Sundance London Film Festival 2013: Robert Redford speaks out for public funding of the arts Robert Redford spoke out today in favour of public funding for cinema and other arts as he opened the second edition of the Sundance London Festival at the O2 venue. Actor-director Redford, 75, who launched the now famous Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, some 35 years ago, was responding to comments made earlier by Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who said the argument for continued arts funding should be made primarily on economic grounds. British culture, she insisted, should be promoted as "a commodity" and "a compelling product." But Redford argued: "You have something in place that we [in America] don't have - which is insane - and that's government funding. What we have, they're so small they're called subsidies. You want to say, wait a minute, when you talk about economic impact, isn't it already there when you think about it in a broader sense? When a film is in a theatre, you have people working there, you have the film-makers themselves, there's the employment that goes into getting a film made, and then distributing it -- it all brings in a lot of money. But he conceded that governments, before handing out money to arts projects, had to be reasonably sure it would not "go down the drain." In America, he said, "We are up against an extreme, conservative view of art that fears it. Which is sad. The fear is so extreme that they want to reduce that category to almost nothing. Then politicians say we don't want to give any money to the arts because it's a trivial pursuit. Obviously I don't agree with that. I think art is a substantial add-on to society. So it's a constant battle. Sundance London's programme this year includes music and films by new film-makers, including documentaries and shorts. It runs from April 25 to 28.