13th opened last October’s New York Film Festival and is now available on Netflix. Tomorrow, Netflix has released a 30 minute conversation about the film with Oprah Winfrey and director Ava DuVernay.
Here is also the press conference from the NYFF:
The Incredible Jessica James
Netflix announced that it has acquired worldwide rights to writer/director Jim Strouse’s refreshing and heartfelt modern comedy, The Incredible Jessica James, prior to the film’s upcoming world premiere as the Closing Night film of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The movie will be branded as a Netflix original film and launch globally this year simultaneously to Netflix’s over 93 million viewers in 190 countries.
“We are honored to get to work with Jim Strouse as we introduce film lovers around the globe to The Incredible Jessica James, which marks the arrival of Jessica Williams, a true star in the making,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix.
“It feels nothing short of incredible to be working with the team at Netflix to bring our movie to their audience around the globe” said Strouse.
In a breakout performance, Jessica Williams (“The Daily Show,” “2 Dope Queens” Podcast) stars as a young, aspiring playwright in New York City who is struggling to get over a recent breakup. She is forced to go on a date with the recently divorced Boone, played by Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids) and the unlikely duo discover how to make it through the tough times in a social media obsessed post-relationship universe. Lakeith Stanfield (FX’s “Atlanta”, Straight Outta Compton) and Noël Wells (Netflix’s “Master of None”) co-star. The film was produced by Michael B. Clark and Alex Turtletaub of Beachside and executive produced by Jessica Williams and Kerri Hundley.
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower
Netflix announced that the company has acquired worldwide rights to Joe Piscatella’s Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, which recently made its world premiere to critical acclaim at Sundance Film Festival. The film, which is a June Pictures production, will launch globally later this year, simultaneously to Netflix’s over 93 million members in 190 countries.
When the Chinese Communist Party threatens its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his homeland. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents. A remarkable portrait of courage, resilience and youthful idealism, Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower demonstrates how one young man mortgages his own future to try and save his city.
“Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower is a filmmaking triumph,” says Lisa Nishimura, Netflix VP of Original Documentaries. “Piscatella has woven together the complex and inspirational story of an unlikely activist, whose acts of bravery and conviction need to be seen around the world. In an era where we are witnessing heightened civic participation and freedom of expression, we are pleased to offer a global platform for audiences to engage on these issues.”
“We could not be more thrilled to be in business with Netflix,” says Andrew Duncan, the film’s producer and Founder of June Pictures. “Their global platform will allow us to share Joshua’s message about the importance of due process of law and freedom of speech with a worldwide audience.”
“The Netflix partnership will also allow us to reach millions of young people who will find inspiration in Joshua’s story,” adds director Joe Piscatella.
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower is written and directed by Joe Piscatella (#chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator). The film is executive produced by Alex Saks and produced by Andrew Duncan, Matthew Torne and Mark Rinehart.
To level the playing field, they had to get into the water.
Official Selection
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival *Winner – Best Sports Documentary *
New Hampshire Film Festival
Heartland Film Festival
Napa Valley Film Festival
DOC NYC
Synopsis
Demonstrating the power of inclusion to transcend disability, Lara Stolman’s triumphant film profiles members of the Jersey Hammerheads, a competitive swim team made up of a diverse group of teens on the autism spectrum, based in the state with the highest rate of autism in the country. Through training and competition, star athletes Mikey, Robbie and Kelvin gain self-confidence and social skills that serve them both in and out of the pool.SWIM TEAM was selected for the Independent Filmmaker Project’s Project Forum in 2015 and in 2016 was selected to participate in the IFP Documentary Completion Lab. During production, filmmaking team received grants from New York Women in Film and Television, the Loreen Arbus Foundation and the Karma Foundation.
SWIM TEAM is one of many recent forays into the challenging world of raising children on the autism spectrum. Films like Autism is Love and Life Animated visually bring us mostly into the the subjects’ present lives as adults. Swim Team follows 3 high school boys on their journey for acceptance and self actualization through a team sport. As a society, we must make sure that we aren’t lumping these children together. Broadly labeling them “on the spectrum” has become such a blanket term that it’s easy to categorize and limit them. If you listen to only “the experts” you might be hindering the individual growth and abilities of each child. Mikey, Kelvin, and Robbie are three completely different kids. Swimming for them is the continuation of learning discipline, self control, leadership, self esteem and a massive lot of life skills often overlooked in a school environment, so parents teach their son and daughters to swim from young age, there are even female swimming teams, so parents get Swimwear for Baby Girls and start teaching their girls from young age. We can all learn from director Lara Stolman‘s work. We need more insight as parents, teachers, administration on ways that we can help level the proverbial playing field at all times. Showing other children through our actions and words that we can all be more patient, loving, and understanding. Swim Team, through their journey to the Special Olympic games, will give you hope that kindness and heart can be a guiding light for families from all backgrounds. Autism doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care about race or socioeconomic background. The Hammerheads of New Jersey are a team of extraordinary kids, parents, and coaches trying to make a difference in the world one stroke at a time.
