Nomadland to be NYFF centrepiece

Chloé Zhao film stars Frances McDormand

by Anne-Katrin Titze

Nomadland director Chloé Zhao
Nomadland director Chloé Zhao Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced today that Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, adapted from Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America In The Twenty-First Century and produced by Frances McDormand, Peter Spears (Call Me By Your Name), Mollye Asher (The Rider), Dan Janvey (Beasts Of The Southern Wild) and Zhao, will be the Centerpiece selection of the 58th New York Film Festival. The film, shot by Joshua James Richards (Zhao’s The Rider, Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country) stars McDormand as Fern, David Strathairn, and includes nomads Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells “as Fern’s mentors and comrades.”

Frances McDormand as Fern in Chloé Zhao's Nomadland
Frances McDormand as Fern in Chloé Zhao's Nomadland

“We knew that Chloé Zhao’s masterful film, Nomadland, deserved a central spot at the New York Film Festival as soon as we saw it,” said Eugene Hernandez, Director of the New York Film Festival. "We’re elated to share Chloé and Fran’s remarkable achievement with New York audiences this fall." “We are honored to have Chloé back at the festival with her most ambitious and moving work to date,” said New York Film Festival Director of Programming Dennis Lim. “Anchored by Frances McDormand’s indelible performance, Nomadland is a road movie for our precarious times, and it establishes Chloé as one of the most clear-eyed and humane observers of life on the American margins.” “I'm very excited and proud that Nomadland will screen at NYFF. I learned how to make films in New York City, at NYU. This wonderful, brave, and inspiring city means a lot to me. I’m so thankful for NYFF to invite me back to connect with its audiences,” said Chloé Zhao.

Nomadland will be released in the US this fall by Searchlight Pictures.

The 2020 New York Film Festival runs from September 25 through October 11, 2020

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