PARK CITY: US actor Robert Redford refused to be drawn into the Oscars race controversy Thursday as the Sundance Film Festival he founded got underway in the mountains of Utah.
"I am not into Oscars, I am not into that," Redford told reporters as he kicked off the annual gathering -- a showcase for independent films -- in the ski resort of Park City.
"For me it's about the work," he said. "Whatever comes from it, whatever rewards come from it, that's great but I don't think about it."
The festival opened amid a storm of controversy in Hollywood over the lack of black actors nominated for the Oscars for the second year in a row.
Filmmaker Spike Lee and actor Will Smith, as well as his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, have said they would not attend the Academy Awards on February 28 over this year's all-white Oscar nominations.
Asked by reporters about his opinion on the matter, Redford -- a two-time Oscar winner -- clearly did not want to address the topic.
"Diversity comes out of the word independence," he said. "It's a word I've operated from principally for most of my life.
"That's something we're pretty proud of, how we show diversity in the festival."
He added that he was by no means against mainstream cinema -- "I have been very happily part of that" -- and his goal in creating the Sundance festival in 1985 was more to give a voice to independent filmmakers rather "than insurgents coming down from a mountain to attack the mainstream."
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