Deadline Unveils Contenders Film Los Angeles Lineup, With Peter Farrelly Set for a Hall of Fame Honour
Deadline has published the lineup for Contenders Film Los Angeles, an all-day event at the DGA Theater that puts the casts and creative teams of 15 films from eight studios and streamers on stage, according to Deadline.
The panels are built for people who want to hear from the makers themselves. Each session brings together actors, directors, writers and behind-the-scenes staff to talk about how a film came together. Many of the titles are being shown at a stage in the year when studios and awards voters are paying close attention.
Peter Farrelly will receive this year's Contenders Hall of Fame Award. He is also on the bill for I Play Rocky, which he directed. The film tells the backstory of a young Sylvester Stallone. Farrelly will appear with writer Peter Gamble and lead actor Anthony Ippolito.
Sian Heder directs Being Heumann, a true story about disability rights activist Judy Heumann. Heder will be joined by star Ruth Madeley and casting directors Bernard Telsey and Adam Caldwell. Casting is often the least visible part of a film, so a session with the people who choose the actors can offer a different angle on the work.
Animated films are well represented. Producer Lindsey Collins will discuss Toy Story 5, which brings back Tom Hanks as Woody, Joan Cusack as Jessie and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. Director Daniel Chong, producer Nicole Paradis Grindle and Piper Curda will talk about Hoppers.
Bassam Tariq wrote and directed Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, in which Mahershala Ali plays a widower raising three children who also works as a contract killer. Tariq will take the stage with Ali, John Cho and Son Lux, the musical act that composed the score.
Two other sessions feature actors in pairs. John Turturro and Tatiana Maslany will both appear for The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, where Turturro plays a career criminal and Maslany plays his estranged daughter. Carrie Coon, who stars in The Liberation, will join director Guy Nattiv and Lily James. Nattiv has said the story is loosely based on his grandmother's life, and Coon plays a New Jersey housewife who joins an all-female commune.
Tuner, directed by Daniel Roher, follows a hearing-impaired piano tuner who becomes a safe-cracker, played by Leo Woodall. Sound designer Johnnie Burn will discuss his work on the film, a reminder that sound shapes how an audience experiences a story as much as the picture does.
Florian Zeller directs Bunker, which stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem as a couple under strain. The film was shot in Madrid, standing in for London. Zeller and Cruz will appear together on stage.
Wicker stars Olivia Colman as a fisherwoman and Alexander Skarsgård as her husband, who is woven from wicker. Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson, Skarsgård and designer and makeup effects artist Joe Dunkley will take part in that panel.
The lineup closes with Project Hail Mary, in which Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a man on a mission to save the world with his alien friend Rocky. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, writer Drew Goddard and editor Joel Negron will discuss the film.
For a general audience, the appeal is simple. Each panel gives a rare look at the choices behind a finished film, from who was cast to how a sound was built. The schedule runs across genres, from a Pixar sequel to a true story about a civil rights campaigner, and the names on stage are the people who shaped each one.
