NEON
Anora
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Panelists
Mark Eydelshteyn
Actor
Mikey Madison
Actor
Sean Baker
Writer/Director/Producer/Editor/Casting Director
MODERATOR: Anthony D’Alessandro
“When you’re asking Sean, ‘Maybe don’t you mind if I try to do a flip when I’m nude? What do you think about it?’ Any other director will say, ‘You’re crazy Mark.’ Sean is, ‘What? Of course, let’s do it.’ ”
Paramount Pictures
Better Man
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Panelists
Robbie Williams
Actor
MODERATOR: Antonia Blyth
“There were many villains in this movie until we legally couldn’t have many villains in this movie. Now the only villain in this movie is me.”
Apple Original Films
Blitz
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Panelists
Saoirse Ronan
Actor
Tim Bevan
Producer
Steve McQueen
Writer/Director/Producer
MODERATOR: Zac Ntim
“When I saw this photograph of this child, during research, who was going to be evacuated, I thought seeing it through his eyes could help us revisit the story of the Second World War … through a child’s eyes, I thought it could be much more powerfully told.”
Amazon MGM Studios
Challengers
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Panelists
Amy Pascal
Producer
Josh O’Connor
Actor
Justin Kuritzkes
Writer
Luca Guadagnino
Director/ Producer
MODERATOR: Pete Hammond
“I’ll tell you the moment I knew that Luca was the perfect director for this. He had just read the script and we were talking and Luca said, ‘I know next to nothing about tennis but I know a great deal about desire.’ ”
Falling Forward
Day of the Fight
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Panelists
Jack Huston
Producer
Michael C. Pitt
Actor
Nicolette Robinson
Actor
MODERATOR: Matt Grobar
“Where are the films where we feel things? It’s extremely hard for me to watch this film and that’s never really happened to me. I hope that’s a good thing.”
Warner Bros. Pictures and
Legendary Pictures
Dune: Part Two
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Panelists
Denis Villeneuve
Writer/Director/Producer
Jon Spaihts
Writer
MODERATOR: Anthony D’Alessandro
“I don’t see this as a trilogy, but yeah, I always felt that it’ll be a great idea to finish that story, to make sure that the idea is that Frank Herbert, his initial desires, will absolutely be fulfilled.”
Bleecker Street
Hard Truths
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Panelists
Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Actor
MODERATOR: Zac Ntim
“The initial conversation is usually ‘Should we work together again? I don’t know what it’s going to be about. I don’t know what you’ll be playing in it, but we’ll have a great time.’ ”
Territory Pictures
Horizon: An
American Saga
—Chapter 1
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Panelists
J. Michael Muro
Cinematographer
John Debney
Composer
Kevin Costner
Writer/Director/Producer/ Actor
Lisa Lovaas
Costume Designer
MODERATOR: Pete Hammond
“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to make it and then I’m going to make the fourth one. And if you want to say ’the end’ at that point, then that’s the end.”
Sony Pictures Classics
I’m Still Here
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Panelists
Fernanda Torres
Actor
Walter Salles
Director
MODERATOR: Ryan Fleming
“It is becoming a kind of cultural, sociological political phenomenon. … And it made me think now that literature, cinema, music, can be incredible instruments against oblivion.”
NEON
Longlegs
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Panelists
Felix Fox
Key Special Effects Makeup Artist
Kristin Chaar
Key Hair
Madelaine Hermans
Key Makeup Artist
MODERATOR: Mike Fleming Jr.
“Oz wanted to make her colorless, like the life was sucked out of her by Longlegs and the satanic experience. There was a lot of powder.”
Amazon MGM Studios
My Old Ass
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Panelists
Maisy Stella
Actor
Megan Park
Writer/Director/Executive Producer
MODERATOR: Antonia Blyth
“I started thinking, ‘If I could go back and appreciate it, could it make it better, or whatever in the moment?’ Would you want to know that it was the last time you were going to experience something or not?”
Orion Pictures / Amazon
MGM Studios
Nickel Boys
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Panelists
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor
Actor
Jomo Fray
Cinematographer
Jeremy Kleiner
Producer
RaMell Ross
Writer/Director
MODERATOR: Dominic Patten
“How could we have known that this unbelievable vision would just emerge from this artist’s mind the way it did to meet the source material and also take it to places we just never could have foreseen?”
Columbia Pictures
Saturday Night
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Panelists
Jason Reitman
Writer/Director/Producer
Jon Batiste
Composer
MODERATOR: Pete Hammond
“We started to talk about what the music represents, and it really is the villain in the film. The music is an allegory for the clock, and the clock is the pressure of time.”
Amazon MGM Studios
The Fire Inside
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Panelists
Brian Tyree Henry
Actor
Harry Yoon
Editor
Rachel Morrison
Director
Ryan Destiny
Actor
MODERATOR: Zac Ntim
“This is an inspirational sports movie until it becomes an inspirational life movie. The heart of it is the life part.”
Magnolia Pictures
Thelma
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Panelists
Josh Margolin
Writer/Director
June Squibb
Actor
MODERATOR: Dominic Patten
“The movie became a way to both celebrate her and kind of reckon with those contradictions and those anxieties that I had about her safety and wellbeing, and also her being able to kind of hold onto who she is.”
Roadside Attractions
The Last Showgirl
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Panelists
Gia Coppola
Director
Pamela Anderson
Actor
MODERATOR: Antonia Blyth
“I mean, this is the first script I ever read that was a good one. No one was giving me scripts like this. … So I just poured everything I could into it because I thought, ‘What if this is the only film I ever get to do?’ ”
Sony Pictures Classics
The Outrun
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Panelists
Saoirse Ronan
Actor
MODERATOR: Antonia Blyth
“I’d be lying if I said I came away from this experience being all forgiving and everything is fine. It’s not. It’s an ongoing journey.”
GVN Releasing
The Performance
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Panelists
Jeremy Piven
Actor/ Producer
Joshua Salzberg
Writer/ Executive Producer
Shira Piven
Writer/Director
MODERATOR: Anthony D’Alessandro
“Actors are very delusional – that’s our superpower – and I read this role and immediately thought it would be incredible to play this.”
Sony Pictures Classics
The Room
Next Door
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Panelists
Julianne Moore
Actor
Tilda Swinton
Actor
Pedro Almodóvar
Writer/Director
MODERATOR: Pete Hammond
“I think he’s always in that feminine point of view. Like I said, he honors that world. You feel very, very seen as an actor when you work with Pedro.”
DreamWorks Animation
The Wild Robot
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Panelists
Chris Sanders
Writer/Director
Kris Bowers
Composer
Lupita Nyong’o
Actor
Mark Hamill
Actor
MODERATOR: Zac Ntim
“One thing I love about animation is it makes every actor a character actor because they cast with their ears, not their eyes. So you’re going to be able to play parts you’d never get if you were on camera.”
Amazon MGM Studios
Unstoppable
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Panelists
Anthony Robles
Producer/Film Subject
Jharrel Jerome
Actor
Judy Robles
Film Subject
William Goldenberg
Director
MODERATOR: Justin Kroll
“You’ve got to say, ‘Okay, this is what I can do. This is what I’m blessed with. These are my opportunities. And you move forward.’…And that’s what ‘unstoppable’ is…”