September 27 to October 14, 2024, marks the timeline of the 62nd New York Film Festival. Curated by Film at Lincoln Center, the festival has recently announced its Spotlight section, per Deadline. The New York Film Festival is known for its prestige in presenting both domestic and international films to a larger audience, and that is well-represented in this year’s Spotlight
section. This list includes several North American premieres of new releases from acclaimed directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Luca Guadagnino, and Leos Carax.

Additionally, the festival will see Pablo Larraín’s Maria, an Angelina Jolie-led story about the life and work of legendary opera singer Maria Callas; the Jesse Eisenberg-directed A Real Pain, focusing on the pilgrimage of two cousins to the home of their Polish grandmother, a Holocaust survivor; Jacques Audiard’s dark musical comedy Emilia Pérez; and Leos Carax’s self-portrait C’est Pas Moi. Two films will focus on the careers of famous musicians: Andrei Ujică’s TWST / Things We Said Today, a documentary centered around the Beatles, and R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s Elton John: Never Too Late. 

As previously mentioned, new works from the great Jean-Luc Godard, Scénarios, and Exposé du Film annonce du film “Scénario“ will be premiering in North America at the festival. These films arrive two years after the death of Godard, with Scénarios featuring archival footage of the director a day before his passing. The latter, a documentary made by long-time collaborator Fabrice Aragno, is dedicated to the genius of Godard’s work.

Luca Guadagnino, the director behind movies such as the romantic coming-of-age Call Me by Your Name and the sports drama Challengers, will be premiering his highly-anticipated 2024 release, Queer, as the festival’s Spotlight Gala. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s short novel, which is the same name, with Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey set to star. The story depicts a man recounting a journey of self-discovery in Mexico City during the 1950’s.

Two of the Spotlight films revolve around political turmoil within Brazil. Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics focuses on the threats raised in Brazil due to dramatic polarization in political beliefs, while Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here follows the tragic story of a wife searching for the truth about her husband who was abducted by the Brazilian government. In summation, this year’s New York Film Festival Spotlight section is lined with a range of new and bold works from directors old and new.