AFI Fest Adds Galas: ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ ‘The Disaster Artist,’ and ‘Hostiles’
“Call Me by Your Name,” “The Disaster Artist,” and “Hostiles” will serve as the Centerpiece Galas at AFI Fest (November 9–16), the season’s last major film festival. In addition, documentarian Errol Morris will be the subject of a November 11 Tribute following a screening of “Wormwood,” his six-part, semi-scripted Netflix series (out December 15) that stars Peter Sarsgaard as a father whose death is ultimately investigated by his son.
Morris, 69, previously won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar in 2004 for “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” He’s hoping for similar luck in 2018: Variety reports that Netflix is submitting a separate, theatrical version to The Academy for award consideration in multiple categories.
Of the three newly-announced Centerpieces, Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” has had the longest festival run —it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, followed by “The Disaster Artist” at South by Southwest, and “Hostiles” at the Telluride Film Festival. On Oct. 19, “Call Me by Your Name” received three Gotham Award nominations (for Best Feature, Best Screenplay, and Breakthrough Actor Timothée Chalamet), while James Franco will vie for Best Actor in “The Disaster Artist,” a film he also directed and produced.
The films will fill out the middle of the festival, now in its 31st year. “Mudbound” and “All the Money in the World” were previously announced as the respective Opening and Closing Night Galas.
Notably absent from the Centerpiece trio is “The Post,” a Pentagon Papers-era period piece helmed by Steven Spielberg, boasting Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as The Washington Post legendary publisher and executive editor, Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee. The film was augured as an AFI Fest offering because in 2012, Spielberg chose it as the venue to world premiere “Lincoln,” after giving New York Film Festival audiences a glimpse of an unfinished cut.
