‘Freaky Tales,’ Kristen Stewart and Christopher Nolan help kick off festival - The Hindu

Thousands of cinema lovers, Hollywood celebrities, industry executives and filmmakers from around the world have arrived in a very snowy Park City, Utah, for 10 days of movie watching. The 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, the world’s premier showcase for independent film, kicked off on Thursday with a starry gala honouring festival veterans like Kristen Stewart and Christopher Nolan and numerous world premieres. In fiction premieres, some lucky ticketholders will be among the first to see Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s 80s-set Freaky Tales or Thelma, featuring June Squibb as a Los Angeles grandmother who gets scammed and goes on a mission to get her money back with the late Richard Roundtree. Slightly outside of town Thursday, some of the festival’s most well-heeled attendees will gather at the DeJoria Center in Kamas, Utah, for an opening night gala in which Nolan, Stewart, Past Lives director Celine Song and The Eternal Memory director Maite Alberdi will receive tribute awards. “Presenting Memento at the Sundance Film Festival marked a pivotal moment in my career,” Nolan said in an earlier statement.