The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Ang Lee’s “The Life of Pi” will open the 50th New York Film Festival, where it will also make its world premiere. “The Life Of Pi” is the first 3D film to be presented as the opening night gala selection of the New York Film Festival, which runs September 28 through Oct. 14.

This marks the Academy Award-winning director’s return to the New York Film Festival, 12 years after “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which was the Closing Night Gala presentation in 2000 (the film was also nominated for an Oscar for best film and director in 2001).

The selection of “Life of Pi” puts Ang Lee in good company, with other directors Robert Altman, Pedro Almodóvar and François Truffaut as the only directors to have had more than one film chosen to open NYFF. Ang Lee’s film “The Ice Storm” was the opening night gala selection in 1997.

The esteemed director won a best directing Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005.

In 2009 the Film Society of Lincoln Center celebrated Ang Lee’s career with a retrospective of the director’s work at the Walter Reade Theater.

Ang Lee’s “The Life of Pi” joins other prestigious Opening Night Gala slots over the course of NYFF’s 50-year history, including Luis Buñuel’s “The Exterminating Angel” (1963), Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” (1967), Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” (1985), Pedro Almodóvar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988), Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994), Mike Leigh’s “Secrets & Lies” (1996), Stephen Frears’s “The Queen” (2006) and David Fincher’s “The Social Network” (2010) (complete list below).

“The Life of Pi,” is based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and spent years on the bestseller list. “It takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years, and a wide world of imagination,” according to the Festival release, which adds that the director’s vision, “coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, has turned a story long thought un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture.”

The film follows the story of a young man named Pi, a zookeeper’s son, who survives a disaster at sea which sets into motion his adventurous journey in the Pacific Ocean. While shipwrecked on a lifeboat, he forms an unexpected connection with a Bengal tiger. The Twentieth Century Fox release is due in theaters on Nov. 21, 2012.

Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, wrote, “It is a perfect combination of technological innovation and a strong artistic vision. Ang Lee has managed to make a deeply moving, engrossing work that will delight audiences as much as it will astonish them. We’re enormously proud to have this film for our Opening Night for the 50th NYFF.”

Regarding his return to NYFF, Ang Lee said, “I am both delighted and honored to be back at the New York Film Festival with ‘Life of Pi.’ I have the deepest respect for Richard Peña and his team and to be selected by them as the Opening Night Film for the 50th Anniversary is extremely gratifying. I am also excited because this is my hometown, and to be unveiling this film that I am so proud of here is a real pleasure.”

General Public tickets will be available September 9th. For more information visit www.Filmlinc.com/NYFF or call 212 875 5601.

New York Film Festival Opening Night Films

1963 The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)
1964 Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, USSR)
1965 Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1966 Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1967 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1968 Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, US)
1970 The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France)
1971 The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union)
1972 Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France)
1973 Day for Night (François Truffaut, France)
1974 Don’t Cry With Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France)
1975 Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy)
1976 Small Change (François Truffaut, France)
1977 One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, France)
1978 A Wedding (Robert Altman, US)
1979 Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US)
1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US)
1981 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK)
1982 Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US)
1984 Country (Richard Pearce, US)
1985 Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1986 Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, US)
1987 Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union)
1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1989 Too Beautiful For You (Bertrand Blier, France)
1990 Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, US)
1991 The Double Life of Veronique (Krysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France)
1992 Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1993 Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US)
1995 Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1996 Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK)
1997 The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US)
1998 Celebrity (Woody Allen, US)
1999 All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
2000 Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
2001 Va Savoir (Jacques Rivette, France)
2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US)
2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US)
2004 Look At Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, US)
2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)
2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, US)
2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)

Source from: http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com