“Landline” drama-comedy to open San Francisco Film Fest

PanARMENIAN.Net - Jenny Slate’s drama-comedy “Landline” will open the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival on April 5, Variety reports.

Slate, director Gillian Robespierre and producer and co-writer Elisabeth Holm will attend the event at the Castro Theatre and participate in a post-screening Q&A.

“It is a very special moment for SF Film to welcome back this talented group of filmmakers, whose debut ‘Obvious Child’ received a special grant from our artist development program,” said Executive Director Noah Cowan. “Their new film ‘Landline’ builds significantly on the promise of that terrific first feature, yielding impressive wisdom and humor from the painful process of growing up and, sometimes, apart.’

“Landline” captures a dysfunctional family that grows closer when long-buried infidelities come to light across generations, set in 1990s New York. Edie Falco, John Turturro, Jay Duplass, and newcomer Abby Quinn also star.

Amazon Studios will release “Landline” on July 21. Amazon acquired U.S. rights a few days after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman said in his review that “Landline” was “a lively wisp of ’90s New York nostalgia about two sisters and their family of secrets.”

The festival’s 2017 award recipients include Eleanor Coppola (George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award), Tom Luddy (Mel Novikoff award), and Lynn Hershman Leeson (Persistence of Vision award). Special Tributes will be presented to Ethan Hawke (including a screening of his new film “Maudie”), James Ivory (with a 30th anniversary screening of “Maurice”), John Ridley (with an early look at his new Showtime series “Guerilla”), and Gordon Gund (profiled in the short documentary “The Illumination”).