Todd Haynes movie ‘May December’ will open the New York Film Festival
The new Todd Haynes movie May December, starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, will open the New York Film Festival later this year on September 29th, the organisers of the festival have announced.
The movie originally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and its North American rights were acquired by Netflix following an overnight bidding war. Now New York will show the film as the North American premiere at the NYFF.
The screening is expected to be attended by Haynes himself and several members of the cast, including Portman and Moore. In the film, Portman plays a TV star who is researching a new project by throwing herself into the life of the woman she is set to portray on screen (Moore).
“We are all so proud and moved to have been invited to open the New York Film Festival,” Haynes said. “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.”
The NYFF’s Artistic Director, Dennis Lim, called Haynes’ new film “a tour de force of writing, acting and directing.” It’s “built on moment-to-moment surprise, as thought-provoking as it is purely pleasurable,” he added.
He then called Haynes, “one of American cinema’s most brilliant mischief-makers and as an all-time great director of actors, [who’s 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.”
Check out a clip from May December below.
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