The American Film Institute has revealed a selection of titles picked for red carpet galas and special screenings at this year's Canva-presented AFI Fest, ahead of the full lineup announcement set for Sept. 29.
Among the new red carpet premieres are Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky, starring Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone, and Netflix's animated Ray Gunn from director Brad Bird, featuring the voices of Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell.
Rockwell also appears in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, alongside John Malkovich. That film, a breakout favorite following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, has been selected for AFI's special screenings section.
It will screen alongside a lineup of other special selections: Ava DuVernay's documentary 14th, Diego Luna's Ashes, Tony Gilroy's Behemoth! starring Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist, Pedro Almodóvar's Bitter Christmas, Florian Zeller's Bunker starring real-life couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, Arie and Chuko Esiri's Clarissa with David Oyelowo, Sophie Okonedo and Ayo Edebiri, Simon Stone's Elsinore starring Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson, Beth de Araújo's Josephine starring Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan and Mason Reeves, Ira Sachs' The Man I Love starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Tom Sturridge and Maisy Stella, and Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson's Mouse starring Sophie Okonedo and Katherine Mallen Kupferer.
Also included is Leah Nelson's animated feature about Alzheimer's, Tangles, which boasts an extensive voice cast featuring Seth Rogen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Pamela Adlon, Sarah Silverman, Beanie Feldstein, Abbi Jacobson, Wanda Sykes, Adam Shapiro, Bowen Yang, Phil Rosenthal, Samira Wiley and more.
This year marks the 40th installment of AFI Fest, which will take place Oct. 21-25 at Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatres. The festival opens with the U.S. premiere of Travis Knight's animated Wildwood and will also feature Netflix's The Mosquito Bowl from filmmaker Peter Berg, starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgard, Ray Nicholson and Berg himself, along with Sian Heder's Being Heumann. Phil Lord and Chris Miller have previously been announced as this year's guest artistic directors.
The full festival lineup will be revealed on Sept. 29, and passes are already available for purchase.
"AFI Fest is where the world tells stories in the beating heart of Hollywood," said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. "This year, we are proud to celebrate 40 years of bringing artists and audiences together to be inspired in a powerful sense of community."
Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