New York Premiere at DOC NYC in the Jock Docs Section
Thursday, November 17th at 7:30pm
SVA Theater: 333 West 23rd street, between 8th and 9th Avenues
Social Media:
Twitter: @SwimTeamTheFilm
Facebook: @SwimTeamTheFilm
#swimteamthefilm
After it’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Dog Eat Dog, a bright, vibrant, loud, violent and silly crime caper is set for theaters in New York and Los Angeles November 4th, but available to stream as well!
Dog Eat Dog will be on VOD on all of the major cable/satellite/telco companies – Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner/Spectrum, Charter, etc.
Check out the trailer to get a taste of what you’ll get:
Ex-cons, Troy (Nicolas Cage), Mad Dog (Willem Dafoe) and Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook), are hired by an eccentric mob boss to kidnap a baby and hold it for a large ransom. When the abduction goes awry, the men find themselves on the run from the mob and the cops. Vowing to stay out of prison at all costs, getting away with the crime is a matter of life and death.
The stage is set from the very first scene of contrasting neon pink and blue, ending the only way it could. That same cinematography and style is carried throughout the rest of the film. Everything keeps moving just fast enough to keep you wanting to know what is coming next. The first two acts are backstory and although it’s not really “necessary” to the story, it’s really fun.
Nicolas Cage is no stranger to eccentric characters and was originally cast to be Willem Dafoe‘s character of Mad Dog. Instead, Nicolas Cage plays the straight man to the outlandish and unpredictable Mad Dog. Teaming up with Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook), the three move from one mischievous act to another making for non-stop entertainment.
I liken the vibe of this film to Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, from 2009 from Werner Herzog starring Nicolas Cage. It’s only available to rent or buy, but totally worth it. It’s rough, violent, but so much character that it balances it all out.
Paul Schrader (who also plays a role) directs the screenplay by Matthew Wilder who adapted the novel by Edward Bunker. It’s non-stop entertainment but very violent and full of highly graphic language.
With such a broad subject matter, it’s quite astonishing how director Ava DuVernay was able to weave “talking heads” with facts, figures and history footage into the coherent and thought-provoking documentary, 13th.
Starting with racism in the prison system, the film is about much more than that and covers a wide variety of issues that stem from the time of the 13th Amendment. Rather than go chronologically, the film flows from different topics but ties them all together in a way that is interesting and informative.
Let’s step back and acknowledge how incredible it is that this film opened the New York Film Festival and is available to watch just a week later on Netflix. How amazing is that? You don’t have to find an indie theater to see it. Anyone can see this with their subscription or even just sign up for a free trial to watch. For those in New York, it’s opening at the IFC Center with a Q&A with Jelani Cobb, Univ. of Connecticut professor and contributor to The New Yorker, at 7:55 show!
This film presents factual information in a way that is fair and unfortunately depressing, yet there is a sense of hope that cannot be mistaken. This is a must see.
Festival Director Kent Jones & 13th Director Ava DuVernay at the press conference
https://youtu.be/V66F3WU2CKk
Featuring works by: Daniel Scheinert, Billy Chew, Lawrence Chen, Sandeep Parikh and Casey Donahue
Audiences are invited to experience four interactive shorts for the new entertainment platform for interactive storytelling, Eko: The Gleam, an interactive documentary about a small town paper; Ticking Bomb where two men’s paths violently collide; That Moment When, a comedy that asks the viewer to navigate a battery of awkward conversations; and Now/Then, a Rashomon-inspired story focused on the various perspectives swirling around a relationship on the rocks.
All shorts will be available to experience at: NYFF’s Convergence
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
(144 W 65th Street. / Lincoln Center)
Saturday & Sunday, October 1 & 2
THE GLEAM
By Daniel Scheinert and Billy Chew
Created by Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Possibilia) and Billy Chew, The Gleam is an interactive documentary film that explores the town of Guntersville, Alabama through its local newspaper, The Advertiser-Gleam. Encounters with the town’s vibrant personalities and events are presented within the documentary’s mosaic format, which gives each viewer a personal and insightful look into this community.
