Sundance was founded by actor Robert Redford

The 11-day event, which gets under way in Utah on 15 January, showcases the best of the nation's independent films.

Festival organisers said the shortlist reflected a sense of anxiety and an "introspective quest for knowledge" following the 11 September attacks.

Details of the festival's opening night film will be announced on Tuesday.

Sundance facts Festival founded in 1981 by Robert Redford Set up to showcase best of US non-mainstream film-making Previous hits include In the Bedroom and Sex, Lies and Videotape Gave breaks to directors Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh

Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, play alongside hip-hop artist Mos Def in The Woodsman, about a convicted child molester trying to rebuild his life.

Cox Arquette stars in November as a photographer who struggles to cope after her boyfriend is shot dead.

Other entries include We Don't Live Here Anymore starring Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern in the story of a man's affair with his best friend's wife.

Thirteen of the 16 entries in the dramatic section are directors' debuts, according to US website Variety.com. It also said the number of entries from black film-makers and about black-themed issues was up, with 11 films.

Metallica's trials and tribulations are the subject of a documentary

Documentaries include The Fight, a look at the historic heavyweight boxing match between American Joe Louis and German Max Schmeling on the eve of World War II.

Rock band Metallica come under scrutiny in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which follows the band undergoing group therapy to help members through addiction, fatherhood and near-breakdown.

Meanwhile, the Berlin Film Festival has selected US director Ron Howard's film Missing as one of about 20 films that will compete for the Golden Bear awards in February.

The film, a Western starring Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, tells of a settler who gets her estranged father to help find her abducted daughter.

Howard won a best director Oscar for his 2002 film A Beautiful Mind.