The New York Film Festival is usually a small, very prestigious festival that doesn't attract a lot of attention outside hardcore cinephile circles, but tonight they're getting in on the kind of buzz you usually see at Comic Con or SXSW. For a week now they've been promoting tonight's secret screening as a "work-in-progress" film from a "master director," and today the cat is finally out of the bag: it's Hugo, the new film from iconic New Yorker Martin Scorsese, marking the director's first efforts both in children's films and 3D. I'll be at the screening tonight, eager to see what Scorsese has made with the original children's book material, and especially wondering if this is that rare mainstream-friendly children's movie that might, thanks to Scorsese's credentials, find some traction in the Oscar race too.

Later tonight I'll write up a report of what I saw, but the in the meantime you can check out this new trailer/featurette about the movie, which debuted at Deadline. It doesn't feature a ton of new footage-- and also boasts that song that was also featured in the trailer for The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole-- but there's something charming about having Scorsese himself tell you the story of the movie you're about to see. Take a look below.


Because Hugo has been left out of a lot of the early Oscar speculation and seems to be dismissed by some as "just as kids movie," it goes into tonight's NYFF screening with refreshingly low expectations, always a good thing for a movie that's being shown before it's even finished. I'll let you know even further what to expect later tonight once the no-longer-secret screening is over.