One of our more anticipated movies of the year is “ Nosferatu ,” Robert Eggers’ take on the classic vampire film that’s not opening in theaters until Christmas of this year.
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So far, the film has bypassed some of the major fall festivals, including Toronto, Venice, and NYFF. But an eagle-eyed Eggers’ fan on X noticed it is screening somewhere: a festival in Leipzig, Germany called Filmkunstmesse Leipzig, or the Leipzig Film Art Fair.
That’s led to a lot of wild speculation and assumptions online in the past few hours, including that Eggers’ might be getting cute by premiering the film in Germany given the Nosferatu story’s roots, or that distributor Focus Features is for some reason burying it by premiering it away from potentially less friendly crowds at a major film festival.
Those theories are both silly. Because the Leipzig screening of “Nosferatu” isn’t its World Premiere — even though it will be the first time an audience gets to see anything from it.
That’s because the Film Art Fair in Leipzig isn’t a festival, but a private trade show. In the case of “Nosferatu,” which is playing on Sept. 17, Eggers’ film will screen in full, an individual with knowledge told IndieWire, but it won’t be open to the public or press, and is only for ticketed exhibitors and industry professionals. Eggers likely will not be attending either. The Art Fair will also screen looks at Netflix’s “Emilia Perez,” which premiered in Cannes, and other festival darlings like “Bird,” “The Apprentice,” and “All We Imagine As Light.”
The Leipzig Film Art Fair is a private trade show geared toward cinema operators and other professionals in art houses across Germany. They have some public screenings, but it’s not a film festival that’s widely open to the public or press. Here’s the festival in its own words (machine translated from German).
“The Filmkunstmesse Leipzig is a unique forum in Europe for the partnership-based exchange between cinema operators, distributors and professionals from the arthouse industry. From Monday, September 18 to Friday, September 22, 2023, the Filmkunstmesse Leipzig offers a platform where experts can view films well before their national release, discuss the marketing and potential of individual films and jointly develop strategies for the future of cinematic art in seminars, workshops and discussion panels.”
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Think of it almost like a German CinemaCon ; yes, there are first-look screenings of new movies there as well as other showcases of upcoming titles to get theater owners excited about booking them on their screens, but they’re not public screenings meant to launch the movie to the world. CinemaCon has become more like Comic Con in recent years, screening everything from “Top Gun Maverick,” “The Flash,” and “The Fall Guy” to build up hype to a crowd that includes not just cinema operators but press as well, but those movies would have formal premieres down the road. The Art Fair isn’t even on the same scale as CinemaCon in terms of being open to the press.
The Leipzig news did confirm one detail about “Nosferatu” for us: the film is in fact 132 minutes long, as the website lists . But the German crowd will only see a chunk of that.
Focus Features had no comment. A rep for Filmkunstmesse Leipzig did not respond to IndieWire’s request for comment.
“Nosferatu” is Eggers’ fourth feature after “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse,” and most recently “The Northman” from 2022. His version of “Nosferatu” stars Emma Corrin, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, and Lily-Rose Depp.
The film opens in theaters on Christmas Day, 2024. But if you really want to see it early, you could always get a job at an art house in Germany.
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