New Delhi, March 16 -- Robert Redford was not at the Academy Awards.

While Sean Penn also did not show up to collect his third Oscar (Best Supporting Actor, One Battle After Another) - possibly because he prefers events where he can chainsmoke, like the Golden Globe awards - Redford had a better reason. He died last September, and was celebrated on the Oscar stage by his The Way We Were co-star Barbra Streisand, who called the actor, producer and environmentalist an "intellectual cowboy."

The Sundance Film Institute - part of Redford's effort to encourage and support independent filmmaking - made two social media posts while the Academy Awards were handed out. One congratulated Paul Thomas Anderson from the "1993 Sundance Institute Dire...