Paper Tiger competed at Cannes in May and received a 10-minute standing ovation at its premiere. Now, with a November release approaching, James Gray arrived in Locarno carrying that momentum. On Sunday night, the 79th edition of the festival presented him with the Pardo alla Carriera in the Piazza Grande, followed by a screening of the film.
Two earlier works screened alongside it as part of a retrospective: We Own the Night (2007) and Two Lovers (2008). Gray also held a masterclass on Monday, the second day of the festival's honor.
Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro described Gray as "the last great novelist of American cinema," adding that his films "form a rich body of work that echoes the Jewish diaspora, film noir, and Russian as well as North American literature." Nazzaro also called him "a filmmaker with a humanist sensibility and profound cinephile knowledge" who has "experimented with genres such as science fiction and adventure while retaining his own artistic identity and voice."
Paper Tiger opens in limited U.S. release on November 13 from Neon. Set in 1986 Queens, it follows two brothers: Gary Pearl (Adam Driver), a former cop, and Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller), an engineer whose business venture draws the family into a Russian mafia scheme. Scarlett Johansson plays Irwin's wife, Hester. The film was shot on 35mm by cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay, their third collaboration, on a budget of $15 million.
Locarno runs through August 15.
