introducing Mary and Max director Adam Elliot, Gilmore reminded the crowd that independent film is about discovery, and encouraged everyone to have fun, and to be immersed in stories, for the next 10 days.
Adam Elliot’s Mary and Max is an animated feature that tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two pen pals. Introducing his film with producer Melanie Coombs just before its world premiere, Elliot dedicated the screening to his own pen pal, with whom he has exchanged letters for more than 20 years. He thanked his partner and his parents for their support during the five years it took to make the film. Then he told the audience that making a stop motion animated feature is similar to “making love and being stabbed with a knife at the same time.”
Elliot’s admiration for the traditional methodology of stop-motion animation was clear as he admitted to using 50 tubes of sex lube to imitate water, cellophane for fire effects, and fishing line to represent rain in his quest to stay old-school.
Earlier in the day, Redford presided over the Festival’s inaugural press conference at the Egyptian Theatre, affirming with his characteristic directness his optimism for the Festival and its future in the face of the global economic recession.
“We’re looking now at a world that’s very screwed up. But with that comes a number of opportunities,” he told the group of journalists. “I’m a firm believer in the strength of art. When the economy gets tough, it will survive. It always has.”
Gilmore appeared alongside Redford and told reporters that ticket sales are heading to similar levels as last year’s Festival. “We’re weathering the crisis,” Gilmore said.
This year’s line-up features more than 120 films from 21 countries. “The success of the Festival is due to its diversity,” explained Redford. In the November interview, he spoke more extensively of Sundance Institute’s commitment to creative range: “There’s no such a thing as a ‘Sundance film,’” he said. “We just show what’s out there. It’s up to the audience to decide what’s what because it’s all about discovery. So there’s no such thing as a ‘Sundance film’ other than a rash of films that show the diversity of what your options are.” Choice and freedom of expression are key elements of an open society, he said, adding, “Narrowmindedness is one of the great threats to democracy.”
Yesterday afternoon, Redford spoke about his hope for a greater national role for the arts under the Obama administration. “I’d like to see arts and culture return to the national agenda,” he said, adding that “a country like ours should be subsidizing art more than it is.”
When asked where he will be on Inauguration Day next Tuesday, Redford responded, “I’m not going to be there. I’ve got to be where I should be. But I’m glad to see the gang that couldn’t shoot straight getting out.”
For more coverage of Opening Night and Mary and Max, and to watch Adam Elliot’s exclusive pen pal videos and more live coverage, visit sundance.org/festival.
Read Geoffrey Gilmore's First Person Account on Indiewire
