Inside NYFF’s Splashy Lineup: Landing ‘Artificial,’ Weighing a Secret Screening and Opening on the “Miraculous” ‘Paper Tiger’ (Exclusive)

The New York Film Festival always boasts its own eclectic, high-profile slate of world premieres, but from the outside looking in, a larger chunk than usual of the fall’s splashiest films are set to make their grand debuts on Manhattan’s Upper West Side this year. They include the Centerpiece selection, Searchlight’s Behemoth!, directed by Oscar nominee Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) and starring Pedro Pascal; the Closing Night film, Netflix’s 14th, which is Ava DuVernay’s spiritual sequel to her Oscar-nominated documentary 13th (which opened NYFF in 2016); and Spotlight galas ranging from Takashi Yamazaki’s next Reiwa installment, Godzilla Minus Zero, to the climate-crisis drama from Tom McCarthy, A Statement, which Sony Pictures Classics won’t release in theaters until next year.

The final world-premiere announcement may have been the most enticing, though: Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, set to screen at NYFF more than two months ahead of its Christmas release by Neon. The movie, examining the rise of Sam Altman (played by Andrew Garfield) and OpenAI, was dropped by Amazon MGM earlier this year, leading to a scramble for a new buyer before Neon stepped in — and breathless speculation about the movie’s contents.

Its positioning on NYFF’s Main Slate alone speaks volumes — the festival has earned a reputation for tight, thoughtful curation. And indeed, in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, artistic director Dennis Lim reveals he saw Artificial months ago, mere weeks after Neon’s acquisition was made public. He believed right then that NYFF was a fit for it. “Festivals are about creating context around a film,” Lim says. “I do think that we have a pretty open-minded, sophisticated, curious, enthusiastic audience that really engages with films in a way that is very meaningful to the life of the film.”

In a wide-ranging exclusive conversation about this year’s festival (running Sept. 25-Oct. 12), Lim also touched on the state of secret screenings following Telluride’s smash You Can See Everything (which next hits NYFF); smaller Cannes-launched gems hitting New York like La Gradiva and Everytime; and why this year’s overall program reflects “an urge to confront the world that we live in.”

You have a really impressive lineup this year, in terms of the anticipation of your world premieres and the carryovers from Cannes, Venice and other festivals. I know every cycle is different, but how does this slate stand out to you?

You’re right that every year is different. We start from scratch every year; we’re dealing with a different pool of films and different circumstances. And this year, a variety of things lined up that made sense to launch in New York — we’re very happy to have those in the program — and the mix of what we’ve taken from the earlier festivals, I’m excited to see how people respond to these films.

Let’s start with Artificial. People were very excited to see the somewhat surprising news of a NYFF world premiere. The film had to find a new home after Amazon MGM dropped it, and there was some speculation it wouldn’t play festivals once Neon acquired it. How did this come about?

As you know well, the situation with this film was in flux for a while; it was with one distributor and then with another. I don’t know that there were clear plans as to when the film would even launch, but once it landed with Neon, we started having those discussions and saw the film. For me, this is absolutely a film about today. I saw the film in July and I feel even more so now, if you look at what’s been in the news this week. We obviously have a great relationship with Luca Guadagnino. We’ve shown his films many times. He was our Opening Night filmmaker last year [with After the Hunt]; [we had a] Spotlight gala a couple of years ago with Queer.

There’s an expectation, especially with the film’s trajectory to release, that Artificial is going to stoke some discourse and debate. Do you expect that at the premiere?

Yeah — I hope so. (Laughs.) People are asking me questions about how AI is going to affect the future of filmmaking, and I think, how is AI going to affect the future of human existence? What’s really impressive about this film is how it strikes, for me, a perfect tone. It gets across that the situation that got us here is at once horrifying and hilarious and something to reckon with; the film gets this trajectory across with a real sense of moral urgency, and I think it’s finally beginning to hit home with people that we have to reckon with it.

A nerdy programming question: This is Luca’s first film in the NYFF Main Slate since Call Me By Your Name — Bones and All, Queer and After the Hunt ran in Spotlight — so is there anything to that? How do you think of the designations?

That’s actually a good question. I created Spotlight when I started overseeing the programming in 2020. For me, that was just always a way to expand the program, to expand the purview of what the festival shows. Spotlight has been a home for many different kinds of films — it is eclectic by design. It’s allowed us to show more documentaries, concert films, genre films that may not otherwise have been in the Main Slate. Filmmakers have sometimes gone back and forth between the sections and Luca, for one reason or another, has been in both. It is somewhat nerdy, but I also feel like it’s something that the people who pay attention to it really pay attention to it. Then for a lot of people, it’s just a film in the program. But it really is a gut thing. I work with a team of programmers, committee members, and we just talk about what feels right — sometimes based on the film, but also given what else is already in those sections.

You’ve added a screening of La Gradiva, which is an amazing debut out of France, due to demand. Any other films that are more under the radar, coming off of Cannes or other festivals, that you’re hoping spark that kind of interest?

A lot of attention is inevitably going to fall on the world premieres or the fresher films that just played in Venice or Telluride. But I do think New York provides a little bit of a moment for films where there’s just this glut in Cannes, there’s just so much to deal with for the press and for buyers even. In New York, we work pretty hard to curate a slate that represents a wide range of the year in cinema. It provides an opportunity for people to just really engage with these films. La Gradiva is one, and another film with the same distributor — 1-2 Special — is Everytime by Sandra Wollner. It got good reviews in Cannes, but much like La Gradiva, it’s getting the recognition that I think it deserves now.

