I will not be at the South by Southwest Film Festival this coming March, but the fest has added today a doozy of a title to its upcoming lineup.
It was announced earlier this afternoon that the World Premiere of David Lowery’s “The Green Knight,” a fantasy re-telling of the medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The film is set to premiere at the Paramount Theatre on Monday, March 16, at 5:30 pm. The film is set to be the biggest title being unveiled at SXSW this year, alongside Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island.”
The just-released trailer set up the 14th century-set world that Lowery has concocted for us. A medieval fantasy film based on the poem, ‘Sir Gaiwin and the Green Knight” which was was written by an anonymous, 14th-century British poet. Only one copy of the poem survived to this day, “The Green Knight” is no doubt a risk-taking venture for A24 since it deals with fantasy, a genre they have rarely tackled in their past films.
The plot has not fully been diverged yet, but we do know that Dev Patel’s Sir Gaiwin, the nephew of King Arthur, embarks on a quest to face a beastly and green-skinned knight. The cast also includes Joel Edgerton, Alicia Vikander and Sean Harris.
Lowery has directed five movies thus far in his young directorial career; “A Ghost Story,” “Ain’t Them Bodies A Saint,” “The Old Man and the Gun,” “Pete’s Dragon” and his 2011 feature-length debut “Saint Nick.”
“The Green Knight” is due for release in theaters on May 29th.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.