Dionne Warwick, as shown in the “Don’t Make Me Over” documentary.
Legendary singer and New Jersey native Dionne Warwick will make an appearance at the Montclair Film Festival, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m., when the documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” is screened at the Wellmont Theater. The film, which had its world premiere this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, covers her entire life, from the gospel singing she did in her youth to her breakthrough pop recordings in the ’60s, her AIDS activism, and her recent embrace of Twitter. Warwick and co-director Dave Wooley will participate in a post-screening Q&A session, presented in partnership with Out Montclair. (UPDATE: The Q&A session will be moderated by Stephen Colbert.)
The festival takes place Oct. 21-30. The full schedule will be announced Sept. 24, with tickets going on sale to Montclair Film members on Sept. 27 and to the general public on Oct. 1.
In addition to “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” some other special screenings were announced today.
Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” will open the festival, Oct. 21 at the Wellmont. Benicio Del Toro, Frances McDormand, Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet are among the co-stars in this film about a fictional 20th century magazine in a fictional French city.
Jeymes Samuel’s “The Harder They Fall” will be the festival’s Fiction Centerpiece, Oct. 22 at the Wellmont. This is a “new school” Western, according to the festival’s website, and co-stars Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba and Zazie Beetz.
The festival’s closing film, Oct 30 at The Montclair Kimberly Academy Upper School, will be Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” a drama set in rural Montana in the 1920s and co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons as brothers and business partners.
There will also be a free outdoor screening of the animated film “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” Oct. 22 at Lackawanna Plaza. And a pre-Halloween screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will take place at The Clairidge on Oct. 30, completed by a live “floorshow” by The Ordinary Kids.
For information and updates, visit montclairfilm.org.
Here are trailers for some of the movies:
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