PARK CITY - The first Sundance Film Festival since the death of founder Robert Redford begins in Park City, the final time it will be held in the mountains of Utah.
Hollywood A-listers Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman and Ethan Hawke are expected to walk the red carpet at the snowcapped Rocky Mountain resort, along with a host of lesser-known filmmakers at one of the most important gatherings in the global movie calendar.
Amy Redford, daughter of the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" star who created the festival in 1978, said this year's get-together would be an emotional experience, just four months after her father's death.
Among the dozens of feature-length films and documentaries on show over the coming days will be "The Invite" directed by and starring Wilde, opposite Seth Rogen and Edward Norton.
The script, co-written by Rashida Jones ("Parks and Recreation"), deals with a couple whose mysterious neighbours come over for dinner.
"Mad Men" stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery reunite in "Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass," where a Midwestern bride-to-be rampages through Hollywood in an effort to even the score after her fiance uses the couple's "free celebrity pass" on his famous crush.
In "The Gallerist", starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, along with Jenna Ortega and Sterling K. Brown, a desperate curator tries to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.
Among the most hotly anticipated non-celebrity films premiering at the festival is "The History of Concrete," a sideways look by John Wilson about how to sell a film about building materials.
A strong international lineup includes director Molly Manners debut feature "Extra Geography" from the UK and queer genre film "Leviticus" from Australia.
"Hanging by a Wire" tells the story of the nail-biting race to save schoolboys dangling from a stranded cable car in the Himalayan foothills.
"Hold On to Me" from Cyprus traces the efforts of an 11-year-old tracking down her estranged father, while documentary "Kikuyu Land" from Kenya examines how powerful outside forces use local corruption to dispossess a people.
The festival moves next year to Boulder, Colorado, having outgrown its current host city.