Film at Lincoln Center announced today that Todd Haynes’s May December as Opening Night of the 61st New York Film Festival, making its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on September 29 with the director and cast in person. NYFF61 will take place September 29–October 15, 2023. The film is set for release by Netflix in theaters this November and streaming in December.
“We are all so proud and moved to have been invited to open the New York Film Festival with the North American premiere of May December,” said Haynes. “It is a festival that plays a role in my work and life like no other in the world, since it enshrines the cultural life of this city, which is both my creative home as a filmmaker and, as ever, the eternal site of artistic possibility.”
“May December is a tour de force of writing, acting, and directing: a film built on moment-to-moment surprise, as thought-provoking as it is purely pleasurable,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “It cements Todd Haynes’s place as one of American cinema’s most brilliant mischief-makers and as an all-time great director of actors. Todd has been a consistent presence at the New York Film Festival for almost his entire career, and we are very excited to open this edition with one of his most dazzling achievements.”
In May December, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a popular television star, has arrived in a tight-knit island community in Savannah. Here, she will be doing intimate research for a new part, ingratiating herself into the lives of Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom she’ll be playing on-screen, and her much younger husband, Joe (Charles Melton), to better understand the psychology and circumstances that more than 20 years ago made them notorious tabloid figures. As Elizabeth attempts to get closer to the family, the uncomfortable facts of their scandal unfurl, causing difficult, long-dormant emotions to resurface.
Although this is Haynes’s first film to open NYFF, the director has been a staple of the fest beginning with Velvet Goldmine (NYFF36), Far from Heaven (2002), I’m Not There (NYFF45), Carol (NYFF53), Wonderstruck (NYFF55 Centerpiece Selection), Dark Waters, and the documentary The Velvet Underground (NYFF59).
The film marks the fourth NYFF opener by Netflix in the last eight years after 13TH (2016), The Irishman (2019) and White Noise (2022). May December will be released domestically, in theaters November 17 and on Netflix December 1.
The NYFF Main Slate selection committee, chaired by Dennis Lim, also includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, K. Austin Collins, and Rachel Rosen.
New York Film Festival Opening Night Films
2022 White Noise (Noah Baumbach, US)
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