San Francisco/Park City - Sales and attendances at the Sundance Film Festival have both slipped this year due to the flagging economy, while the overriding interest in the inauguration of Barack Obama as the US president has also diverted attention from the festival, trade paper Variety reported Monday.

As of Monday morning, only two major sales has been made at the largest independent movie festival in the US. Antoine Fuqua's police drama Brooklyn's Finest, starring Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke sold for less than 5 million dollars. Black Dynamite, billed as a blaxploitation spoof, sold for 2 million dollars.

But among the high profile movies that stayed on the shelf were the Ashton Kutcher dramatic comedy Spread and the Jim Carrey-Ewan McGregor gay comedy, I Love You Philip Morris.

The slow sales momentum had been widely predicted due to the effects of the financial crisis on the indie movie scene and the poor box office performance by films bought at last year's festival.

According to Variety, hotel bookings in Park City are 12 per cent down from last year, despite sharply lower prices. Two of the four main festival sponsors, Volkswagen and Adobe, dropped out, though they were replaced by Honda.

Even the promotional give-aways to stars have downgraded from flat screen televisions to moisturizers, make up and clothes.

While screenings will not stop for Tuesday's inauguration, many stars including Susan Sarandon, Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon left the festival early to participate in the Washington DC event. For those staying at Sundance, numerous inauguration parties were planned.

Also rumoured to be on the Tuesday night schedule: a surprise screening of Oscar winning direct and Sundance favourite Steven Soderbergh's high-class escort tale The Girlfriend Experience. (dpa)