Steve McQueen is back on the big screen this November with “Blitz,” so it only makes sense for him to return to the New York Film Festival, too. The festival announced that McQueen’s latest will close the 62nd edition for its North American premiere at Film At Lincoln Center on October 10. “Blitz” also has its world premiere opening the BFI London Festival the day before on October 9.
McQueen’s first feature since year’s “Occupied City” (and first narrative feature since 2018’s “Widows‘) returns him to the WWII era once again, this time taking on the London blitzkrieg by the Germans. As the attack unfolds, Saorsie Ronan‘s working-class single mother Rita becomes separated from her 9-year-old-son, George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan). Told from parallel perspectives, the film charts the mother and son navigating a city under siege to find each other. Kathy Burke, Benjamin Clémintine, Harris Dickinson, Stephen Graham, Hayley Squires, and Paul Weller also star.
“It is with immense pride, gratitude, and fondness that I’m able to return to the New York Film Festival with “Blitz,”” McQueen said in a press statement. “I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed a number of memorable experiences at the festival and with New York audiences, and I’m enormously grateful to have been invited back for Closing Night.” NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim also welcomed McQueen back to the festival, describing the film as “a vivid and visceral depiction of life during wartime,” a meticulous historical account that resonates unmistakably with our current age of endless war.”
“Blitz” will be McQueen’s eighth film to screen at NYRR over the years. The Oscar-winning director’s relationship with the festival began in 2008, when his feature debut “Hunger” premiered in 2008. Since then, other McQueen films at NYFF include “Shame,” “12 Years A Slave,” three of the five works from 2021’s “Small Axe,” and “Occupied City.” McQueen also co-directed the three-part series “Uprising” and was a co-producer on “Three Minutes – A Lengthening,” which both screened at NYFF in 202.
A multi-hyphenate visual artist, McQueen has received several prizes for his work over his career, including the Turner Prize in 1999. His work has been exhibited in major museums around the world. In 2009, he represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
After its festival run this Fall, “Blitz” hits theaters on November 1 before it streams exclusively on Apple TV+ on November 22. It’s McQueen’s first time working with Apple Original Films.
Stay tuned for more news about the lineup of this year’s NYFF, which runs from September 27-October 13. RaMell Ross‘ “Nickel Boys” opens the festival this year.