GRETA LEE AND WILLEM DAFOE IN LATE FAME

KENT JONES: LATE FAME (2025) - SFIFF Opening Night

Past self revisited

Willem Dafoe has gone back to his low-keyed indie roots to play the lead in Kent Jones' meditative, literate sophomore directorial effort, Late Fame . The story, loosely based on an 1890s satirical novella by Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, show how a group of well-heeled young poetasters in today's NYC pluck a forgotten working class poet who produced one admired slim volume in the 1970s out of the post office where he's been sorting mail for 37 years and give him a moment of, not fame, of course - they, who anachronistically call themselves The Enthusiasm Society, abhor social media platforms - but of affirmation, a wistful hint of what might have been if he had gone on writing poetry over the last many decades, and a realization that that cannot be.

The film was premiered at Venice and was included in numerous international film festivals, including Vienna, Stockholm, Thessaloniki , Geneva, Rotterdam, Glasgow, and US ones kicking off with New York Sept 28, the first after Venice. It opened Apr. l 24, 2026 at the historic Castro Theater as the opening night film of the San Francisco International Film Festival. US theatrical release by Magnolia Pictures begins Aug. 7, 2026. Metacritic rating: 75%.

Longer review coming at time of US theatrical release Aug. 7.

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.