Robert Redford, the legendary film director, actor, producer, and Sundance Film Fest founder, took part in an open press conference with two of his colleagues in Park City, UT to kick off the proceedings.

ROLE OF JOURNALISM WITHIN SOCIETY

I’m a huge fan of journalism, which I think is borne out of the projects I’ve done. Journalism is a big deal for me. It always appears to be under threat periodically. Something comes up and then it dies down; it comes up and then it dies down.  Because journalism is our means to get to the truth.  Truth is getting harder in this climate; when you have so many sources, and the floating word of ‘fake’ journalism, and that becomes threatening to the proper usage of journalism. Journalism can represent truth; getting the truth to the people.  So for me it’s a big deal …

SUNDANCE'S MISSION THROUGH THE YEARS

Letting [independent filmmakers] know that their voices do count. It’s so hard to get to the truth, since there are so many voices claiming the truth. I think we need to support by creating a platform, as best we can; to have your voices be heard, otherwise, you’ll stay at the margins. I feel that’s always been under threat but always finds its way out.

ROLE OF THE ARTIST WITHIN SOCIETY

I’m an artist so I’m prejudice to this point. But if someone were to ask me the role of an artist to society, is to describe it and critique it… and people need to know… the value of art of what it’s bringing to people; it comes down to those two points.

REDFORD ON WEINSTEIN

I think Harvey Weinstein was like a moment in time and we’re going to move past that… I don’t think he’s going to stop the show. I think the main thing is... people coming to the show like Harvey, came with one thing in mind. They appeared to be very supportive of the festival, and I think they were, but it was in support of their own interest because they were looking at the festival of what they could cherry-pick for their own use, so he could take some films and probably get them cheaper here, and then promote them as his own. OK, there’s nothing we can do about that. We are not a control mechanism.

The point of the festival is to create a place for filmmakers to show their work, and with globalization, there were additional opportunities, and we grew culturally… To me, that was a great moment since we could increase the value of independent cinema, and we can show them… and we can see the connective tissue.

Harvey had no relevance to that. He wasn’t alone. They came to the festival to see what they could take…