Julia Roberts’ "After the Hunt" to Open New York Film Festival

Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” will open the 63rd New York Film Festival on September 26.

The film boasts an all-star cast led by Julia Roberts in a story about the impact of an alleged sexual assault on an Ivy League campus. 

Michael Stuhlbarg, Ayo Edebiri, Chloë Sevigny and Andrew Garfield co-star in “After the Hunt,” which Amazon MGM Studios backed. Nora Garrett wrote the screenplay.

Previous opening night films at the festival have included Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and Todd Haynes’ “May December.” RaMell Ross’s “Nickle Boys” opened last year’s edition.

Billed as the film’s North American premiere, “After the Hunt” will return Guadagnino to the festival, a place where he previously screened “Call Me by Your Name” and “Queer.” 

“After the Hunt” will screen at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, September 26, with Guadagnino and members of the cast in attendance. The festival, which is a key stop for awards hopefuls, will take place through October 13. “After the Hunt” will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

According to a plot description from the festival, Roberts plays a “chilly, seemingly self-assured Yale philosophy professor Alma Olsson, whose comfortable professional career and domestic life with her mercurial husband Frederik (Stuhlbarg) are thrown into chaos after her PhD candidate protégée Maggie (Edebiri) accuses Alma’s longtime colleague and friend Hank (Garfield) of sexual assault. As a result, the air of rarefied academic privilege on campus begins to dissolve, and Alma must navigate minefields of gender, sexuality, race, and institutional power, all while trying to reconcile her own difficult choices with the demons of her past.”

“I have always found the New York Film Festival to be an arbiter of global cinema. For over 60 years it has been a festival that makes audiences open their minds and hearts to the most daring and compelling global cinema from both established and emerging filmmakers,” said Guadagnino. “To be invited to open the 63rd edition is a tremendous responsibility and honor. I, alongside the incredible cast and crew and our companions at Amazon MGM Studios who made ‘After the Hunt’ possible, am elated and thrilled to bring to New York our tale of morality and power.”

“We are excited to open this year’s festival with Luca Guadagnino’s latest, which confirms his status as one of the most versatile risk-takers working today,” said Dennis Lim, artistic director, New York Film Festival. “Brilliantly acted and crafted, ‘After the Hunt’ is something rare in contemporary cinema: a complex, grown-up movie with a lot on its mind that also happens to be a deeply satisfying piece of entertainment.”

Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Jeb Brody and Allan Mandelbaum produced “After the Hunt” with Guadagnino.