LOS ANGELES: From horror movies to comedies, intimate dramas to powerful documentaries, the 30th Sundance Film Festival opens on Thursday with a diverse field showcasing the resurgence of independent film.
The festival in the mountain town of Park City, Utah, which runs until January 26, was founded 30 years ago by Hollywood icon Robert Redford with the aim of providing a platform for independent movies in an American market where the major studios reign supreme.
From modest beginnings, the event has grown into one of the world's biggest independent film festivals, a meeting place for film-makers that has helped launch the careers of directors such as Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh and Darren Aronofsky.
This year's festival will see 121 feature films screened, including 100 premieres, from 37 countries.
The haul of films includes 54 movies from first-time directors, 35 of which will be in competition.
The films on show at Sundance were chosen from a staggering 12,218 submitted to the selection committee for consideration, a figure that reflects the renewed confidence in a sector which had been hit hard by the global financial crisis in 2008.
Festival officials say the resurgence also reflects independent film-makers willingness to embrace genres such as horror, suspense, action and thrillers.
"We are finding independent filmmakers are incorporating genre elements in their films because digital technology has made it possible," Sundance Festival director John Cooper told AFP.
"Genres help audiences engage with offbeat ideas in a comfortable way."
Reflecting that trend at Sundance this year are films such as romantic zombie movie "Life After Beth," and "Jamie Marks is Dead", a ghost story about a bullied teenager.
While many Sundance offerings will be the work of unknown directors, several films on show will feature established acting stars.
Kristen Stewart, star of the "Twilight" saga, will play a female guard deployed to the controversial post-9/11 Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in "Camp X-Ray," while Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway features in the drama "Song One."
Other stars on show include Philip Seymour Hoffman ("God's Pocket"), Lena Dunham, the creator and star of hit HBO television series "Girls", who features in "Happy Christmas", Aaron Paul of "Breaking Bad" and Juliette Lewis ("Hellion"), Mark Ruffalo ("Infinitely Polar Bear") and Kristen Wiig ("The Skeleton Twins").
Elsewhere, one of the most anticipated films is "Boyhood" by Richard Linklater. The film starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette was shot intermittently over a 10-year period and follows the journey of a family as their son grows up.
The out of competition Sundance section meanwhile features an array of acting talent, including the likes of Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe, Steve Coogan and Ryan Reynolds.
The documentary section, the second pillar of the festival, includes several titles dealing with the sociological impact of the Internet.
"Web Junkie" spotlights Internet addiction in China while "Love Child" looks at the horrific case of a South Korean baby who died from malnutrition as her parents played online games.
The murky world of arms dealing is addressed in "The Notorious Mr Bout", which looks at the rise and fall of Viktor Bout, the internationally known arms smuggler arrested in Thailand in 2008 as a result of a US government sting operation.
Oscar-winning documentary director Alex Gibney returns meanwhile in "Finding Fela", providing a portrait of legendary Nigerian Afro-beat superstar Fela Kuti.
Recent history will also be examined, with "Mitt", which goes behind the scenes of Mitt Romney's unsuccessful US presidential campaign, and "Whitey: The United States of America v James J. Bulger", which explores the violent life and crimes of the feared Boston mobster who was jailed for life last year after a sensational trial.
For the first time, the festival will also feature a section for children, with the world premiere of the American version of the French animated film "Ernest and Celestine."
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