Artistic Director of the Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF), Eddie Tamir has announced that Armageddon Time, starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, will make its Australian Premiere at JIFF’s opening night, headlining the festival’s biggest slate to date.
“We could not be more thrilled to open the festival with this critics’ favourite, a beautiful film with a lot of heart,” Mr Tamir said. “The emotional impact and story will resonate with audiences universally.”
For his eighth film, American writer-director James Gray (The Lost City of Z) has delivered a very personal work.
Set in the 1980s in Queens, New York, the film features a young, white, Jewish pre-teen Paul Graff (played by Michael Banks Repeta and based loosely on Gray himself) and a Black boy called Johnny (Jaylin Webb) whom he befriends.
Neither boy has an easy home life. Paul’s mother Esther (Anne Hathaway) is nurturing but Paul’s father Irving (Jeremy Strong) beats him. Grandpa Aaron (Anthony Hopkins) is Paul’s supporter – wise, funny and dignified. Johnny lives with his grandmother and isn’t getting the care he needs either. Unsurprisingly, the pair eventually get in to trouble with the police.
Armageddon Time is a coming-of-age film, which also probes the class divide, racism and the power of inherited trauma; Aaron’s mother fled to America after having seen her parents murdered in front of her by the Nazis.
The film received a seven-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes.
JIFF will run nationally from 24 October to 7 December with tickets now on-sale for select screenings of Armageddon Time across the country.
The opening night event featuring Armageddon Time in Sydney is at Ritz Cinemas on Tuesday October 25 at 7.30pm.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the website here.
The full program for JIFF 2022 will be released on Friday, September 16.
