New York Film Festival Sets Spotlight Slate: Pablo Larraín’s ‘Maria’ With Angelina Jolie, Leos Carax’s ‘It’s Not Me’, Elton John Doc, ‘A Real Pain’ & More

Jill Goldsmith
·3 min read

Film at Lincoln Center unveiled its Spotlight section including Pablo Larraín’s Maria with Angelina Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in her final days; the North American premieres of Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me; Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, Andrei Ujic?’s Beatles documentary TWST / Things We Said Today and the U.S. premiere of doc Elton John: Never Too Late, with an appearance by the legendary musician.

Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez joins new works by Jacques Audiard, Petra Costa, Jesse Eisenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Jackson, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, Walter Salles, Brett Story and Stephen Maing.

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NYFF calls Spotlight a showcase of the fall’s most notable films — a selection of literary adaptations, portraits of musical artists, Cannes award winners, works dealing with political and historical realities, and the final film of Jean-Luc Godard, screening alongside a documentary of the master at work.

As previously reported, the Spotlight Gala will be the U.S. premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer.

The festival runs September 27–October 14. See the main slate here.

Brazilian politics are the focus of two films: Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics and Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, Labor is the focus of Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s immersive documentary Union, which follows the day-to-day struggles of the Amazon labor union and the events that led to its historic 2022 vote. Rumours by Guy Maddin and directors Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson create a sci-fi satire of world leaders at the annual G7 summit.

In Jesse Eisenberg’s Sundance award-winner A Real Pain, Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin star as cousins who attempt to reconnect on a pilgrimage to the Polish hometown of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.

Jean-Luc Godard continues to be a presence at NYFF two years after his death with the U.S. premiere of one film by the New Wave masterb — Scénarios, a quintessential, complexly layered work that concludes with a poignant appearance by the filmmaker himself the day before his death, screens along with a documentary conceptualized by Godard and shot in 2021 by longtime collaborator Fabrice Aragno.

French filmmaker Leos Carax pays playful homage to Godard and cinema itself in the North American premiere of It’s Not Me, with an in-depth conversation with Carax after the premiere screening.

The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s warm and humane adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s beloved National Book Award winner, is the second film in the NYFF62 lineup based on the work of the acclaimed writer, whose novel What Are You Going Through was adapted by Pedro Almodóvar for Centerpiece selection The Room Next Door.

SPOTLIGHT FILMS

Spotlight Gala

Queer

Luca Guadagnino, 2024

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Petra Costa, 2024

Elton John: Never Too Late

R.J. Cutler, David Furnish, 2024

Emilia Pérez

Jacques Audiard, 2024

The Friend, 2024

Scott McGehee, David Siegel

I’m Still Here

Walter Salles, 2024

U.S. Premiere

It’s Not Me

Leos Carax, 2024

Maria

Pablo Larraín, 2024,

Pavements

Alex Ross Perry, U.S

A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg, 2024,

Rumours

Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, 2024

Scénarios + Exposé du Film annonce du film “Scénario”

Jean-Luc Godard, 2024,

TWST / Things We Said Today

Andrei Ujic?, 2024

Union

Brett Story, Stephen Maing, 2024

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