20TH edition NOVEMBER 24 TO DECEMBER 2, 2023
20th edition
November 24 to December 2, 2023
James Gray was born in New York City and grew up in Queens. He studied cinema and television at the University of Southern California and made his directorial debut with Little Odessa (1994), which won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival. He went on to direct The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007), The Lovers (2008) and The Immigrant (2013), all of which were had their premieres at the Festival de Cannes. The Lost City of Z (2016) had its premiere as the closing film of the New York Film Festival. Gray’s most recent films are Ad Astra (2019), which had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and Armageddon Time (2022), which was presented in competition at the Festival de Cannes.
It is 1988 in Brooklyn, where violence and crime around the drug trade is rampant: no one pays the slightest attention to the law and a Russian thug is building up his trade in heroin. Joe, following in the footsteps of his father, Bert, is an up-andcoming New York Police Department cop; his brother Bobby is a successful club manager, on the verge of starting up a new joint in Manhattan. Joe and his dad ask Bobby to help them out with gathering intel—which Bobby declines. When Joe raids the club to nab the Russian junk dealer, the thug puts out a hit on Joe and things spiral out of control.
Director James Gray
Producer Mark Butan, Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Nick Wechsler
Screenwriter James Gray
Cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay
Production Designer Ford Wheeler
Editor John Axelrad
SoundDouglas Murray
Music Wojciech Kilar
Production CompanyColumbia Pictures, 2929 Productions, Industry Entertainment
International Sales Wild Bunch