Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festivalis, as you may well know, is the largest U.S. showcase for independent movies and opened with a traditional meet-the-press event, in which Robert Redford and head programmer Geoffrey Gilmore proudly announced the fest's 25 years in business.

"The way we've programmed is the same as the first day we started," Redford said Thursday. "It's the world that has changed." The 72-year-old actor expects arts and culture to reemerge at the top of the national agenda, even in tough economic times.

This year's festival began Thursday and in the next few days ahead, more excitement is anticipated in the snows of Park City, Utah.

Sundance began in its current form in 1985 as a place for new and experimental work in independent film. Sundance's mission hasn't changed, but the world around the festival has changed immensely. Redford, for his part, said he wouldn't be disappointed to see thinner crowds and less of a corporate presence at the festival this year.

Redford had even harsher words for outgoing President George Bush and his administration by saying he wasn't bothered that President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration next week is happening in the middle of his annual festival. "I'm personally excited just because I'm glad to see the gang-who-couldn't-shoot-straight get outta there," he joked. "You've got a lame-duck guy going out, but he sure has done a lot of quacking in the last while."

Diversity has been especially important for this year's festival. Some gays decided to boycott the festival after a same-sex marriage ban passed in California in November. Redford dismissed the complaints. "To try to target the festival seems silly to me since diversity is the name of our game," he said.

Thursday night’s premiere at the Eccles Auditorium was sold out, but that may be not a clear indicator since the audience included sponsors, local officials, and the like. Interestingly, Brooks Addicott, the excellent new head of press at Sundance, says a lot of this year’s tickets were bought by locals.

This year, the festival offerings include sci-fi, claymation, comedies featuring TV stars (from “Saturday Night Live” and “The Office”) and high-profile premieres of films that already have distribution. (Those include the Zooey Deschanel/Joseph Gordon-Levitt romance “500 Days of Summer” and the L.A. retro-'80s drama “The Informers,” starring Mickey Rourke and Billy Bob Thornton.)

And many film experts say anyone should be cautious of deeming it a disappointment even if none of the roughly 120 feature films playing over the next 10 days breaks out.

Sundance is about expanding the sense of what's possible, Gilmore said, and the festival has pushed innovation in filmmaking with its New Frontier exhibit, a collection of film-related art installations on display during the festival in the basement of the Main Street Mall.