Alfonso Cuaron’s ROMA has been selected to screen as the centerpiece film at the 56th New York Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 14, it was announced today by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The eagerly awaited film, which Netflix plans to distribute theatrically around the world, will have its New York premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 5.
Cuaron’s first film since he won the best directing Oscar for 2013’s Gravity, ROMA was produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media. Autobiographically inspired and filmed in black-and-white, ROMA is set in Mexico City in the early ’70s and focuses on a middle-class family and their beloved live-in nanny and housekeeper, played by Yalitza Aparicio.
“I was absolutely stunned by ROMA from beginning to end — by the craftsmanship and the artistry of everyone involved, by the physical power and gravitational force of the images, by the realization that I was seeing something magical: a story of ongoing life grounded within the immensity and mystery of just being here on this planet. Alfonso Cuaron’s film is a wonder,” Kent Jones, New York Film Festival director and selection committee chair, said in announcing its selection.
“I am honored ROMA has been selected for the centerpiece slot at this year’s New York Film Festival,” commented Cuaron, whose Y Tu Mama Tambien played at the festival in 2001. “NYFF has a longstanding history of celebrating meaningful and compelling filmmaking and it felt right to return to the festival with ROMA — an incredibly personal, illuminating and transformative project for me.”
