Pedro Almodóvar‘s “The Room Next Door” may have its world premiere at Venice, but it’ll be the Centerpiece selection at NYFF. The Spanish auteur’s first English-language feature will have its US premiere at Alice Tully Hall at Film at Lincoln Center on October 4 as part of the fest’s 62nd edition. And, yes, it’s fair to expect stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton to attend, given that Almodóvar is a NYFF regular.
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Based on Sigrid Nunez‘s 2024 novel “What Are You Going Through,” “The Room Next Door” stars Moore as Ingrid, a best-selling writer who rekindles an old friendship with Swinton’s Martha, a war journalist. As the two women reunite, Martha requests something from Ingrid that could throw their rekindled bond off-kilter. John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, and Juan Diego Botto also star in the film, set in Manhattan and upstate New Yorker.
It only makes sense for Almodóvar’s English-language feature debut to be NYFF’s Centerpiece this year, as the festival has been, as the director said in a press statement, “my bridge to New York audiences for decades.” Almodóvar even shot one scene of “The Room Next Door” at Alice Tully Hall. “It was very moving for me to shoot in a place that holds so very dear memories to me, and where I hope to keep on treasuring them in a not so distant future,” the director said.
NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim followed up Almodóvar’s comments with his own, calling “The Room Next Door” “the work of an artist at the height of his powers: a wise, exquisitely acted, achingly beautiful film that feels perfectly calibrated to this moment.” Almodóvar’s has been a regular at NYFF for over three decades now. His 1988 feature “Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown” was the first to screen at the festival, and, over the years, “All About My Mother,” “Bad Education,” “Volver,” “Talk To Her,” “The Skin I Live In,” “Strange Way Of Life,” and others have also screened at NYFF.
“The Room Next Door” has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. Sony Pictures Classics already has domestic rights for the film, so expect an official theatrical release date soon. As for NYRR, the fest runs from September 27-October 14 this year. RaMell Ross‘ “Nickel Boys” opens the festival this year, with Steve McQueen‘s “Blitz” serving as its closing film.