Last month when we invited Noah Baumbach’s new film to open this year’s New York Film Festival, he texted me, “Holy shit.” For Baumbach, this is, in his words, “A great honor.” With 59 days to go before the 60th New York Film Festival, today we’re announcing Baumbach’s “White Noise” as the opening film. What a perfect way to kick off this year’s NYFF! It was my second New York Film Festival, in 1995, when I saw Noah’s first film at this Festival. He’d been a regular attendee of NYFF for a long time because his parents started bringing Noah to the New York Film Festival as a kid. “In 1985 my father and I drove from Brooklyn to see Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ open the 23rd NYFF, the same year that he brought home the hardback of Don DeLillo’s ‘White Noise,’” Baumbach shared in a statement with today’s news. When he made his first feature, “Kicking and Screaming,” Baumbach’s indie filmmaking career took off after he debuted it at the 33rd NYFF that fall. Baumbach later said that the New York Film Festival saved his career. After “Kicking and Screaming” premiered here, it found a life in movie theaters, saving it from what would have been a straight to home video release. A group of us watched “White Noise” at the Walter Reade Theater recently and Noah dropped by to say hi and introduce the film. It wasn’t totally finished but Noah told us something like, “this movie is as crazy as the times we are living in.” He’s right and we can’t wait to unveil the ambitious, funny, and resonant “White Noise” to a New York audience on September 30th, kicking off 17 days of sharing the communal experience of cinema with audiences at Lincoln Center and in other parts of the city this fall! Thank you to our friends at Netflix and stay tuned for more news soon! [Pictured at the 43rd New York Film Festival in 2005, Noah Baumbach with Jesse Eisenberg, at the afterparty celebrating the NYFF premiere of “The Squid and the Whale.” Photo by Brian Brooks]