Woody Allen's Rainy Day in New York to open Deauville American Film Festival
France’s Deauville American Film Festival has provided a silver lining for Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York.
The annual event announced Wednesday the controversial project — the canceled domestic release of which prompted the Oscar-winning filmmaker to sue original distributor Amazon for $68 million in February — will open the festival’s 45th edition in September.
A festival press release states the film — starring Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, and Jude Law in a tale about a college couple navigating a string of romantic and professional entanglements with movie stars and Hollywood directors in Manhattan — “crystallizes once again the dreams and neuroses of the Allenian heroes in a crossover brimming with charm.”
Though the film was shot two years ago in New York City, Amazon eventually shelved the film indefinitely after sustained allegations of sexual abuse against Allen resurfaced in the wake of the #MeToo movement — particularly accusations by his daughter, Dylan Farrow (all of which Allen has repeatedly denied). Various actors involved in past and present Allen projects expressed regret over working with him, and declared they’d never work with him again. Amid backlash, Rainy Day star Chalamet donated his salary to charitable causes. Allen’s subsequent $68 million lawsuit alleged Amazon terminated a four-picture deal due to a “25-year-old, baseless allegation,” to which the studio studio responded by claiming Allen’s public comments about the #MeToo movement “sabotaged” their ability to promote his work.
Allen later debuted a trailer for Rainy Day on his Facebook page, teasing the first footage from the festival in the wake of the controversy surrounding the project.
Allen is currently working on another new romantic comedy, Rifkin’s Festival, with actors Gina Gershon, Wallace Shawn, and Christoph Waltz, which reportedly finished shooting Tuesday in Spain.
Though a United States release date has yet to be confirmed, distributor Mars Films is set to release A Rainy Day in New York in France on Sept. 18. It premiered in Poland on July 26 via Kino Świat, with a more robust international rollout expected to follow in the coming months.
The 2019 Deauville American Film Festival, which was established in 1975 as a means to highlight American productions abroad, runs Sept. 6-15 in France.
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