Malta Mourns Robert Redford: How the Sundance Kid Rode Into Island Hearts

Robert Redford, the golden-haired icon who turned “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” into the cinematic equivalent of a Mediterranean sunset, has died at 89. News of his passing reached Malta just after dawn on Tuesday, flickering across phone screens in Sliema cafés and on fishing boats bobbing off Marsaxlokk. Within minutes the island did what it always does when a giant leaves us: it gathered, it argued, it remembered.

At 8:15 a.m. the ticket booth outside Valletta’s historic Embassy Cinema was still shuttered, yet a bouquet of sea lavender—picked from the Upper Barrakka gardens—already leaned against the glass. Attached was a handwritten note in Maltese: “Grazzi, Sundance. Grazzi, Bob.” Cinema manager Marisa Camilleri, 57, wiped mist from the pane. “We screened ‘The Sting’ here during the 1979 blackout,” she told Hot Malta. “Generators failed twice, but nobody left. He was that magnetic.”

Redford’s connection to Malta was never accidental. In 1968, fresh from the success of “Barefoot in the Park,” he slipped into Gozo incognito, renting a farmhouse in Xlendi to escape Hollywood’s glare. Locals recall a lanky American who bought ħobż biż-żejt at the corner kiosk and learned to pronounce “gbejna” without mangling the “għ”. That fortnight birthed a lifelong affection for the archipelago; he later funnelled discreet funding to the Malta Film Commission via the Sundance Institute, quietly championing Maltese shorts that premiered at the Utah festival.

“Redford understood small nations,” said Dr. Josienne Cutajar, Head of Film Studies at the University of Malta. “His characters—outsiders bucking the system—mirror Malta’s own history of resisting empires.” Cutajar’s students still dissect “All the President’s Men” as a masterclass in tenacity, a trait she argues Maltese journalists sorely need. “When Daphne Caruana Galizia was under fire, she kept a still of Redford as Woodward above her desk,” Cutajar revealed. “The image reminded her that truth, like water, carves stone.”

By mid-morning, Facebook groups exploded with tributes. Someone posted a 1974 photo of Redford windsurfing off Mellieħa Bay, hair sun-bleached almost as white as the island’s limestone. Others shared memories of open-air screenings at the now-defunct Sliema Chalet: bedsheets strung between palm trees, projectors clacking while Redford’s grin loomed larger than the full moon. “We were teenagers, sneaking bottles of Kinnie and dreaming of bigger lives,” commented Marlene Attard from Birkirkara. “He made Malta feel less like a rock, more like a launchpad.”

The Malta Cinematheque announced a week-long retrospective starting Friday: “Butch Cassidy” on 35 mm, “Ordinary People” restored in 4K, and a rare print of “The Candidate” donated by Redford himself after a 2005 visit. Tickets, priced at a symbolic €8.90—Redford’s age at death—sold out within 90 minutes. “We’ll keep the foyer open all night so people can leave messages,” programmer Chris Galea said. “He gave us stories; the least we can do is return the favour.”

Yet the loss stings beyond nostalgia. Government data show that foreign productions spent €66 million in Malta last year, a figure industry insiders trace partly to the credibility Redford lent Mediterranean filmmaking when he praised the island’s “brutal beauty” on U.S. television in the 1990s. “His word turned producers’ heads,” said producer Adriana Zammit, currently wrapping “Isle of Demons,” a supernatural thriller shot in Mdina. “We lost a guardian angel.”

As the sun set, a spontaneous vigil formed outside the Embassy. Projected onto its limestone façade was a scene from “The Way We Were”: Redford, rueful smile, sailing into fog. Someone strummed a ukulele; others hummed “Sailing to Nowhere.” A British tourist asked why Maltese were mourning an American star. An elderly man replied in accented English, “Because he saw us when the world didn’t.”

Robert Redford once said, “Storytelling matters because it gives people a place to belong.” Tonight, Malta belongs to him. L-istilla li jkollha d-dawl, as we say—may the star that shines keep its light. Safe journey, Sundance; the show dims, but the reel spins eternal.