NEON 2021 slate: Tilda Swinton in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Kristen Stewart in ‘Spencer’ and more

Erik Anderson April 28, 2021

NEON, who released last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Parasite, has revealed its 2021 slate including release dates where available.

On board is the controversial TIFF 2020 film New Order from Michel Franco and two 2021 documentary hits’ Ailey from director Jamila Wignot, about famed African American choreographer Alvin Ailey and Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Grand Jury Prize winner Flee about a gay Afghan refugee struggling with a long-buried secret.

Oscar winner Tilda Swinton stars in Memoria the long-awaited new film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Berlin hit Petite Maman from Céline Sciamma and Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana from Pablo Larraín pepper the exciting list.

THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS

Director: Robert Machoian

Cast: Clayne Crawford, Sepideh Moafi, Chris Coy

Genre: Drama/Thriller / Premiered Sundance 2020 / In Theatres May 14^th, 2021

The Killing of Two Lovers follows David, who desperately tries to keep his family of six together during a separation from his wife, Nikki. They both agree to see other people but David struggles to grapple with his wife’s new relationship. The Hollywood Reporter calls the film “a transfixing drama without a wasted word or a single inessential scene.”

NEW ORDER

Director: Michel Franco

Genre: Horror/Thriller / Language: Spanish / In Theatres May 21st, 2021

In this riveting, suspenseful dystopian drama, a lavish upper-class wedding goes awry in an unexpected uprising of class warfare that gives way to a violent coup d’état. As seen through the eyes of the sympathetic young bride and the servants who work for—and against—her wealthy family, NEW ORDER breathlessly traces the collapse of one political system as a more harrowing replacement springs up in its wake.

AILEY

Director: Jamila Wignot

Genre: Documentary / Language: English / Premiered Sundance 2021 / In Theatres July 16^th, 2021

Many know the name Alvin Ailey, but how many know the man? Ailey’s commitment to searching for truth in movement resulted in pioneering and enduring choreography that centers on African American experiences. Director Jamila Wignot’s resonant biography grants artful access to the elusive visionary who founded one of the world’s most renowned dance companies, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

FLEE

Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Genre: Animated/Documentary / Language: Danish / Winner Sundance Grand Jury Prize / Opening Fall 2021

FLEE tells the story of Amin Nawabi as he grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon to be husband. Recounted mostly through animation to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, he tells for the first time the story of his extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan.

PETITE MAMAN

Director: Céline Sciamma

Cast: Joséphine San, Gabrielle Sanz

Genre: Drama / Language: French / Premiered Berlin 2021 / Opening Fall 2021

8-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and built the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.

SPENCER

Director: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris

Genre: Drama / Language: English / Opening Winter 2021

During one critical weekend, Princess Diana decides her marriage to Prince Charles isn’t working and considers veering from the path that puts her in line to one day be queen.

MEMORIA

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Cast: Tilda Swinton

Genre: Drama / Language: English, Spanish, French / Coming 2021

A Scottish woman begins to notice strange sounds while traveling through the jungles of Colombia.

PIG

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff

Genre: Drama/Thriller / Language: English / Coming 2021

A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.

TITANE

Director: Julia Ducournau

Genre: Horror/Thriller / Language: French / Coming 2021

A young man with a bruised face is picked up by airport customs officers. He claims to be Adrien Legrand, who disappeared as a child ten years ago. For Adrien’s father Vincent, a long nightmare has finally come to its end, and he takes the young man home. At the same time, a series of gruesome murders is ravaging the area.

THE FIRST WAVE

Director: Matthew Heineman

Genre: Documentary / Language: English / Coming 2021

The “first wave” of COVID-19 ravaged the city of New York from March through June 2020. Through Heineman’s signature approach of character-driven cinema vérité, THE FIRST WAVE documents those harrowing four months, embedding with a group of brave healthcare workers at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens as they risked their lives in the epic battle to keep the virus at bay.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.