The Sundance Opening Night Gala: Celebrating 40 Years Presented by Chase Sapphire will be held at the DeJoria Center in Kamas, Utah, on January 8th. The Gala will “raise critical funds to support independent artists year-round through labs, grants, and public programming that nurture artists globally.” Christopher Nolan, Maite Alberdi, and Celine Song are set to receive awards for their accomplishments in filmmaking. 

Christopher Nolan, known for Interstellar (2014), Inception (2010), and Oppenheimer (2023), will be honored with the inaugural Sundance Institute Award. Nolan has a long history with Sundance, as his celebrated drama Memento had its theatrical U.S. release at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001. In an interview with Variety, Nolan said, “Presenting ‘Memento’ at the Sundance Film Festival marked a pivotal moment in my career; this award is a full circle moment and testament to the extraordinary influence of independent filmmaking.” 

Celine Song and Maite Alberdi will be given the annual Vanguard Award Presented by Acura. 

Celine Song is known for The Wheels of Time (2021) and Past Lives (2023), which premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in 2023. Song said, “I am incredibly honored to receive this award- it really means the world to me. Sundance is where I showed my very first film for the very first time, and I will never forget the experience – pacing around the green room at the Eccles, waiting to introduce the film to the world, meeting the audience afterward, being there together with everyone who made the movie with me. Sundance is the place that launched my career as a filmmaker: it’s a home for ‘Past Lives’ – and a home for me – in the deepest way. Thank you so much.” 

Maite Alberdi is well-known for Los Reyes (2020), The Mole Agent (2020), and her latest thriller/documentary film, The Eternal Memory (2023). Alberdi said about receiving The Vanguard Award, “I am enormously grateful that the narrative avant-garde is also understood as applying to documentaries and that filmmaking boundaries are continuing to expand. ‘The Eternal Memory’ is a film that has taught me so much about the infinite ways of telling, looking at, and working with real-life stories, and I am proud and humbled to be among such an extraordinary group of filmmakers who have been given this recognition including Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson, Siân Heder, Radha Blank, Lulu Wang, and Nikyatu Jusu — amongst others whose work I greatly admire.”