Tag Archives: NYFF

Pedro Almodóvar to Receive Chaplin Award from Film at Lincoln Center

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Pedro Almodóvar has been selected to receive a special award…

The 75-year-old Spanish two-time Oscar-winning film director, screenwriter and author, who has had a decades-long relationship with the New York Film Festival, will receive a lifetime honor from its presenting organization next month.

Pedro AlmodóvarThe 50th annual Chaplin Award will be presented to the filmmaker on April 28 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

Presenters who will pay tribute to him at the gala event include performer and artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov; actress Rossy de Palma (the honoree’s longtime muse); pop star Dua Lipa; actor John Turturro; and filmmaker John Waters.

The Chaplin Award Gala is Film at Lincoln Center’s primary annual fundraising event. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit’s programs, including film series, educational initiatives, and marquee events like the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films.

The list of previous Chaplin recipients includes Jeff Bridges, Viola Davis, Robert De Niro, Barbara Streisand, Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Altman, Billy Wilder and Elizabeth Taylor.

Almodóvar has had 15 films selected to screen at the New York Film Festival, including Oscar winners All About My Mother and Talk to Her.

His relationship with FLC began with when New Directors/New Films (a spring fest, on the opposite end of the calendar from NYFF in the fall) featured What Have I Done to Deserve This? in 1985 and Law of Desire in 1987.

He made his NYFF debut in 1988 with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which was that year’s Opening Night selection.

Other selections include Centerpiece films Bad Education, Volver and The Room Next Door; and Closing Night films Live Flesh, Talk to Her, Broken Embraces, and Parallel Mothers.

Jacob Elordi’s “Priscilla” to Have North American Premiere at This Year’s New York Film Festival

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Jacob Elordi is bringing his blue suede shoes to the Big Apple…

Film at Lincoln Center has set Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, starring the 26-year-old half-Spanish Australian actor as Elvis Presley, as the Centerpiece selection for the 61st New York Film Festival.

Jacob Elordi, Elvis, Priscilla

The A24 film starring Cailee Spaeny as Elvis’ wife, Priscilla Beaulieu, will make its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on October 6.

The festival runs from September 29 to October 15, opening with Todd Haynes’ May December starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.

Never has there been a more obsessed-over icon than Elvis Presley, yet no one knew him more tenderly than Priscilla, whose story as Elvis’s romantic partner and only wife has rarely been told from her perspective.

Coppola, who often depicts women living complicated lives behind closed doors, follows Priscilla’s love affair with Elvis, played by Elordi, from her early years as a teenage army brat in West Germany to her surreal arrival at Graceland.

“I am honored to be back at the New York Film Festival with my new film and to be telling Priscilla Presley’s story, the unseen side of a great American myth,” said Coppola. Her screenplay was based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me.

Coppola’s On the Rocks (2020) and Marie Antoinette (2006) were NYFF selections.

“Priscilla is a culminating triumph for Sofia Coppola, a filmmaker with a singular gift for illuminating the interior lives of her characters,” said Dennis Lim, the festival’s Artistic Director. “It’s a showcase for a pair of star-making performances and a work of tremendous empathy and emotional nuance. We are looking forward to welcoming Sofia back to the festival with one of her very best films.”

Coppola was the second woman to win Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for The Beguiled (2017). Her other films include directorial debut The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003 Oscar, Best Original Screenplay), Somewhere (2010 Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival), The Bling Ring (2013) and A Very Murray Christmas (2015).

She served as producer on Fairyland (2023). She also directed a production of La Traviata at the Rome Opera House alongside Valentino and production designer Nathan Crowley.

Priscilla’s cinematography was handled by Philippe Le Sourd, with original music by Phoenix.

Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman” to Close the New York Film Festival

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Alejandro González Iñárritu is bringing his bird to the Big Apple…

Birdman, a dramedy co-written and directed by the 50-year-old Mexican filmmaker, has been selected as the closing night film at this year’s New York Film Festival on October 12, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Alejandro González Iñárritu

The film, which is being distributed by Fox Searchlight and will be released in theaters on October 17, will have its world premiere on the opening night of the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 27.

Birdman stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up movie star trying to revive his career on Broadway. The cast also includes Emma Stone, Andrea Riseborough, Zach Galifianakis, Merritt Wever, Edward Norton, Amy Ryan and Naomi Watts.

Birdman

The film was lensed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity), reportedly in a way that gives the appearance that the entire film is one continuous shot.

A González Iñárritu film closed the NYFF once before: 21 Grams screened in that slot in 2003. (The director’s first trip to the fest, though, was in 2000, with Amores Perros.)