From the surprise election of mayor Zohran Mamdani to the Knicks winning the NBA championship, it’s been a time for underdog stories in the Big Apple. The New York Film Festival is continuing the trend, pulling off a coup by securing several major world premieres in a year that’s been frustratingly light on festival fanfare. NYFF starts on Sept. 25, and over the next two weeks, audiences will be the first to watch “Artificial,” Luca Guadagnino’s buzzy movie about OpenAI founder Sam Altman; “A Statement,” director Tom McCarthy’s starry drama about climate change; “Behemoth,” Tony Gilroy’s ode to film scores led by Pedro Pascal; “14th,” Ava DuVernay’s timely documentary about the 14th Amendment; and “Godzilla Minus Zero,” a kaiju sequel to Oscar-winner “Godzilla Minus One.” It’s an exciting change of pace for the small-but-mighty NYFF, whose lineup is often comprised of the buzziest movies from Cannes, Venice or Toronto.
But that’s not to say that everything on this year’s lineup is fire and brimstone. There are fun and joyous movies, too, Lim points out, citing Jordan Firstman’s heartfelt comedy “Club Kid” and Jesse Eisenberg’s musical drama “The Debut.” Ahead of this year’s festival, Lim spoke to Variety about lining up so many heavy hitters and whether festivalgoers should be prepared for any surprises. There is more than usual this year.
It’s just a confluence of factors. Timing is always part of it. We are a month after the major fall festivals: Telluride, Venice, and Toronto.
We’re not a competitive festival. It doesn’t make sense for us to have world premieres be the majority of our program. But I’m very excited about each of the world premieres.
That was genuinely an up-in-the-air situation. It was with a different studio until very recently, and it was an open conversation of whether this would do festivals. Luca is a filmmaker we have a relationship with, and I thought we would be a great launchpad for the film.
This is a film that deals with a very pressing situation. AI is in the news practically daily. The film recaps this trajectory that we’ve been on with alarming clarity.
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