Four friends attend the first integrated prom of Charleston High School on April 19, 2008, in the documentary Prom Night in Mississippi. (Catherine Farquharson/Paul Saltzman)The Sundance Film Festival gets underway Thursday with Australian director Adam Elliot's Mary and Max, a claymation story about a pen-pal friendship.

The film, with voices from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, is the first Australian feature to ever open Sundance, the U.S.'s most important festival of independent film.

Elliot won an Oscar for his animated short film Harvie Krumpet.

The 11-day Sundance festival features 12 Canadian entries, including six short films.

Jessica Shivers prepares at the local hair salon for Prom Night in Mississippi. Many of the teens made an emotional journey, said filmmaker Paul Saltzman. (Catherine Farquharson/Paul Saltzman)Among the highest-profile Canadian features is Paul Saltzman's documentary Prom Night in Mississippi, which shines a light on a high school in the Deep South where racism has been so ingrained that separate proms are held for black and white students.

In the 1960s, Saltzman volunteered as a civil rights worker in Mississippi.

"When I was in Mississippi, every policeman and every highway state patrol man in 1965 was either a member of the KKK [Klu Klux Klan] or was a KKK sympathizer," Saltzman told CBC News.

"I wanted to see how things had changed, so I went back to Mississippi to see how things had changed or how they had not changed."

The documentary follows what happens when movie star Morgan Freeman agrees to foot the bill for the prom at his old high school, provided that the event is fully desegregated for the first time.

"So what was a black prom and a white prom became an integrated prom. And some of the white parents held their own white prom in 2008 because they wouldn't let their kids go to an integrated one," Saltzman said.

The documentary follows the journey of several individual students as they break down racial barriers.

"Mostly it's a journey of the courage and the beauty of these high school seniors in shifting a long tradition of racism," he said.

His portrait of racism in the U.S. as a black president-elect prepares to take office screens this weekend in the world cinema documentary competition.

The same competition features Nollywood Babylon, a documentary about the Nigerian film industry directed by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal.

Two Canadian features are competing in the world cinema dramatic competition. Victoria Day is directed by writer David Bezmozgis from his short story of the same name.

Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon are shown in a scene from Shana Feste's The Greatest. (Sundance Institute/Associated Press)Before Tomorrow, a debut feature from directors Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu, is the story of an Inuit boy and his grandmother living a traditional lifestyle in the period after first contact with Europeans.

Other Canadian entries are Helen, a Canadian-German co-production about a woman fighting clinical depression, which is in the Spectrum series; and White Collar Criminals, by Toronto directors Jason Gossbee and Ben Goldenberg, which won a screening at Sundance in a YouTube contest.

Inspiration for young filmmakers

The shorts program includes The Real Place from Alberta animator Cam Christianson, who is making his second trip to Sundance.

"It's very inspirational, and as a young filmmaker, you can say it's the mecca of filmmakers, and Robert Redford has a Buddha-like quality," Christianson said about Sundance and its founder. "He's inspiring, and to be with some of the best filmmakers in the world — it's just a fantastic experience."

Christianson's film is a fantastical tribute to playwright John Murrell.

Canada's other short film submissions are:

• Captain Coulier (Space Explorer) by Lyndon Casey.
• Cattle Call by Matthew Rankin and Mike Maryniuk.
• Next Floor by director Denis Villeneuve.
• Ten for Grandpa by director Doug Karr.
• Treevenge by director Jason Eisener.

Despite Sundance's indie status, there are plenty of big names at the festival — Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon star in The Greatest; Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke appear in police story Brooklyn's Finest; Uma Thurman is in Motherhood and Kevin Spacey plays an analyst in Shrink.

Festival-goers will also have a chance to see to the directorial debut of The Office star John Krasinski with his film Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, and Chris Rock's appearance with Good Hair.

The Sundance Film Festival is scheduled to run Jan. 15-25 in Park City, Utah.

With files from the Canadian Press, CBC's Sandra Abma