Film at Lincoln Center Announces NA Premiere of MAY DECEMBER as Opening Night of 61st NYFF
New York, NY (July 11, 2023) — Film at Lincoln Center announces Todd Haynes’s May December as Opening Night of the 61st New York Film Festival, making its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on September 29 with the director and cast in person.
In May December, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a popular television star, has arrived in a tight-knit island community in Savannah. Here, she will be doing intimate research for a new part, ingratiating herself into the lives of Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom she’ll be playing on-screen, and her much younger husband, Joe (Charles Melton), to better understand the psychology and circumstances that more than 20 years ago made them notorious tabloid figures. As Elizabeth attempts to get closer to the family, the uncomfortable facts of their scandal unfurl, causing difficult, long-dormant emotions to resurface. From the sensational premise of first time screenwriter Samy Burch’s brilliantly subtle script, director Todd Haynes ( Safe, Carol) has constructed an American tale of astonishing richness and depth, which touches the pressure and pleasure points of a culture obsessed equally with celebrity and trauma. It’s a feat of storytelling and pinpoint-precise tone that is shrewd in its wicked embrace of melodrama while also genuinely moving in its humane treatment of tricky subject matter. Boasting a trio of bravura, mercurial performances by Moore, Portman, and Melton, May December is a film about human exploitation, the elusive nature of performance, and the slipperiness of truth that confirms Todd Haynes’s status as one of our consummate movie artists. The film will be released domestically, in theaters November 17 and on Netflix December 1.
“We are all so proud and moved to have been invited to open the New York Film Festival with the North American premiere of May December,” said director Todd Haynes. “It is a festival that plays a role in my work and life like no other in the world, since it enshrines the cultural life of this city, which is both my creative home as a filmmaker and, as ever, the eternal site of artistic possibility.”
“ May December is a tour de force of writing, acting, and directing: a film built on moment-to-moment surprise, as thought-provoking as it is purely pleasurable,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “It cements Todd Haynes’s place as one of American cinema’s most brilliant mischief-makers and as an all-time great director of actors. Todd has been a consistent presence at the New York Film Festival for almost his entire career, and we are very excited to open this edition with one of his most dazzling achievements.”
Passionate about the visual arts since childhood, Todd Haynes studied art and semiotics at Brown University. In 1987, he created the short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story with Barbie dolls. Since then, he has tirelessly continued to address questions of gender and identity. His first feature film Poison, inspired by Jean Genet, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was released in 1991. After Safe (1995), starring Julianne Moore, he conjured David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust period in Velvet Goldmine (NYFF36), then paid homage to Douglas Sirk in Far from Heaven (2002). In 2006, he had six actors play Bob Dylan in I’m Not There (NYFF45). He then directed the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce before returning to feature films with Carol (NYFF53), Wonderstruck (NYFF55 Centerpiece Selection), Dark Waters, and the documentary The Velvet Underground (NYFF59).
Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema and takes place September 29-October 15, 2023. An annual bellwether of the state of cinema that has shaped film culture since 1963, the festival continues an enduring tradition of introducing audiences to bold and remarkable works from celebrated filmmakers, as well as fresh new talent.
For more information including ticket information, visit the festival website.
Originally published at https://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on July 11, 2023.
