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NEW YORK — The New York Film Festival kicked off in style Friday night with a party at Central Park’s famed Tavern on the Green — or as stylish as it can get when none of the standout actors in this season’s film slate are expected to attend.
The air was still humid after the thunderstorms as guests began arriving from Lincoln Center around 9 p.m., regardless of whether they had seen the festival’s opening screening of “May December,” a drama-thriller clearly based on true history inspired by the teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who raped and later married her former sixth-grade student.
Guests followed a maze of white, weatherproof tents from the restaurant to a courtyard directly adjacent to the 843-acre park. DJs cheered from their booths. Party sponsor Campari served a menu of Negronis, Spritzes and Garibaldis, complete with “NYFF” ice cubes, and lighting displays bathed partygoers in the aperitif’s signature rich, flattering crimson red.
Still, something felt a little strange. A bit melancholic. As thousands of film and television writers celebrate the end of a nearly five-month work stoppage that has paralyzed Hollywood, the industry’s actors continue to strike, are barred from promoting their projects and are conspicuously absent from the festival.
Last year, Greta Gerwig, Adam Driver, Don Cheadle, Lars Eidinger and Jodie Turner-Smith were on hand on the first day of the festival and spoke about their roles in Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise”.
In contrast, the audience at Lincoln Center on Friday applauded screenwriter Samy Burch, who made her first promotional appearance for “May December” after the end of the writers’ strike. And director Todd Haynes gave a speech lamenting the absence of cast members including Natalie Portman, Charles Melton and Julianne Moore, who plays a middle-aged woman married to the man with whom she had an illicit sexual relationship as a child .
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“There are some people missing here tonight and I confess I’m still in denial that things haven’t been resolved the way we thought they would be before tonight,” Haynes said. “We miss you guys. We stand by you.”
Friday’s celebrations were not entirely free from actors who are banned by their union from promoting their films but not from partying in general. There’s even a chance a star could emerge later in the 17-day event – like Julia Louis-Dreyfus at the Telluride Film Festival this month and Adam Driver and Patrick Dempsey in Venice.
But the strike overshadowed everything, and many actors hesitated to attend even the events to which they were allowed, fearful of the appearance of solidarity.
The whole night was a strange mix of rumination and celebration.
The court party was lively and shoulder to shoulder for hours. VIPs like filmmaker Laura Poitras, composer Nicholas Britell and journalist Ronan Farrow feasted at the ever-changing buffet tables, and the cloakrooms were busy with late-arriving guests until well after 11 a.m., when passing starters switched to tuna tartare and croquettes to delicious pieces of cheesecake and pineapple cake.
“Without the actors, you feel a real lack,” said Christine Vachon, the producer of “May, December.” “I think it’s really hard for someone like Charles Melton, for example – who is a real discovery in May December – that he can’t be here to celebrate his film.”
One of the few actors in attendance — Jeremy O. Harris, who was there as a guest and doesn’t promote any projects at the New York Film Festival — looked for a silver lining in the lack of celebrities as he passed the time at the fourth major film festival since the start of the Actor strikes.
“It feels more European,” Harris said, “in the sense that there’s more focus on the film.”
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