Christopher Nolan, Celine Song and Maite Alberdi to be honoured at Sundance Opening Night Gala

The Sundance Institute has unveiled details for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival’s fundraiser, Opening Night Gala: Celebrating 40 Years Presented by Chase Sapphire which will take place on 18 January 2024 at the DeJoria Centre in Utah. Kicking off the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, the evening will honour trailblazing and breakout storytellers, as well as celebrate 40 years of Sundance’s commitment to elevating independent storytelling. Christopher Nolan will be honoured with the first-ever Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award. Celine Song and Maite Alberdi – both of whom premiered films Past Lives and The Eternal Memory, respectively, at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival – will each receive the annual Vanguard Award Presented by Acura.

The annual opening night gala enables the non-profit to raise critical funds to support independent artists year-round through labs, grants, and public programming that nurture artists globally. The 2024 event is made possible with the generous support of Chase Sapphire. The upcoming Sundance Film Festival will take place 18-28 January 2024 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as online from 25-28 January.

“As we step into the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, it is a distinct honour to recognise Christopher Nolan, a prodigious artist whose singular talent and remarkable body of work have made him one of the most respected filmmakers of our time. We are looking forward to spotlighting the unique voices of both Celine and Maite, storytellers we have been supporting and deeply believe in. All three of these storytellers represent Sundance’s values,” said Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO. “From the Festival to our year-round programmes, it is artists that have and always will be at the very core of what we do. We look forward to our guests joining us at the Opening Night Gala and, in turn, enabling us to continue championing independent storytellers and their art that adds great value to our culture.”

“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,” said Christopher Nolan.

“I am incredibly honoured to receive this award — it really means the world to me,” said Celine Song. “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.”

“It’s an absolute honour to receive the Vanguard Award. Sundance was the gateway to North American audiences for me and has been hugely supportive of my last two films,” said Maite Alberdi. “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.”