Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog will be the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival

The 59th New York Film Festival (NYFF) has named Jane Campion’s (The Piano, The Portrait of a Lady) The Power of the Dog as its centerpiece. The Western will show in New York at the Alice Tully Hall festival on October 1. NYFF 2021 will run from September 24 to October 10 with a combination of in-person, outdoor and virtual screenings.

Written and directed by Campion, the film is dapted from the 1967 cult novel by Thomas Savage that was ahead of its time in describing repressed sexuality, The Power of the Dog excavates the emotional torment experienced on a Montana cattle ranch in the 1920s.

The brooding widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) has come to live with her sensitive new husband, George (Jesse Plemons), though their lives are increasingly complicated by the erratic and potentially violent behavior of her surly and harassing brother, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose mistrust of both Rose and her misfit son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) leads to tragic consequences.

“I am very honored that ‘The Power of the Dog’ was selected as the Central Gala at this year’s New York Film Festival,” said Campion. “The public screenings that we took for granted for a long time feel exceptional now, so it is going to be a very emotional and joyous experience for me and my team to be there and present the film to such an enthusiastic audience.”

“We couldn’t be happier to welcome Jane Campion to the festival with one of her best films,” said Dennis Lim, NYFF director of programming. “Everything about ‘The Power of the Dog’ comes to life with surprise: its narrative twists, its rich characterizations, its complex ideas about masculinity and repression. It will introduce many to the work of the underrated novelist Thomas Savage, but it also reminds us of what film can do as a means of accessing and expressing the inner life. “

The world premiere of The Power of the Dog will take place at the Venice Film Festival in September. The drama, a Netflix title, is expected to be available later this year.

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