The Sundance Institute announced today that they will be opening the 25th Sundance Film Festival with the world premiere of the clay animation film, Mary and Max.

Directed by Academy Award-winning short filmmakers Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs (Harvie Krumpet), actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette lend their voices to the film and is narrated by Barry Humphries.

From the press release:

Mary and Max is the tale of two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. The story is based on the director’s own pen-friendship that has also lasted over twenty years.

The entire festival program will be announced Dec. 3 and 4. The festival runs Jan. 15-25, 2009 in Park City, Utah.