Movie theaters still haven't reopened in New York City and it's unclear when they ever will, but Film at Lincoln Center announced that the Centerpiece film for this fall's New York Film Festival will be Chloé Zhao's Nomadland.
Nomadland, which stars Frances McDormand and David Straithairn, follows McDormand's character "who, after the economic collapse of her company town in rural Nevada, packs her van and sets off on the road to explore a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad," according to a press release. Zhao, who was born in China and studied at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, both directed and adapted the film from Jessica Bruder's non-fiction book of the same name. The book's description lays out the narrative struggle:
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that Social Security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves “workampers.”
In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,” Jessica Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying her irrepressible protagonist, Linda May, and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable “Earthship” home, they have not given up hope.
The film also features some of the real nomads from the book—Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells.
This will be Zhao's second appearance at the NYFF. Her second film The Rider, about a cowboy facing grim injuries, was shown in 2017 and received widespread acclaim (it was also one of Barack Obama's favorite films of 2018).
In a statement, Zhao said, "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." For what it's worth, her next film is the Marvel superhero movie, The Eternals, starring Angelina Jolie; it was supposed to be released in November, but has been pushed back to February 2021 for now.
"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."
The 58th New York Film Festival is currently scheduled to run September 25th through October 11th, but the date of the Nomadland screening is still to be determined. In fact, the festival is still "exploring a combination of both in-person and digital experiences, as circumstances allow." Nomadland will also be shown on September 11th, at both the Toronto and Venice Film Fetivals and at the Telluride Film Festival's drive-in screening (Telluride cancelled their festival this year).
However, as the pandemic surges in the South and West, questions remain about when the movie industry will be able to show movies in theaters again. Studios are delaying releases and pushing tentpole films further into the future. Tenet, the hotly-anticipated new film from director Christopher Nolan, was supposed to be a big summer blockbuster opening on July 17th, but Warner Bros. moved it to July 31st and then August 12th before taking a date off on the books.
Now, the current plan is for the Robert Pattinson-John David Washington picture to open in Canada, the U.K., Germany, Australia, and other foreign countries on August 26th, before opening in select U.S. theaters on September 3rd.
AMC theaters, which hoped to reopen by July 31st, is now hoping to reopen in mid-to-late August; in addition to increased cleaning and reducing theater capacity, they will require customers to wear masks.