I will also say our Opening Night film, Paper Tiger, a film that I adore, is one that we really wanted to champion. I think 20, 30 years ago, this would’ve been a great film; in the current context, for an American filmmaker to make a film like this, it’s a miraculous film. You just see how many people came together to make this for James Gray, who somehow remains an unsung sort of filmmaker. He doesn’t get enough recognition maybe despite having had a very illustrious and very critically acclaimed career. You might call them old-fashioned or classical films; they’re throwback films in some ways, but there’s something really moving about them.

James Gray has had a rich history with the festival: The Lost City of Z was your Closing Night film [in 2016], while Armageddon Time was NYFF’s 60th anniversary celebration selection. What does he mean to NYFF?

The craft of his films is undeniable, and the way Paper Tiger balances something that feels really gritty and true to the New York of his childhood but also has this mythic grandeur that I think relates to Shakespeare or Greek tragedy — it’s a bold thing for a film to do. It’s something we’re often called on, but we definitely do have favorites out of all festivals. They’re filmmakers whose work we return to time and time again, and James is one, and there are several others in this year’s lineup.

But by that token, it’s also important for us to, especially in the Main Slate, put in filmmakers who are new to the program or with their first or second or third film. Like you mentioned, La Gradiva is, I think, just an extraordinary first feature. But Everytime is a third film. Clarissa is a second film. I’m really happy to have those in the program too.

There’s been a lot of talk about big studios skipping festivals this year. NYFF does things its own way, but were you going after Digger, for instance?

They made it clear from the start that they were skipping festivals. We certainly would’ve been very happy to consider it, but for us, we occasionally will have a studio film or two, but they’re by no means the meat of the program. We work very regularly with Neons and the A24s and the big streamers. The legacy studios are not always part of the picture, but I also think that this is something that just goes in phases. It has to do with the current crop of films. We certainly would’ve been interested in considering some of those titles, but it really is just a handful of films that would’ve worked for a festival like New York anyway.

When did You Can See Everything come on your radar?

Oh God, I think I can speak about it now? (Laughs.)

It still feels precarious to even ask about it!

I heard from our friends at A24 that something was in the works, and obviously there needed to be a great deal of secrecy around it. That was several months ago. But I didn’t see the film until fairly late in the programming process and immediately knew that it was something we had to show. We have a relationship with [co-director] Nathan [Fielder], even though he typically works in episodic form — we did the world premiere of The Curse … and actually worked with A24 and Showtime to present every episode in the cinema before it aired.

This film is just a perfect match of filmmaker and subject. They seem equally matched, Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes. That dynamic creates an incredible tension in every scene. I’m really excited for people to see this.

Last year, NYFF had its own thrilling secret screening moment with Marty Supreme. Obviously A24 did this again this year, but in Telluride — and similarly, it was the story of that festival. What are your thoughts on secret screenings generally? Are they an increasingly useful strategy for generating attention for a festival, and in launching high-profile titles?

Marty was a bit of an experiment, kind of a leap of faith for A24 and for us and for the filmmakers. Everything came together beautifully. We don’t always do surprise screenings. We’re not doing one this year. You don’t want an anticlimactic surprise. You want to do a surprise — you really want to deliver on it — but it has to be the right film in the right moment. This year, even though there were a lot of things that came together late or there was necessarily some secrecy around the films like Nathan and Lance [Oppenheim]’s film — and also NAZA for very different reasons, another film that we added late — we decided we wouldn’t hold back announcements. We would just announce everything before the festival this year and not do a surprise.

For the festivals and the distributors and filmmakers, you want there to be an impact with the launch of your film. Keeping things under wraps can really work in some cases, whereas with other films, you need things to build. A film like La Gradiva, for instance, benefits from having a life over several months at different festivals with different audiences.

NYFF always programs a very strong slate of documentaries. Several in this year’s lineup — including two you mentioned, You Can See Everything and NAZA — have been dominant in discussions around the fall films, which is unusual. I expect this will also be true of Ava DuVernay’s 14th, which is your Closing Night film. What do you make of that?

Documentaries are really important to us, and it sounds contradictory, but that’s also precisely why we don’t have a documentary section. I want documentaries to be in the program, to be in the mix, to be seen as on par. I’m very proud to close with Ava’s film — it’s a really important piece of filmmaking, and I don’t want it to sit in a documentary section separate from everything else. We also have Julia Loktev’s, incredible, epic verité film, My Desirable Friends [Part II] in the Main Slate.

And what you’re referring to — I see it also in the fiction films. What I sense very strongly this year is an urge to confront the world that we live in. It’s very moving to see so many filmmakers trying to do this in their own way. I see it in all those documentaries that you’ve mentioned but also in a film like Tender Loving Care and All of a Sudden — films that are dealing with very urgent human questions. Possible Love by Lee Chang-dong, which explores big, thorny questions of labor and class in the contemporary world. These are not heavy, dry, social realist films. It’s a really wide range of cinema, and it makes sense — nobody would disagree that the world is very complicated and difficult and even dystopian in some ways. To see these films try to capture something about this moment, it’s a very pronounced tendency in the films that certainly mean the most to me. And you see it in films that aren’t set in the past as well.