Woody Allen’s latest film “Rifkin’s Festival,” his first since his standing as a filmmaker has fallen following his daughter Dylan Farrow’s resurfaced accusations that he molested her as a girl, has a trailer ahead of it making its world premiere.
“Rifkin’s Festival” will premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where the movie is also set, on Sept. 18. And in the first trailer for the film, we see Wallace Shawn playing a neurotic, Woody Allen-type who falls in love with a Spanish local after his wife begins an affair with a young, French movie director.
The film is a comedy that combines Allen’s love of movies and fantasy, as well as his love of Spain, and features a cast that includes Gina Gershon, Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, Sergi López and Christoph Waltz. And as Shawn’s character gives a confessional to a therapist in the trailer, it’s possible Allen himself is asking some of his own questions.
“Since coming here, my mind started playing tricks on me,” Shawn says in the trailer for “Rifkin’s Festival.” “Now I’m beginning to question what I want, who I am. Who am I?”
“Rifkin’s Festival” is Allen’s fourth film made in partnership with Mediapro and Gravier Productions, and the film is also a co-production of Wildside. Allen shot the film on location in San Sebastian.
Allen’s previous film “A Rainy Day in New York” has opened across Europe where the filmmaker’s standing has remained solid, and a UK distributor, Signature Entertainment, was reported to be eyeing a fall release for the film in North America, but has yet to debut. “Rifkin’s Festival” however does not have any domestic distribution.
Allen’s reputation has fallen since his daughter Dylan Farrow resurfaced accusations that he molested her in the early 1990s when she was 7. Amazon Studios dropped plans for the 2018 release of “A Rainy Day in New York” and returned U.S. rights to Allen last year.
Allen, who was never charged with a crime after two separate police investigations in the 1990s, has repeatedly called the accusations a “total fabrication,” including in a new memoir “Apropos of Nothing” published earlier this year, though the book was dropped by its initial publisher Hachette after employees at the publisher staged a walkout in protest.
See the first trailer for “Rifkin’s Festival” above.
Variety first shared the trailer.