The New York Film Festival‘s main slate got some major additions earlier this week with the likes of Sean Baker‘s Palme d’Or-winning “Anora,” David Cronenberg‘s “The Shrouds,” and Brady Corbet‘s “The Brutalist.” Now the festival adds yet another major new film to its ranks: Luca Guadagnino‘s “Queer.” After Guada’s William Burroughs‘ adaptation has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in competition for the Golden Lion, it’ll have its US premiere as NYFF’s Spotlight Gala on October 6.
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“Queer” will the third of Guadagnino’s films to screen at NYFF after “I Am Love” and “Call Me By Your Name.” Based on Burrough’s first novel (first written in the 1950s but not published until 1985, the film stars Daniel Crag as William Lee, a habitual heroin user expatriating in Mexico City who falls in love with a young man fresh out of the military. Read on for NYFF’s official synopsis for “Queer”:
In a transformative role, Daniel Craig immerses himself into Burroughs’s alter ego William Lee, a habitual heroin user luxuriating in freedom and desiccation among a disconnected group of gay American expatriates in Mexico City in the late 1940s. When enigmatic, preppy ex-military kid Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) catches Lee’s eye, he swoons into a headlong love affair, commencing an odyssey that will take them all the way to the Ecuadorian jungle in pursuit of the ultimate high.
Along with Craig and Starkey, “Queer” also stars Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Andra Ursata, Henry Zaga, and Michael Borremans. “Challengers” scribe Justin Kuritzkes adapts Burroughs’ novel for the film. Other regular Guada collaborators working on “Queer” include cinematographer Sayumbhu Mukdeeprom and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The Apartment, a Fremantle company, produces “Queer,” in collaboration with Cinecittá Spa and Frame by Frame.
“I am so privileged and elated to present a movie of mine for the third time at NYFF, Queer in particular,” Guadagnino said in a press statement. “It is a very personal movie about the inescapable quest for being recognized in the gaze of another through the lens of the great William Burroughs.” Meanwhile, NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim added, “Luca Guadagnino is one of contemporary cinema’s most versatile filmmakers, and one of its biggest risk-takers. “Queer” is his most fearless, inventive, and surprising film, one that brings its subcultural world to brilliant life and creates the role of a lifetime for a tremendous Daniel Craig.”
No word on a theatrical release for “Queer” yet, but if it does well at Venice and the rest of its Fall festival run, expect in US theaters early next year. Single tickets for NYFF62 go on sale on September 17 at noon ET, with Film at Lincoln Center members get pre-sale access; so mark your calenders to snag what will be highly sought-after tickets for Guada’s latest.
