NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Black comedies, sober documentaries and star-studded premieres, including one featuring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis and Sean Penn, will share the spotlight at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

The 11-day festival, run by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute since 1985, opened this week in Park City, Utah. It will include 122 feature films from 25 countries, chosen from among 3,624 entries.

While some movies tackle topics like rape, murder and slave trading, the tone of this year's festival is more personal than political.

"So much of the work is personally driven," festival director Geoffrey Gilmore said in a telephone interview. "A lot of the films are more focused on day-to-day life than the big picture."

Even some issue-oriented documentaries are told from a first-person perspective. "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo'', Lisa F. Jackson's chronicle of violence against women during that country's long civil war, includes a story about her own experience as a gang-rape victim.

Katrina Browne's "Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North" examines her family's legacy as slave traders, and "Trouble the Water" looks at Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of Kim and Scott Roberts, a poor New Orleans couple who recorded their experience on home video. There's also "Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)'', Thavisouk Phrasavath's story of survival as a Laotian refugee.

Two films look at death from a comic perspective: "Sunshine Cleaning'', starring Emily Blunt and Amy Adams as sisters who clean up after murders and suicides, and "The Last Word," about a writer who composes suicide notes for a living.

Although most Sundance films have low-wattage casts, several are filled with marquee names.

Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?" stars De Niro as a desperate Hollywood producer and features Willis, Penn, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro in supporting roles. Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson and Dennis Hopper lend star power to "Sleepwalking'', a drama about a dysfunctional family, while John Malkovich and Tom Hanks headline "The Great Buck Howard," about a law-school dropout who becomes the personal assistant to a celebrity magician.

Five documentaries focus on famous artists/performers: "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired"; "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson"; "U2 3D"; "Patti Smith: Dream of Life"; and ''CSNY Deja Vu'', the festival's closing film. Sundance opens with "In Bruges'', playwright Martin McDonagh's tale of two hit men hiding out in Belgium.

Redford's daughter, Amy, makes her directing debut with "The Guitar'', about a young New York woman who seeks adventure after learning she has terminal cancer.

The Iraq War, which has been the focus of numerous films in recent years, isn't a major subject at Sundance this year. However, the lineup does include a documentary about an Army recruiter ("American Soldier"), the story of a young soldier about to be sent to Iraq ("American Son") and a drama about the sexual awakening of an Arab-American teenager during the 1980s ("Towelhead"), directed by "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball.

Sundance provides a high-profile platform for independent films, some of which have gone on to become surprise box-office hits such as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Napoleon Dynamite''.