David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method is getting a rare gala slot at the 2011 New York Film Festival.

After Cronenberg’s latest movie, about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, bows at TIFF, Sony Pictures Classics has secured a high-profile screening in New York on Oct. 5, ahead of a Nov. 23 theatrical release.

The Canadian director has seen his movies screen widely at Toronto, Cannes and Venice, but never at the New York Film Festival.

In another first, Cronenberg’s film and Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In will receive gala slots, an honour that until now has been reserved at the New York Film Festival for the opening night, closing night and centrepiece night films.

A Dangerous Method stars Viggo Mortensen as Freud and Michael Fassbender as rival psychologist Jung, with Keira Knightley as a mutual patient that has both men under her spell.

Photo: Kyle McCluer, Flickr Creative Commons