The Hamptons International Film Festival will open with the East Coast premiere of the Michael B. Jordan starrer Just Mercy and screen James Mangold’s Matt Damon and Christian Bale starrer Ford v. Ferrari as its Saturday centerpiece title, it was announced Friday.
In Just Mercy, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Jordan plays lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who after graduating from Harvard heads to Alabama to defend those who’ve been wrongly condemned or not given proper representation, working alongside local advocate Eva Ansley (Brie Larson) on cases like that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) who was sentenced to die for the murder of an 18-year-old girl despite a massive amount of evidence proving his innocence and that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. Tim Blake Nelson, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Rafe Spall co-star in the film about Stevenson’s quest for justice.
Ford v. Ferrari is based on the true story of American car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who teamed up to build a race car for Ford to take on Enzo Ferrari’s vehicles at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.
Additionally, the festival will screen Chinonye Chukwu’s death row film, Clemency, with star Alfre Woodard on hand to participate in a career-spanning discussion, and world premieres of documentaries about Flint, Michigan; the U.S. mass shooting epidemic (In Memoriam); and The National Enquirer (Scandalous).
“We are honored to have Alfre Woodard at this year’s festival and look forward to a captivating and engaging conversation, with her as well as our lifetime achievement award recipient Brian De Palma,” said HIFF executive director Anne Chaisson.
HIFF artistic director David Nugent added, “Each of these films tell a unique, thrilling story and we are excited to share them with our passionate audiences out east, with a truly remarkable lineup of some of the year’s most anticipated films, events and world premiere screenings.”
The 27th annual Hamptons International Film Festival is set to run Oct. 10-14. The Long Island event holds the distinction of being the only East Coast film festival to have screened the eventual best picture winner at the Oscars for the past nine years. Click here for more information about this year’s lineup.
