The curtain rose Thursday on the 1999 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, one of the major showcases for independent filmmakers to have their work noticed by the big distributors. This year -- the 15th since the festival was taken over by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute -- organizers say they have an abundance of films by women, like Nancy Savoca's "The 24 Hour Woman," the story of a married producer-anchor team on and off the set. "This year we've noticed a big trend in women filmmakers coming, so we're excited about that," festival spokesman R.J. Millard said. Part of the excitement of the 10-day festival is trying to get a ticket. Each year they are harder to come by. The festival sold just under 16,000 seats in 1985. Last year the ticket count was 134,000.