After announcing the premiere of the new Miyazaki film, the presence of Wes Anderson and J.A. Bayona, and unveiling the posters paying tribute to Nastassja Kinski and Marisa Paredes, here's a new guest of Lumière 2023!

Alexander Payne is a major figure of American independent cinema. After making his mark with his first film Citizen Ruth (1996), followed by the satirical comedy, Election (1999) and received acclaim for the poignant About Schmidt (2002), starring Jack Nicholson. Alexander Payne is the winner of two Oscars for Best Screenplay, first for Sideways (2004), then The Descendants (2011), using his trademark razor-sharp dialogue and humor to convey an irony that still brims with emotion. In 2013, the filmmaker directed Bruce Dern in Nebraska; then, in 2017, Matt Damon, Christopher Waltz and Kristen Wiig in Downsizing. 

The filmmaker will be among the guests of honour at Lumière 2023. He will introduce the premiere of his eighth feature. The Holdovers (2023) follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a prestigious American school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them - a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) - and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).