EXCLUSIVE: Film Independent is partnering with the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and Focus Features on a Conclave live read, to take place on Monday, February 10.
The cast assembled includes The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce, Cooper Koch (Monsters), Josh Gad (Book of Mormon), Jason Mantzoukas (Big Mouth), Patton Oswalt (Young Adult) and Eugenio Derbez (CODA), along with the film’s Golden Globe-winning screenwriter Peter Straughan, who will serve as narrator. Filmmaker Edward Berger is participating as guest director for the special one-night-only event.
Based on a novel by Robert Harris, Conclave is a political thriller set within the Vatican that follows Cardinal Lomeli (Ralph Fiennes), the Dean of the College of Cardinals, as he oversees a secretive papal election following the sudden death of the Pope. As 118 cardinals from around the world gather to choose the next leader of the Catholic Church, tensions rise, alliances form and break, and hidden secrets emerge. The cast of the film also includes Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Jacek Koman, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini, among others.
An awards season favorite, Conclave is up for eight Oscars this season, including Best Picture, and has also been recognized with 12 BAFTA nominations, 11 Critics’ Choice Awards nominations and six Golden Globe nominations. The film also took home the 2024 National Board of Review’s Best Ensemble Award, as well as the 2025 AFI Award for Movie of the Year.
Previous installments of Film Independent’s Live Read series have covered awards films like Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness and The Hateful Eight, as well as such library titles as Sunset Boulevard and Back to the Future. Tickets to the Conclave event sold out in under three hours, a record for Film Independent Presents.
