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Park City • Robert Redford welcomed filmmakers to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday — and Harry Belafonte challenged storytellers to strive for "radical thinking."
"Radical means a change from the norm," the 82-year-old singer, actor and activist told the 1,270 cheering audience members at Park City's Eccles Theatre. "No force on earth, not religion or anything, is as powerful as artists and culture when it comes to radical thought."
The call to action echoed the inspirational tone of the movie the Eccles audience had just watched, "Sing Your Song." The film is a detailed biography of Belafonte's life as a performer and a campaigner for human rights, who walked with Martin Luther King Jr., consulted with Eleanor Roosevelt and Nelson Mandela and helped organize the campaign behind "We Are the World."
The film was selected to open Sundance because "at our core, the life of Harry Belafonte and the life of Sundance are intertwined," said festival director John Cooper.
Belafonte, who received a standing ovation after the film, agreed.
"Where I've been and where Sundance is going are, to some degree, mutually inclusive," he said.
The film's director, Susanne Rostock, called Belafonte "a man who has always heard the cries of the world and has always answered."
In his introduction, Redford said he was "very, very honored to be able to share the story of a man whose story should be shared for generations to come."
It took some cajoling from Belafonte's daughter, Gina, to get her father's story on film.
"She kept bugging me and pushing me," Belafonte said.
The singer recalled that he was worried that a documentary would fall into "self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement."
His daughter replied: "Let us take care of that."
He used the platform at Sundance to urge artists to use their power and talent for more than personal success.
"One of the great sadnesses in America is so many artists have capitulated their strength to other authorities," he said. "Sometimes, we have to ask ourselves: 'Success in lieu of what?' "
The film, and Belafonte's clarion call, served as a stirring opening to the 11-day film festival, which is expected to draw some 60,000 people, including filmmakers, journalists, celebrities and Hollywood deal-makers to watch movies and party.
Earlier in the day, at the opening news conference, the 74-year-old Redford said that he had no retirement plans. Someday, "I'm gonna die, but I'm not going to retire," Redford said Thursday in answer to a reporter's question.
After the laugh that followed, Redford spotlighted Sundance Institute employees, while underscoring his emphasis on labs held annually at his Provo Canyon resort which provide "a place and a space for new voices to develop."
The news conference represented a new step for Sundance, as it was streamed live over the Internet, one of many events at this year's festival that can be viewed via the Web. "We're pushing this festival out there with technology," Cooper said.
After Thursday's screenings, the festival gets down to business with a full slate of screenings in Park City, as well as venues in Salt Lake City, Ogden and at Sundance Resort. The festival runs through Jan. 30.
Sundancing with us
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