DENVER — The 45th Denver Film Festival is scheduled for Nov. 2 and will run through Nov. 13. And Monday, organizers announced the complete program lineup of the festival.
The festival includes film screenings, events, panels and parties will be held at venues throughout the city including the Sie FilmCenter, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Botanic Gardens, AMC 9 + CO 10 and the Tattered Cover East Colfax.
Here is the 2022 officials selections:
RED CARPET:
ARMAGEDDON TIME
USA / Director: James Gray
From acclaimed filmmaker James Gray, Armageddon Time is a deeply personal story on the strength of family, the complexity of friendship and the generational pursuit of the American Dream. The film features an all-star cast including Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong.
Opening Night / Wednesday, Nov. 2, 8 p.m. Ellie Caulkins Opera House
EMPIRE OF LIGHT
UK, USA / Director: Sam Mendes
From Academy Award®-winning director and writer Sam Mendes, Empire of Light is an intimate and moving story about love, friendship, and connection. Set in a coastal town in Southern England, a woman with a difficult past and an uneasy present, is part of a makeshift family at the old Empire Cinema. When Stephen (Micheal Ward) is hired to work at the cinema, the two find an unlikely attraction and discover the healing power of movies, music, and community.
Centerpiece / Friday, Nov. 4, 8 p.m. Ellie Caulkins Opera House
LOUDMOUTH
USA / Director: Josh Alexander
The national political scene in New York City in the late 1980s changed when preacher and activist Reverend Al Sharpton became the center of national conversations revolving around race. Loudmouth puts an unprecedented spotlight on the veteran activist and asks whether Al Sharpton has gone mainstream, or if America has finally decided to listen.
Big Night / Thursday, Nov. 10, 8 p.m. Ellie Caulkins Opera House
WOMEN TALKING
USA / Director: Sarah Polley
In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling their reality with their faith. Based on the novel by Miriam Toews.
Closing Night / Saturday, Nov. 12, 8 p.m. Ellie Caulkins Opera House
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS:
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED
USA / Director: Laura Poitras
Academy Award®–winning documentarian Laura Poitras chronicles the life and work of famed artist Nan Goldin. Goldin's efforts include her protests against the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin.
Saturday, Nov. 5, 6:15 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
BROKER
South Korea / Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Five years after winning the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters, Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Broker, starring Cannes Best Actor winner Song Kang Ho ( Parasite). The film follows two brokers who sell orphaned infants, circumventing the bureaucracy of legal adoption, to affluent couples who can’t have children of their own. After an infant’s mother surprises the duo by returning to ensure her child finds a good home, the three embark on a journey to find the right couple, building an unlikely family of their own.
Friday, Nov. 4, 6:30 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
CLOSE
Belgium, France, Netherlands / Director: Lukas Dhont
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Close is an emotionally transformative and unforgettable portrait of the intersection of friendship and love, identity and independence, and heartbreak and healing and portray Leo and Remi are two thirteen-year-old best friends, whose seemingly unbreakable bond is suddenly, tragically torn apart.
Saturday, Nov. 12, 6:45 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
GOOD NIGHT OPPY
USA / Director: Ryan White
Fun for the whole family, Good Night Oppy tells the inspirational true story of Opportunity, a rover sent to Mars for a 90-day mission but ended up surviving for 15 years. The film follows Opportunity’s groundbreaking journey on Mars and the remarkable bond forged between a robot and her humans millions of miles away.
Thursday, Nov. 3, 7 p.m. AMC 9 + CO 10
HUNT
South Korea / Director: Lee Jung-jae
Hunt sets out to find a spy among North Korean operatives and a special forces unit, both of which are deeply embedded within their agencies. When the spy starts leaking top secret intel that could jeopardize national security, the two units are assigned to investigate each other. In this tense situation, if they cannot find the mole, they may be accused themselves.
Friday, Nov. 11, 6:45 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
THE INSPECTION
USA / Director: Elegance Bratton
Inspired by director Elegance Bratton’s own story, a young, gay Black man with limited options for his future decides to join the Marines. As he battles deep-seated prejudice and the grueling routines of basic training, he finds unexpected camaraderie, strength, and support in this new community, giving him a hard-earned sense of belonging that will forever change his life.
