Pre-screening panel with Tom Cairns, Richard Peña, and Oscar Arce, moderated by Paul Cremo

In anticipation of the October 26th North American premiere of Thomas Adès’s new opera The Exterminating Angel at the Met, the Film Society presents a panel discussion and screening of Buñuel’s provocative original—which opened the first New York Film Festival!—about upper-class guests who mysteriously can’t leave a lavish dinner party. Presented in partnership with Metropolitan Opera.

Born in County Down, Ireland, Tom Cairns is an award-winning director of opera, theatre, film, and television. In addition to adapting the libretto for Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angelfrom Luis Buñuel’s 1962 film, Cairns directs the Met’s U.S.-premiere production of the work—the same staging that marked the opera’s 2016 world premiere at the Salzburg Festival. Past credits include the film Marie and Bruce, with Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick; productions of Adès’s The Tempest and Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine at Covent Garden, La Traviata and Harrison Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs. Kong at the Glyndebourne Festival, La Bohème in Stuttgart, Un Ballo in Maschera at the Bavarian State Opera, The Makropulos Caseat the Edinburgh International Festival and Opera North, and Don Giovanni at Scottish Opera, among many others; and various television presentations for the BBC.

Richard Peña was the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Director of the New York Film Festival from 1988 until 2012. At the Film Society, Richard Peña organized retrospectives of many film artists, as well as major film series devoted to a wide variety of international cinemas. Together with Unifrance, he created in 1995 “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema,” the leading American showcase for new French cinema. A frequent lecturer internationally on a film-related topics, Peña is currently a Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema. He also currently hosts WNET/Channel 13’s weekly Reel 13.

Paul Cremo is the dramaturg and director of the Opera Commissioning Program at the Metropolitan Opera and oversees the Met/Lincoln Center Theater New Works program for new opera and music theatre development. At the Met, he supervised the development of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, and English-language versions of The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville, Die Fledermaus, and The Merry Widow, as well as upcoming works by Nico Muhly, Ricky Ian Gordon and Matthew Aucoin. Prior to his work at the Met, Cremo served as vice president of A&R for Sony Classical/Sony Masterworks, vice president of development for Sony Classical Films, and director of development for Spring Creek Productions at Warner Bros. He has also acted as an advisor to the Sundance Theater Institute, Brooklyn’s BRIC Media/Arts Fireworks Residency Program, and a member of the Tony Awards nominating panel.

Oscar Arce has had a multifaceted career as an artist, cultural historian and entrepreneur. He is the Director of The Luis Buñuel Film Institute and head Archivist of The Pablo Ferro Film Archives. Mr. Arce has curated several productions worldwide with prestigious establishments – Centre Pompidou, Filmoteca Española, Reina Sofia, Tate Museum, LACMA, MCA Salvador Dali Museum and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.