Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’ Will Have Its World Premiere at the 64th New York Film Festival

Here is the press release from NYFF:

Film at Lincoln Center has added the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial to the Main Slate of the 64th New York Film Festival. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center in partnership with Rolex, the 64th New York Film Festival will take place from September 25 through October 12. The world premiere will take place on October 5 at Alice Tully Hall with Guadagnino and members of the cast in attendance.

The stakes couldn’t be higher in Luca Guadagnino’s thrilling, funny, and very human Artificial, a drama of immense moral urgency that propels the viewer through the two decades of machine learning research and technocratic recklessness that have brought us to our current AI crisis point. In 2003, Soviet-born computer scientist Ilya Sutskever (Yura Borisov) began studying artificial neural networks under University of Toronto professor Geoffrey “Godfather of AI” Hinton (Mark Rylance). A decade later, while employed by Google, Sutskever fatefully crosses paths with a young entrepreneur named Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield), the eventual co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. Among our boldest auteurs, Guadagnino (previously at NYFF with Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All,Queer, and After the Hunt) takes his biggest swing yet for this headlong plunge into our doomsday moment, with a script by Simon Rich that probes the increasing gray areas between human and machine, truth and lie. Anchored by brilliant, fully inhabited lead performances by Garfield and Borisov; a remarkable supporting cast, including Rylance, Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, and Chris O’Dowd; and original songs and score by Damon Albarn, Guadagnino’s film moves like a machine in unstoppable, constant motion—a history being written as we’re watching it. A NEON release. 

NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim stated: “The most remarkable thing about Luca Guadagnino’s sly and sobering new film is that it finds the perfect tone to tell the story of how we arrived at the AI precipice. Artificial traces this trajectory with clear-eyed horror, dark humor, and a sense of existential urgency. If ever there was a movie for its moment, this is it.”

The world premiere of Artificial at NYFF64 continues Luca Guadagnino’s history with the New York Film Festival and Film at Lincoln Center. I Am Love was a New Directors/New Films 2010 selection, Call Me by Your Name was an NYFF55 Main Slate selection, Bones and All was an NYFF60 Spotlight selection, Queer was the NYFF62 Spotlight Gala selection, and After the Hunt was the NYFF63 Opening Night selection.

The NYFF Main Slate and Spotlight selection committee is chaired by Dennis Lim, NYFF Artistic Director, and includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, and Rachel Rosen. Violeta Bava, Michelle Carey, K. Austin Collins, and Antoine Thirion are NYFF program advisors.

NYFF64 is generously supported by Festival Co-Chairs Susannah Gray and John Lyons, Susan and John Hess, Almudena and Pablo Legorreta, Imelda and Peter Sobiloff, and Nanna and Dan Stern; Vice-Chairs Jack Heller, Tara Kelleher and Roy Zuckerberg, and Ronnie Planalp; and Supporters Viviana and Guillermo Bichara, Great Hill, Kathy and Kris Heinzelman, Wendy Keys, Hillary Koota Krevlin and Glenn Krevlin, Marcia DB Levy and William G. Levy, Ari Rifkin, and Mary Solomon / GS Gives.

Explore the NYFF64 lineup and schedule here. Pass holders and FLC Members receive NYFF64 pre-sale access (pre-sale dates vary by level). Passes are on sale now in limited quantities. NYFF64 single tickets will go on sale to the general public on Tuesday, September 15 at noon ET.