Big names on the Sundance bill

Star power will reign at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, beginning Jan. 16 in Park City, Utah. Ed Solomon’s “Levity,” the opening-night selection, features Billy Bob Thornton as an ex-con with a supporting cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter and Kirsten Dunst.

Also in the world premiere category, Al Pacino plays a New York publicist in Daniel Algrant’s “People I Know,” Bob Dylan portrays a musician released from jail in Larry Charles’ “Masked and Anonymous,” and Robert Downey Jr. plays a hallucinating writer in Keith Gordon’s “The Singing Detective,” also starring Mel Gibson. “Confidence,” James Foley’s con-game drama, serves up Ed Burns, Andy Garcia and Dustin Hoffman.

-- Elaine Dutka