Jordan Peele’s socially-relevant sophomore horror Us is the subject of a week-long curated festival, The Other America: A Cosmology of Jordan Peele’s Us, taking place from June 20 – 26 at New York City's Film At Lincoln Center.
The festival coincides with the release of Us: The Complete Annotated Screenplay by Inventory Press, and will feature a presentation of double features (including A Nightmare on Elm Street and Dead Ringers), supplementary reading material, in-person appearances from some of the book’s contributing writers, and never-before-seen 35mm presentation of Us.
According to the event's official site, the 35mm-heavy series embraces the multitudes contained in Peele’s 2019 feature:
Films are grouped under recurring motifs—“The Shadow Self,” “The Uncanny,” “Labyrinths,” “Rabbits,” “The Uniform”—each drawing out a distinct thread in Peele’s vision. Some titles speak directly to Us through shared iconography: the indelible red scrubs of Dead Ringers, the scissor-wielding White Rabbit of Alice (screening from a rare imported print), the mirrored maze in The Lady from Shanghai, and the implements of psychological unraveling in Scissors and Dead Again. Others echo the film’s deeper fixations: A Nightmare on Elm Street weaponizing domestic space and repressed memories, C.H.U.D. and Donnie Darko spiraling through conspiratorial underworlds and looping timelines.
Starring Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker, Peele's follow-up to his Oscar-winning Nope centered on young mother Adelaide Wilson (Nyong'o) and her family's attempts to escape a group of menacing doppelgängers known as the Tethered. Like its predecessor, Us received rave reviews from critics and horror fans alike, with Nyong'o's performance as Red earning a place in the modern horror hall of fame.
Tickets for The Other America: A Cosmology of Jordan Peele’s Us will go on sale on Thursday, May 22 at 2pm, with an early access period for FLC Members starting Thursday, May 22 at noon. Tickets are $17; $14 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $12 for FLC Members. Check out the full lineup and learn more via Indiewire.
