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NYFF veterans Noah Baumbach and Joachim Trier return to the festival this year with a pair of films that explore how artistry, authenticity, and artifice collide in the public and private lives of star actors and famed filmmakers. In Baumbach’s charmingly reflexive Jay Kelly, an aging megastar—played, fittingly, by George Clooney—arrives at a crisis point in his career; haunted by the past and uninspired by the present, he embarks on a somewhat reckless screwball adventure with his entourage (featuring Adam Sandler and Laura Dern) in tow. Meanwhile, Trier’s Sentimental Value finds an acclaimed stage actress (Renate Reinsve) and her estranged movie-director father (Stellan Skarsgård) clashing, connecting, and introspecting over a film project that draws from their complicated lives. Dramatizing the dimensions of modern-day, larger-than-life celebrity with deft humor, both films hone in on the relationships—familial, professional, transactional—that undergird the creative process and industrial artmaking. Join Baumbach and Trier for a lively, probing discussion of their approaches to writing grounded, lived-in characters, and the collaborations that have shaped their own illustrious bodies of work.