Director Ang Lee’s much anticipated feature Life of Pi is scheduled to premiere at the 50th New York Film Festival as its Opening Night Gala program in September. The selection will allows Lee to join Robert Altman, Pedro Almodóvar and François Truffaut as the only directors to have had more than one film chosen to open NYFF. Lee’s The Ice Storm was the Opening Night Gala selection in 1997. The screening will also mark the first time a film has been presented in 3D for NYFF’s Opening Night Gala.
“Life of Pi is a perfect combination of technological innovation and a strong artistic vision. Ang Lee has managed to make a deeply moving, engrossing work that will delight audiences as much as it will astonish them. We’re enormously proud to have this film for our Opening Night for the 50th NYFF,” says Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and spent years on the bestseller list, Academy Award winner Lee’s new feature takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years, and a wide world of imagination. Lee’s vision, coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, has turned a story long thought un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture. It follows a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship’s only other survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger. The Twentieth Century Fox release is due in theaters on November 21, 2012. The film will showcase top-notch vfx from the likes of Rhythm & Hues, BUF, Look, Legacy, Lola and Moving Picture Company.
Regarding his return to NYFF, Ang Lee said, “I am both delighted and honored to be back at the New York Film Festival with Life of Pi. I have the deepest respect for Richard Peña and his team and to be selected by them as the Opening Night Film for the 50th Anniversary is extremely gratifying. I am also excited because this is my hometown, and to be unveiling this film that I am so proud of here is a real pleasure.”
