Christopher Nolan and Celine Song to Be Honored at 2024 Sundance Film Festival Opening Night Gala

"This award is a full-circle moment and testament to the extraordinary influence of independent filmmaking," Christopher Nolan said

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival will honor two prominent directors.

On Wednesday, the Sundance Institute announced that Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan and Past Lives director Celine Song will receive special awards at the festival's opening night gala Jan. 18.

Nolan, 53, will receive a brand-new honor, the Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award, while Song, 35, gets the Vanguard Award along with filmmaker Maite Alberdi. Both Song's Past Lives and Alberdi's The Eternal Memory premiered at the festival in January.

Nolan, whose summer blockbuster Oppenheimer is the now highest-grossing biopic of all-time, received acclaim at Sundance over two decades ago when his Memento screened at the festival in 2001. The award he will receive is meant to recognize "an artist’s unwavering dedication and notable contributions to the field of independent film," per a release.

“Presenting Memento at the Sundance Film Festival marked a pivotal moment in my career," Nolan said in a statement Wednesday. "This award is a full-circle moment and testament to the extraordinary influence of independent filmmaking."

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The Vanguard Awards, which Song and Alberdi will receive, "honor artists whose work highlights the art of storytelling and creative independence in both nonfiction and fiction," according to a release.

Song made her directorial debut with Past Lives, which received three nominations for the upcoming 2023 Gotham Awards. The director said in a statement that her upcoming honor at Sundance "really means the world to me."

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"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," she said.

"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."

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The Sundance Institute said Wednesday that its annual festival opening night gala "enables the nonprofit to raise critical funds to support independent artists year-round through labs, grants and public programming that nurture artists globally."

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival will be held in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, from Jan. 18–28, with an online component running from Jan. 25–28.

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