Over the years, the Sundance Film Festival has served as the perfect platform for independent filmmakers to showcase their work. And similar to previous years, on the opening day of Sundance 2013, a host of LGBT-centric movies celebrated what the gay community had to offer.

Take for instance "Interior. Leather Bar" by James Franco and Travis Mathews. The directors - Franco and Mathews - have created their own version of the 40 minute S&M scene that was allegedly censored from "Cruising." The original is a 1980s drama featuring Al Pacino.

Though he was aware of the risks the film could have on his image as a mainstream actor, Franco was inspired to recreate the S&M scene in a way that would be acceptable today. And he believed his mainstream acting experience would work in his favor.

"My history and my place in mainstream cinema helped us shape the approach we were going to take. That's why I'm in the film playing myself, a version of myself," the Examiner quoted Franco.

"It frames the context of this movie and this material. There are documentaries about pornography. The approach we took was not to really get into the ins and outs of pornography. It was really juxtaposing mainstream cinema and different kinds of representations of queer cinema."

In addition to "Interior. Leather Bar," other highlights of the queer cinematic experience at Sundance 2013 included a movie on the protests of Russian band Pussy Riot, an LGBT-supporter, against reinstating Vladimir Putin as Russian President.

Another movie chronicled Jim McGreevy's journey from New Jersey governor to a gay priest.

Talking about Sundance Film Festival's role in promoting queer cinema, festival director John Cooper told the Huffington Post that it gave LGBT-centric movies a level playing field.

"In some ways Sundance is mainstream -- it's not specialized aside from independent film -- so all of the films are competing in a real way to get into the festival. I think that gives power to the films that make it to Sundance, that they compete on a level playing field in the same game."