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 7 p.m. Denver Botanic Gardens
LINOLEUM
USA / Director: Colin West
Chaos turns into opportunity when a satellite falls from orbit and crashes into a family's home in suburban Ohio. The father (Jim Gaffigan) seizes the chance to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut and turns the found machine into a rocket ship. Midlife crisis or not, surreal events begin to unfold, which force him to reconsider real life connections.
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 7 p.m. AMC 9 + CO 10
LIVING
UK / Director: Oliver Hermanus
This film captures how a small but epic act can become a momentous event. Set in London in 1952, Williams, a veteran civil servant, has become stuck in routine office work in rebuilding post-WWII England. He begins to question the meaning of life, when at the eleventh hour, a supreme effort turns his dull life into something wonderful.
Tuesday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m. Denver Botanic Gardens
ONE FINE MORNING
France / Director: Mia Hansen- Løve
Books, words, and lectures become a thing of the past for Sandra's father who has become blind. While his world becomes dark, Sandra finds comfort with a friend that turns into a passionate love affair. Stuck between always saying goodbye, Sandra tries to come to grips with her life in One Fine Morning.
Sunday, Nov. 13, 4 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
RETURN TO SEOUL
France, Germany, Belgium / Director: Davy Chou
After an impulsive travel decision to visit friends, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. Freddie suddenly finds herself embarking on an unexpected journey in a country she knows little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.
Monday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
SHE SAID
USA / Director: Maria Schrader
Two-time Academy Award® nominee Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman, An Education) and Zoe Kazan (The Plot Against America limited series, The Big Sick) star as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who together broke one of the most important stories in a generation— a story that helped launch the #MeToo movement, shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood and altered American culture forever.
Monday, Nov. 7, 7p.m. Denver Botanic Gardens
THE SON
UK / Director: Florian Zeller
A star-studded drama, featuring Laura Dern, Hugh Jackman and Sir Anthony Hopkins, The Son follows a family as it struggles to reunite after falling apart. It centers on Peter, whose hectic life is upended when his ex-wife appears with Nicholas and their troubled teenage son. Peter strives to care for his family, but he loses sight of how to hold onto the present.
Sunday, Nov. 6, 6:15 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
TURN EVERY PAGE – THE ADVENTURES OF ROBERT CARO AND ROBERT GOTTLIEB
USA / Director: Lizzie Gottlieb
Turn Every Page explores the remarkable fifty-year relationship between two literary legends, writer Robert Caro and his longtime editor Robert Gottlieb. With humor and insight, this unique double portrait reveals the work habits, oddities, and joys of these two ferocious intellects at the culmination of a journey that has consumed both their lives.
Sunday, Nov. 13, 1:30 p.m. Sie FilmCenter
THE WHALE
USA / Director: Darren Aronofsky
From Darren Aronofsky comes The Whale, the story of a reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption. Starring Brendan Fraser and based on the acclaimed play by Samuel D. Hunter.
Saturday, Nov. 12, 4 p.m. Denver Botanic Gardens
WILDCAT
USA / Director: Melissa Lesh / Trevor Frost
Back from war in Afghanistan, a young British soldier struggling with depression and PTSD finds a second chance in the Amazon rainforest when he meets an American scientist, and together they foster an orphaned baby ocelot.
Sunday, Nov. 13, 3:45 p.m. AMC 9 + CO 10
NARRATIVE COMPETITION: Six international films will vie for the honor of winning an award named for one of cinema’s great masters. Their subjects range from the horrors of a serial killer in Iran, to a wayward priest making his way through the unforgiving lands of Iceland, to a young girl growing up with little in the way of parentage in 1980s Ireland.
Six more films from the U.S. will compete for the American Independent Award. Their contents are equally diverse: an undocumented woman who gets more than she bargained for when she is hired as a nanny for an affluent New York family, a heist film with climate change on the brain, and a very different take on West Side Story and greaser culture.
