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Sundance Tries to Hone Its Artsy Edge

In “Howl,” one of the films accepted into the Sundance Film Festival, James Franco portrays the young Allen Ginsberg as he is creating his signature poem.Credit...JoJo Whilden

LOS ANGELES — Sundance, under new leadership, is trying to tilt risky.

The programmers of the Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday announced a schedule of competition films that at least in their view, reflect no particular current in independent cinema except one: the artier the better.

“We really tried to hunker down and make some hard decisions,” said John Cooper, the festival’s new director. “We tried not to be wishy-washy about what is independent, which I know has been a criticism in the past. We weren’t going to be swayed by the marketability of a film.”

Mr. Cooper, who took over in February following the departure of Geoffrey Gilmore, who held the director job for 19 years, pointed to selected pictures like “Blue Valentine,” a raw portrait of an unhappy marriage from a relatively unknown director, Derek Cianfrance. “Howl,” a look at the young Allen Ginsberg’s creation of his groundbreaking poem, is another selection that “risks against commerciality,” Mr. Cooper said.

Hollywood is likely to debate that one — “Howl,” directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (“The Celluloid Closet”), stars the highly promotable James Franco — but “Night Catches Us” is safely in the risky category. The film, from the first-time director Tanya Hamilton, is an ambitious period piece set in 1978 Philadelphia; a young man returns to the race-torn neighborhood where he had come of age during the Black Power movement.

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John Cooper looking at the board where he and his team schedule Sundance Festival screenings.Credit...Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

The festival, both a pre-eminent showcase for American cinema and a free-wheeling bazaar for movie executives, is scheduled for Jan. 21 to 31 in Park City, Utah, and several surrounding towns. (A full list of the competition films can be found at nytimes.com/carpetbagger.)

A weakening independent movie market, particularly when it comes to the financing of art-house pictures, did not affect the number of submissions, as some festival watchers had predicted, perhaps because it takes so long to make a film that some of the deals for this year’s submissions may have been struck before the credit crunch. Feature-length submissions from the United States totaled 1,920 — a slight increase after falling by 6 percent last year — while foreign submissions climbed to 1,804.

There were 113 features selected (including noncompetition films still to be announced), down from 118 last year.

Sundance has always made risky selections. Last year’s grand jury prize and audience award in the United States dramatic competition went to “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” about a 300-pound Harlem teenager who suffers extreme abuse from both parents. Hardly a marketing cakewalk, although it has been doing quite well in its early weeks of limited release and is frequently cited as an Oscar contender.

But as independent film boomed over the last decade, the festival at times showed a willingness to give premiere slots as favors to studios or put too much emphasis on advance buzz from sales agents and scouts when making selections. Mr. Cooper, along with Sundance’s founder, Robert Redford, is trying to address such criticism and show that the festival is not rigid in its thinking.

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James Gandolfini plays a businessman and Kristen Stewart a stripper in ‘Welcome to the Rileys.’Credit...Kathleen Latlip, URHA Editorial.

“It is not our place to decide what will be shown a year from now in theaters,” Mr. Redford said in a statement. Mr. Redford, who Mr. Cooper said had become more of a “silent partner” in recent years, has come back into planning for the festival full time.

A swing toward art over commerce is perhaps inevitable given the market. Over the last two years studios have folded specialty divisions (Warner Independent, Paramount Vantage) or scaled them back drastically (Miramax). Outside the studio system, financing has become extremely difficult to obtain due to the credit crisis and recession.

“We have a film industry in great evolutionary flux, but we can’t think too much about that,” Mr. Cooper said. “We have to stay on mission and let the industry sort itself out.”

Among other changes, Mr. Cooper opted to end the tradition of having one opening-night film. Instead the festival will dive straight into the competition with one narrative, one documentary and one shorts program playing on Day 1. This year’s installment will also have a new section highlighting innovative work in “low- and no-budget filmmaking.” The section, called Next, will include eight United States films. (Selections will be announced on Thursday.)

Still, this is Sundance. A-list names like George Clooney and Brad Pitt may not be on the roster, but there are still plenty of well-known people involved with selected films to make for a buzzy festival.

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A scene from “Restrepo,” the film directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington.Credit...Tim Hetherington

Kristen Stewart, the 19-year-old co-star of the “Twilight” blockbusters, plays a New Orleans stripper in “Welcome to the Rileys,” which also stars James Gandolfini as a damaged businessman. Mr. Cooper noted that Ms. Stewart also has a noncompetition entry: in “The Runaways,” directed by Floria Sigismondi, Ms. Stewart plays a young Joan Jett.

Peppering the selection list are films with bold-face names like Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, Rainn Wilson, Edie Falco, Mary-Louise Parker and Jon Hamm. In the still-grinding-away department is Piper Laurie, who plays a grandmother in “Hesher,” about a mysterious troublemaker who moves in with a family trying to cope with devastating loss.

Multiple films came from actors turned directors. Leading the pack is Mark Ruffalo (“You Can Count on Me”) with the quirky drama “Sympathy for Delicious,” about a newly paralyzed D.J. who gets more than he bargained for when he seeks out the world of faith healing. Written by Christopher Thornton, it stars Orlando Bloom and Juliette Lewis, among others.

With documentaries, Mr. Cooper said, efforts were made to avoid thematic gridlock. So favorite topics like environmental calamity and war are represented but by fewer entries than in years past. “Gas Land,” directed by Josh Fox, looks at the downside — dying livestock, toxic streams — of the natural gas drilling craze; “Restrepo,” directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, focuses on the war in Afghanistan.

On the lighter side are selections like “Joan Rivers: a Piece of Work,” directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, and “Smash His Camera,” the story of a reviled paparazzo from the director Leon Gast. “The documentary selections this year are much more nontraditional in style — more nonfiction storytelling versus the standard format,” Mr. Cooper said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Sundance, Thinking Indie, Tries to Hone Its Artsy Edge. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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