posted by Blyth on September 3rd, 2010

We've been holding our tongues for weeks, but now we can finally tell you our opening night film!

 

Our Artistic and Executive Director Jonathan Jackson says:

“To open the festival with Blue Valentine, which features two of the best acting performances of the year by leads Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams – who are sure bets for Oscar nominations – is thrilling. If there is any justice, the Academy will nominate this unrivaled and honest love story for Best Picture, as well.”

 

Critically acclaimed at both Cannes and Sundance this year, Blue Valentine balances the emotional wreckage of a relationship on its last legs with the tender courtship that led up to it. Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) and Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy) supply searing, Oscar-worthy performances that pull you into the orbit of this couple.

 

Filmed with an intimacy rarely found in relationship films today (with New York City providing the gorgeous backdrop), the story is the result of 12 years of work by writer and director Derek Cianfrance. Featuring a bruised and haunting soundtrack by Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear, this is the real-life story of the dualities we all experience over the passage of time: youth and adulthood, dreams and realities, love and hate. An honest portrait of a couple trying one last time to rekindle a fire that’s down to its last smoldering ember.

 

 

“It’s an anguished, acutely observed and at times deeply affecting story about falling in love—and out of love—that channels the keening, ugly desperation and emotional heft of the great John Cassavetes.”—The London Telegraph

 

Official site: Blue Valentine