The following edition of the Sundance Film Festival will open in January with Martin McDonagh's first feature, “In Bruges.”

The Sundance Institute announced Monday that Academy Award-winner Martin McDonagh’s first feature film, “In Bruges,” will kick off the Sundance Film festival next year, on Jan. 17.

The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two hit men forced to hide out in Bruges, Belgium, where hiding proves to be unexpectedly difficult. The film also stars Ralph Fiennes as the two assassins’ boss. The script was written by McDonagh.

Focus will release the pic, produced by Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin, on Feb. 8, per Variety. Executive producers are Jeff Abberley, Julia Blackman and Tessa Ross.

“In many ways ‘In Bruges’ is a quintessential Sundance film—it’s brutal, philosophical, funny, and totally original,” Geoffrey Gilmore, Director, Sundance Film Festival, said in a statement. “Martin McDonagh is a masterful storyteller, a tremendously gifted playwright and provocative risk-taker and we are thrilled to showcase his feature-length directorial debut.”

McDonagh’s filmmaking debuted with the short film, “Six Shooter,” also starring Gleeson, which won the Academy Award for best live-action short film in 2006.

He has had a longer career as a playwright, winning two Laurence Olivier Awards for the plays “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” and “The Pillowman.” He has also been nominated four times for the Tony Award as playwright of “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “The Lonesome West” and "The Pillowman.”

“I'm stunned and thrilled that ‘In Bruges’ will be opening a festival as prestigious, and as cool, as Sundance, and I simply can't wait to attend,” McDonagh said.

“Martin McDonagh's hilariously sad first feature is seemingly modest; but, in fact, highly original. No filmmaker I know has made the English language, in all its profane—and here, quite Celtic—glory, such a purely, joyously cinematic medium,” said James Schamus, CEO, Focus Features.

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 17 – January 27, 2008, in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah.