The 49th Denver Film Festival runs October 22 through November 1, assembling nearly 150 films across four venues in the city. The full lineup was announced this week, with James Gray's Paper Tiger named as the closing night selection at MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater. The film stars Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller.
The festival opens with Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky, starring Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Centerpiece selections include Pedro Pascal in Behemoth! and Danny Boyle's Ink.
Honorees this year include Carrie Coon, who receives the Excellence in Acting Award for her performance in The Liberation; John Cho, who accepts the Outlaw Award for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother; and Fred Hechinger, who earns the Rising Star Award for A Long Winter. Breakthrough Director honors go to Liz Sargent for Take Me Home, while sound designer David Acord receives the Excellence in Sound Design Award for his work on Behemoth!. Experimental filmmaker Michael Gitlin accepts the annual Stan Brakhage Award alongside a career retrospective.
Festival artistic director Matthew Campbell said the team "deliberately avoided programming around a single theme" in order to ensure "variety of stories and diversity of voices."
The honoree slate is worth noting beyond the headline names. Acord's recognition is one of the few times a sound designer receives a formal festival award. Hechinger is one of the most consistent performers working in American film right now, and his inclusion alongside a figure like Coon signals something about where Denver's programming instincts are pointing.
Paper Tiger has not yet screened publicly. Its closing night slot places it in direct conversation with the fall awards circuit, where Gray's prior films, including The Immigrant and Armageddon Time, have built reputations that outlasted their initial reception.