The event aims to showcase the breadth of US filmmaking, including premieres, independent productions and acclaimed classics.
The festival runs from November 17 to 22, with an online edition available from November 17 to December 6. Tickets went on sale on Thursday.
This year's programme features 146 films divided into 24 sections.
One of them, the Breakthrough Competition, showcases first and second feature films, with 12 productions vying for the audience award.
The selection includes Graham Parkes' What If, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival; Stephanie Ahn's Bedford Park, which received recognition at the Sundance Film Festival; and Liz Sargent's Take Me Home.
Also competing is Walter Thompson-Hernández's coming-of-age film Will They Miss Me If I Leave?
The winner will be selected by audience vote.
Audiences will also decide the winner of the American Docs Competition, which features seven documentaries.
They include Sean Wilsey’s 9/11, Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil’s Aanikoobijigan: The Ancestors, Amy K. Jenkins' Adam’s Apple, and The Haunted House in Pennhurst, directed by Mike Attie, Katarina Poljak and Nathan R. Stenberg.
The Shorts Competition will feature 18 films. For the first time, the winner will be selected by a jury comprising producer and composer Łukasz L.U.C. Rostkowski, film critic Piotr Czerkawski, actress and screenwriter Michelle Twarowska, and photographer and visual artist Agata Grzybowska.
The festival opens with Misty Green, a comedy-drama directed by Chris Rock.
The film follows a talented actress whose career has stalled but who gets an opportunity to make a comeback. Rosalind Eleazar plays the title character, alongside Anna Kendrick, Adam Driver and Rock himself.
The closing film will be Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter, based on a short story by Colm Tóibín.
Set against the mountainous landscape of Colorado, the story explores family, love and loneliness. The film received positive reviews at this year’s Telluride Film Festival.
Josephine Decker will receive the festival’s Indie Star Award, which recognises outstanding figures in American independent cinema.
The director is already familiar to Wrocław audiences. She presented her debut film Butter on the Latch at the New Horizons festival in 2014, followed a few months later by a screening of Thou Wast Mild and Lovely at the American Film Festival.
The programme will also feature a retrospective of Decker’s work, curated by Adriana Prodeus. It includes Butter on the Latch, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Madeline’s Madeline, Shirley, Chasing Summer and The Horseplay.
The festival will also honour actor, director, producer and screenwriter Griffin Dunne. His work includes the Oscar-nominated short film Duke of Groove and the fantasy comedy Practical Magic, starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as sisters with supernatural powers.
Among the festival highlights is A Real Pain director Jesse Eisenberg’s new film The Drama of Mona.
Julianne Moore plays Mona, a woman who has spent years organising the lives of her family and finally decides to pursue her own dream of acting on stage. With her children grown up and her husband increasingly occupied with work and friends, she finds the opportunity to start a new chapter in her life.
The Highlights section will also feature two films ahead of their general release: The Smugglers, directed by Padraic McKinley and starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, and Peter Farrelly’s I Am Rocky.
The latter tells the story behind the making of the 1976 film Rocky, with Anthony Ippolito playing Sylvester Stallone.
Audiences will also be able to catch some of the most talked-about films of the past year. The selection includes Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, Ryan Coogler's Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, which received six Academy Awards.
(gs)
Source: PAP, americanfilmfestival.pl