Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying to open 55th New York Film Festival

Festival director calls it "infectiously funny, quietly shattering."

by Anne-Katrin Titze

Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying to open 55th New York Film Festival
Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying to open 55th New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center (Flag Day in the US is today, June 14) announced on Monday that the World Premiere of Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying - co-written with Darryl Ponicsan (Cinderella Liberty, The Last Detail), produced by Ginger Sledge, John Sloss, and Thomas Lee Wright, starring Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne - is the Opening Night Gala selection of the New York Film Festival.

Linklater's terrific Boyhood team of cinematographer Shane F Kelly, editor Sandra Adair, and costume designer Kari Perkins also worked on his latest.

Kent Jones: "Last Flag Flying is many things at once - infectiously funny, quietly shattering, celebratory, mournful, meditative, intimate, expansive, vastly entertaining, and …"
Kent Jones: "Last Flag Flying is many things at once - infectiously funny, quietly shattering, celebratory, mournful, meditative, intimate, expansive, vastly entertaining, and …" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Festival director Kent Jones said: “Last Flag Flying is many things at once - infectiously funny, quietly shattering, celebratory, mournful, meditative, intimate, expansive, vastly entertaining, and all-American in the very best sense.

"But to isolate its individual qualities is to set aside the most important and precious fact about this movie: that it all flows like a river. That’s only possible with remarkable artists like Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, and Bryan Cranston, and a master like Richard Linklater behind the camera.”

Last Flag Flying will be screened at Alice Tully Hall on Thursday, September 28.

The 2017 New York Film Festival runs from September 28 through October 15.

Last Flag Flying will open in the US on November 17.

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