The New York Film Festival and Rolex unveiled their new filmmakers lounge at the Lincoln Center Thursday night, where filmmakers including Paper Tiger’s James Gray and Behemoth!’s Tony Gilroy caught up and prepared for the frenzy of opening night Friday and the days ahead.

Housed within the glass-walled Lincoln Ristorante, across from the Lincoln Center reflecting pool and within eyeshot of the main exhibition hall for the film festival, the lounge had been a goal for the festival and for Daniel Battsek, president of Film at Lincoln Center, who noted that he had brought it up in his interview before taking on the position in 2025.

The desire was “to have a room that filmmakers and colleagues from the industry can just kind of hang out, before they see a film, after they see a film,” Battsek said as he raised a glass to toast the room. “So I’m so happy that this has come into being.”

Attendees Thursday night also included directors and film teams from Tender Loving Care, Club Kid, Clarissa, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Edward Said: Between Worlds, Everytime, My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, Bucking Fastard and My Wife Cried, as well as from Lincoln Center and the film festival. This is the second year Rolex has been a sponsor of the film festival, with its clock stand in the lounge, as well as loaned watches on the wrists of notable attendees.

Leading up to the event, festival organizers had been prepping for the technical feat of showing the opening night film, Paper Tiger, in 35 mm, a rarity at the New York Film Festival. Asked about the preparations, Gray, the film’s director, polled his cinematographer and editor, standing nearby, who had varying degrees of confidence in the ability to show in 35 mm (festival organizers definitively said it would happen). Earlier, Gray and Gilroy also debated the origins of the language Esperanto and joked it could be their next project (“An Esperanto musical,” Gilroy quipped.)

While claiming he was filled with “stress and terror” about the opening night screening, after having the film premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it received strong reviews, and show at Locarno Film Festival in August, Gray also noted his pride at having a film as part of the New York Film Festival, having grown up in Queens.

“I’m from about nine miles that way, and I never thought I’d make a film that would show at the Lincoln Center,” he said.

Asked about his motivation in making the crime-thriller, starring Miles Teller, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, Gray said there’s part of his own story in the project.

“You can’t put your finger on what it is about a story that moves you. But it’s very autobiographical,” he said, adding that much is drawn from his teenage years, in particular. “I never have a goal about a festival. But it’s why I thought this was the ideal place to show it.”