Robert Redford was rarely spotted at Sundance in his final years, yet the late Hollywood legend forever looms large at the influential US movie festival he co-created.Set up in the 1980s to support creative, independent directors at a time when the blockbuster era launched by “Jaws” and “Star Wars” held sway over Hollywood, Sundance is for many filmmakers the epitome of Redford’s legacy.”Reflecting on Robert’s importance is like reflecting on the moon’s importance — it’s tidal,” said David Osit, a director whose documentary “Predators” premiered at this year’s Sundance.”It’s beyond comprehension, his impact. I don’t know what our profession looks like without his influence, especially on independent film,” he told AFP.Years before his breakthrough role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the native Californian Redford had purchased a small plot of land in the picturesque, snowy mountains of Utah.That valley became the first home of Redford’s Sundance Institute, which offers resources and training to young movie directors, and soon after to the Sundance Film Festival — an annual showcase for new independent movies that changed the US industry.Held in sub-freezing temperatures each winter at an altitude of 7,000 feet (2,150 meters), the Sundance festival has famously launched the careers of directors like Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.It has also premiered countless Oscar-winning documentaries, including recent titles “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Navalny” and “Summer of Soul.”Roughly 4,000 feature films have been presented at the fest over the years, the vast majority from directors who are not household names and have limited finances.”In the United States, there isn’t government funding typically for young artists, like there is in other countries,” said Richard Heredia-Arriaga, a director who has been involved with the online Sundance Collab platform for nearly a decade.”That’s what makes Sundance so special for American filmmakers, in particular, because it was an outlet for your work to be seen and then basically legitimized on a professional level.”- ‘Risk taking’ -As it grew in size, Sundance has attracted some of the very commercialism that it had been set up to mitigate — something that did not always sit well with Redford.”I want the ambush marketers — the vodka brands and the gift-bag people and the Paris Hiltons — to go away forever,” Redford told a journalist at the 2012 festival, the New York Times reported.”They have nothing to do with what’s going on here.”As Redford grew older and his health deteriorated, he had less direct involvement in the festival, though his video message always played before its opening film, and his family remained keen stewards of Sundance.One of Redford’s final public involvements was a statement marking the festival’s upcoming move away from its Utah home in the Park City ski resort, which it has outgrown. From 2027, Sundance will be held in Colorado.Sundance’s “mission remains even more critical today,” and the move “will ensure that the festival continues its work of risk taking,” said Redford.Outside Park City’s Egyptian Theatre — Sundance’s most historic venue for premieres — residents and visitors told AFP they were sad to see it leave.”Definitely the artistic community owes him a great deal of gratitude,” said Peter Mayhew.Even in Colorado, Redford’s stamp will remain central to the Sundance brand.”His presence is always felt within the organization, because there was always this known fact that Bob was the person that put this all together, you know?” added Heredia-Arriaga.

The top court in the southern US state of Georgia declined on Tuesday to hear the district attorney’s appeal of her removal from the election interference case against President Donald Trump.The move by the Georgia Supreme Court means the case brought against Trump before his November 2024 relection will likely never go to trial.A Georgia appeals court in December disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case citing the “impropriety” of an intimate relationship she had with the man she hired to be a special prosecutor.Willis appealed the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court but it declined 4-3 to hear her appeal.Trump welcomed the decision in a post on Truth Social, calling it a “big win for justice and law in Georgia.” “They went after their Political Opponent at levels never seen before, and lost,” he wrote. “They are now criminals who will hopefully pay serious consequences for their illegal actions.”Trump and a number of co-defendants were charged with racketeering and other offenses in Georgia over their alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.It will now be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia to find a new prosecutor to handle the election interference case.If another prosecutor does take up the case it is unlikely, however, that Trump could be prosecuted since he is now president.Trump also faced two federal cases but they were dropped by Special Counsel Jack Smith after the election under the Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president.Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and of removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but neither case came to trial.The Republican real estate tycoon was convicted in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

Cinema legend Robert Redford, a screen great in front of and behind the camera whose career spanned six decades, died Tuesday morning at his home in Utah, his publicist said. He was 89.Redford died in his sleep, and a specific cause was not given, according to a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.”Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Berger said.The tousle-haired and freckled heartthrob made his breakthrough alongside Paul Newman as the affable outlaw in the Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1969.After 20 years as an actor, he moved behind the camera, becoming a director and co-founding the Sundance festival for aspiring independent filmmakers.Redford won a directing Academy Award for his 1980 film “Ordinary People,” as well as an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2002.A committed environmental activist, Redford also fought to preserve the natural landscape and resources around Utah.- ‘Pure joy’ -Tributes poured in Tuesday — including from the leading man’s most celebrated female co-stars.”One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend,” said Meryl Streep, who starred opposite Redford in “Out of Africa.”Fellow actor-activist Jane Fonda, who like Redford made her film debut in 1960’s “Tall Story,” and reunited with him seven years later for “Barefoot in the Park,” mourned “a beautiful person in every way.” “It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying… He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for,” she said.Barbra Streisand said every day with Redford on the set of “The Way We Were” was “exciting, intense and pure joy,” and hailed “one of the finest actors ever.”Elsewhere, President Donald Trump described the actor as “great.””Robert Redford had a series of years where there was nobody better,” Trump told reporters after a journalist told him that Redford had died.One of Redford’s most beloved roles was in the classic American political thriller “All the President’s Men” (1976), which tells the story of how two journalists exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down US president Richard Nixon.Redford earned his only nomination for the best actor Oscar when playing a 1930s con artist in “The Sting” (1973) — but he did not win.- ‘Redefined cinema’ -Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, he was the son of an accountant. Redford had four children with his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, one of whom died as an infant. He married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.In the snowy mountains of Utah that he called home, fans paid tribute to Redford’s conservation work as well as his movie legacy.”I’ll remember him for his commitment to protect nature, Native Americans and animals,” 59-year-old Swiss pastry chef Monika Suter told AFP, weeping outside a conference building named after the actor. One of Redford’s greatest achievements was the launch in 1985 of the Sundance Film Festival.Created to discover new filmmakers and as an antidote to Hollywood’s commercialism, it has fostered leading directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.”We are deeply saddened by the loss of our founder and friend Robert Redford,” the Sundance Institute said in a statement.”Bob’s vision of a space and a platform for independent voices launched a movement that, over four decades later, has inspired generations of artists and redefined cinema in the US and around the world.”