While the Sundance Film Festival 2017 doesn’t quite have the auteur-driven major premieres such as Manchester by the Sea and Certain Women last year, near the top of our most-anticipated films is Luca Guadagnino‘s follow-up to A Bigger Splash, Call Me By Your Name. Ahead of the premiere later this month, it’s now been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for around $6 million, according to THR.
An adaptation of André Aciman‘s novel, scripted by James Ivory and the director, it follows a 17-year-old boy who begins a romance with his father’s house guest. Taking the role of the boy is Interstellar star Timothée Chalamet while Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) plays his father and Armie Hammer takes the role of the house guest. It’s also been revealed that Sufjan Stevens, whose last album Carrie & Lowell was one of 2015’s best, has written and performed original songs for the film.
“Sony Pictures Classics has always struck me as the ideal home for cinema of real auteurs. It is a place where the search for a language and for unique stories is welcomed with enthusiasm and generosity by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Dylan Leiner. To me, the collaboration with his excellent team is a dream come true, and Call Me by Your Name is the perfect project for it. It is a very personal project, and making it was a moving journey,” says Guadagnino. “It is a film about the inexorable force of desire and love, as experienced through any path one might find on his/her way.”
Ahead of our review, check out the official Sundance synopsis below.
It’s the summer of 1983 in northern Italy, and Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a 17-year-old American-Italian boy, spends his days in his family’s seventeenth century villa lazily transcribing music and flirting with his friend Marzia. One day Oliver (Armie Hammer), a charming, 24-year-old American scholar working on his doctorate, arrives as the annual summer intern tasked with helping Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg), an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of this sensual setting, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will change their lives forever.
The latest film by Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love, 2010 Sundance Film Festival) is adapted from the novel by André Aciman, with a screenplay by Guadagnino and James Ivory. Luminous performances from Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and a break-out turn from Timothée Chalamet buoy Guadagnino’s gorgeously realized coming-of-age drama. An instant classic, Call Me By Your Name bolsters Guadagnino’s rightful reputation as one of the most inspiring filmmakers working today.
Call Me By Your Name will premiere on January 22 at Sundance.