Kisses For Kate

The Fall Fests are in full-ish effect! I just started watching my NYFF screeners this week -- NYFF's Opening Night film, Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock, does its Opening Night thing tomorrow night! -- and today comes word of the Opening Night film (and the poster seen above) for New York's annual LGBT festival NewFest and hoo boy it's a biggie this year -- they got Ammonite! Director Francis Lee's second feature following the rightly beloved God's Own Country, we've been following every tidbit of info on Ammonite since inception, and been rewarded with no less than Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan being cast as lesbian lovers, insert emphatic exclamation points here. 

Granted I haven't seen it yet but seeing all these Ammonite reviews use the words "cold" and "distant" is immediately giving me bad flashbacks to all of the bad Carol takes

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 12, 2020

The film premiered last week at TIFF and got mixed reviews, but as tweeted above I am holding off on totally buying those until I can behold the film myself -- I'm real wary of lesbian romances being described as "cold" and "distant" which has been A Thing outside of the films themselves; every one of them gets it. Does Ammonite look like it might be cold and distant, literally, in its trailer? Oh absolutely. We've just been burned by repression and feminine desire being read as emotionless remoteness twelve too many times now. We'll judge for ourselves how their love affair reads, but thanks!

Anyway NewFest opens with Ammonite on October 16th, and the fest runs through October 23rd -- they'll be announcing the entire slate of films next week. It's doing the drive-in and the virtual thing this year -- you can read all the details, including on how to get tickets, on their website.