IFC Films will release Tesla, directed and written by award-winning filmmaker Michael Almereyda (Marjorie Prime Experimenter, Hamlet) and starring Ethan Hawk. Four-time Academy-Award® nominee and frequent IFC Films collaborator, Ethan Hawke (Boyhood, Blaze) stars in the title role as Nikola Tesla, with Eve Hewson (Behind Her Eyes, The Knick), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet), Jim Gaffigan (The Jim Gaffigan Show, Drunk Parents), Donnie Keshawarz (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Adjustment Bureau), Rebecca Dayan (Celeste & Jesse Forever, H.), Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade, Blaze), and Lucy Walters (Jett, Power) to round out the cast.
Tesla had its World Premiere in the Premieres Section at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. Almereyda also won this prize previously in 2017 for his film Marjorie Prime. IFC Films will release the film on August 7th, 2020.
Brilliant, brooding inventor Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition. Increasingly displeased by the greed of fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), Tesla forges his own virtuous but arduous path toward creating the innovative alternate-current motor. His European nature is at odds with budding American industrialism, and the landscape of intellectual property is treacherous—and Tesla slowly becomes jailed in his overactive mind. His associate Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) analyzes and presents his story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice in this scientific period drama.