Sun Valley Film Festival Names Its Honorees, Opening Film and Closing Film

Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut will open the Sun Valley Film Festival, and Luca Guadagnino's Artificial will close it, Deadline reported on Wednesday, November 11. The festival runs for five days, from December 2 to 6, in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The festival has honoured a run of well-known names. Bill Pullman will receive the Pioneer Award. Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen will share the Impact Award. Luke Davies will receive the Deadline Disruptor Award, and Stephen Beresford will receive the High Scribe Award, which Deadline co-presents.

Jessica Lange heads the list of honorees. She will receive the festival's Vision Award at a dinner on December 4. The night before, on December 3, the festival will screen Long Day's Journey Into Night, the film in which Lange appears alongside Ed Harris.

Peter Farrelly, the director of I Play Rocky, will take part in a Cocktail Talk on December 5, right after the festival's screening of that film. A Cocktail Talk is a casual, audience-facing conversation held after a screening.

Short films are a big part of the programme too. The festival will show 30 shorts across its five days, according to Deadline's report.

Anyone who wants to see the festival's work before it opens can catch an early screening. The festival's website lists Nuisance Bear at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 12, at The Argyros in Ketchum, Idaho. The festival has celebrated storytelling since 2012, the same site says.

The lineup pairs an opening film by an actor-turned-filmmaker with a closing film from a director known for character-driven drama, and it puts a long list of working writers, actors and directors in front of the Idaho audience. For a festival in a small mountain town, that mix of names and screenings is the main news.