NYFF61: Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ set for Gala Spotlight at New York Film Festival, First Film to Screen at David Geffen Hall

Film at Lincoln Center announced this morning that Bradley Cooper’s Maestro will be presented as a Spotlight Gala of the 61st New York Film Festival at David Geffen Hall on October 2.

Making its North American premiere, Maestro joins the previously announced Opening Night (May December), Centerpiece (Priscilla), and Closing Night (Ferrari) films in the NYFF slate of gala presentations. The 61st New York Film Festival takes place September 29–October 15, 2023.

“The New York Film Festival is proud to present the North American debut of Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s tour de force film about the life of renowned conductor, composer, and musician Leonard Bernstein,” said Lesli Klainberg, President, Film at Lincoln Center. “It is particularly significant that this is the first film to premiere in the new David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, which Bernstein famously led for over a decade, and where NYFF began in 1963. This state-of-the-art presentation was realized with the collaboration of our colleagues at the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and supported by our friends at Netflix and Dolby.”

The New York Film Festival audience will experience Maestro with the ultra-vivid colors of Dolby Vision and the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos. A Dolby Vision projection system and a Dolby Atmos sound system will be installed by Dolby and its technical partners in David Geffen Hall specifically for the Maestro premiere, transforming the venue into a state-of-the-art cinema equipped with Dolby’s cutting-edge technology for the one-night-only experience.

In his directorial follow-up to 2018’s Oscar-winning A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper dramatizes the public and private lives of legendary musician Leonard Bernstein’s stratospheric rise to international fame as both a conductor and composer, his open bisexuality and his decades-spanning relationship with Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan), the actress whom he would marry and spend his life with. The film co-stars Maya Hawke and Sam Nivola as their children, with Matt Bomer, Sarah Silverman, Josh Hamilton, Scott Ellis, Gideon Glick, Alexa Swinton and Miriam Shor and is set for theatrical release on November 22 and will be on Netflix December 20.

“Maestro is a bravura achievement for its director and star, a work of conviction and imagination that does justice to the brilliance and complexity of its subject,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “We are honored to have Bradley Cooper’s enthralling film as a gala presentation at this year’s festival, and doubly so to be showing it in a venue that is synonymous with Leonard Bernstein.”

The NYFF Spotlight selection committee, chaired by Dennis Lim, also includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, K. Austin Collins, and Rachel Rosen.

The complete Spotlight lineup will be announced soon. Check out the NYFF61’s Main Slate lineup and more here.

Photo: Jason McDonald/Netflix