In one of the oldest and most important film festivals in the United States of America, the New York Film Festival (NYFF) will make its American premiere of “Vlihi” by Giorgos Lanthimos, accompanied by musical ensembles, with protagonists Emma Stone and Damian Bonnard.

The film will be screened on one of the days of the festival, which will take place from September 29 to October 15, 2023. The screening will be followed by a discussion with George Lanthimos.

As informed by an announcement from ELLS, the film is a commission from the program The Artist on the Composer – a co-production of the National Opera and the NEON Organization, which is financed by its founder Dimitris Daskalopoulos. The production, on the part of the National Opera, as well as the realization of the American premiere, are realized with the support of the donation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) (www.SNF.org) to strengthen the artistic extroversion of the Greek National Opera.

The multi-awarded Greek filmmaker, accepting the proposal of ELS artistic director Giorgos Koumentakis and NEON director Elina Kountouri, signed the production, script and direction of the short film “Vlihi”, which filmed in February 2020 in Tinos, starring Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone and distinguished French actor Damien Bonnardand had its world premiere with great success on May 6, 2022, at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the National Opera at SNFCC.

The musical script of “Blichi” consists of works by G.S. Bach / Knut Nystedt and Toshio Hosokawa, which will be performed live with musical ensembles at the New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, as part of The Artist on the Composer program .

The Artist on the Composer program, curated by Giorgos Koumentakis and Elina Kountouri, is a collaboration between the National Opera and the Organization for Culture and Development NEON (www.neon.org.gr). It connects pioneering contemporary visual artists and film directors and/or producers with the live performance of orchestral music. Through works that are the fruits of new commissions, each artist converses with works by classical composers, freed from usual operatic conventions and narrative, opening up to an audience that may not have previously engaged with opera.