Elite Daily & Eko
Present
THEN / NOW
Directed by Casey Donahue
Uncover for yourself the conflicting memories and unreliable interpretations of events leading to a couple’s breakup. Then/Now is a scripted narrative that presents multiple perspectives of a relationship. It’s up to you to piece together these fragments in order to gain a broader understanding of their disputed past.
Cast: Ingrid Haas, Brooks Morrison, Brad Gage, Lauren Schacher
THAT MOMENT WHEN
Directed by Sandeep Parikh
We’ve all been there: you’re at a party speaking with someone who seems to know you and you think you know them but just can’t remember his name. Starring Milana Vayntrub, That Moment When is a short-form comedy where you will need to help Jill remember her friend’s name or risk her looking like a self-centered jerk.
Cast: Milana Vayntrub
TICKING BOMB
Directed by Lawrence Chen
Set to Aloe Blacc’s harrowing song, Ticking Bomb presents two parallel worlds focused on two men. Their paths collide in a volatile encounter that triggers irreversible consequences for them both. This interactive experience allows you to switch between the perspective of the two characters as well as actors, revealing that the differences between class, race, good and evil are not as clear as we imagined.
Cast: Brett Aresco, Ugo Anyanwu, Briana Pozner
13TH will premiere at the New York Film Festival on Friday, September 30, which is the first time a nonfiction work will open the festival. The film will launch globally on Netflix October 7, including a limited theatrical release.
Synopsis
The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States…” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.
About Ava DuVernay
Nominated for two Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, writer/director Ava DuVernay’s most recent feature “Selma” was one of 2015’s most critically-acclaimed films. Winner of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival’s Best Director Prize for her feature “Middle of Nowhere,” DuVernay’s earlier directorial work includes “I Will Follow,” “Venus Vs,” and “This is The Life.” In Fall of 2016, her first television series as executive producer, writer and director, “Queen Sugar,” debuted on Oprah Winfrey’s network, OWN. DuVernay distributes and amplifies the work of other people of color and women directors through her film collective ARRAY, named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Hollywood for 2016.
https://youtu.be/V66F3WU2CKk
The 54th New York Film Festival will be chock full of free events, including HBO Directors Dialogues, NYFF Live talks, Convergence experiences and installations, and more.
Tickets to following free events will be distributed at the corresponding box office on a first-come, first-served basis starting one hour prior to the event. Please note that the line may form in advance of this time. Limit one ticket per person, subject to availability.
DESCRIPTIONS & SCHEDULE
All talks will take place in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center’s Amphitheater,144 West 65th Street
13TH Panel
The day after Ava DuVernay’s new film, 13TH, opens the 54th New York Film Festival, subjects interviewed in the film come together for an extended conversation exploring the many issues highlighted in this powerful documentary about race and criminal justice. From the portrayal of black men in popular culture, dating back to D. W. Griffith’s 1915 Birth of a Nation, to the progression from slavery to mass incarceration and the persistent demonization and killing of black men by police in our cities today, the discussion will consider how the past connects with our present reality. Participants will include Ashley Clark (BFI), Jelani Cobb (The New Yorker, The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress), Malkia Cyril (Center for Media Justice), Kevin Gannon (Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning), and Khalil Gibran Muhammad (Harvard Kennedy School; former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture). 13TH is a Netflix original documentary.
Saturday, October 1, 7:00pm
Film Comment Live: Living Cinema
For its September-October 2016 edition, Film Comment, the most important and renowned critical film magazine in the U.S. for more than 50 years, has come out of the gate with an issue devoted to the vitality of movies today, as well as an elaborate special section on films featured in the 54th New York Film Festival. For this panel a selection of the magazine’s editors, new contributors, and longtime writers will join to discuss issues raised and questions asked in its pages. Scheduled guests include critics Shonni Enelow, Michael Koresky, Nick Pinkerton, Imogen Sara Smith, and Farihah Zaman. Moderated by Film Comment Editor Nicolas Rapold.
Sunday, October 2, 8:00pm
Making Moonlight
The second feature by American filmmaker Barry Jenkins is already one of the most talked-about independent films of the year. Set and shot in South Florida, Moonlight is inspired by Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. The three-part narrative portrays a gay African-American man at three distinct stages of his life, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This discussion will take an in-depth look at the making of the film, from Jenkins’s adaptation of the story to his collaborations with indie producer Adele Romanski, and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B, Brad Pitt’s production company. Moderated by Film Society of Lincoln Center Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez.
Monday, October 3, 7:00pm
Shorts Panel
This year’s Main Slate shorts programs include over two-dozen films divided into five programs: Narrative, International Auteurs, Genre Stories, New York Stories, and Documentary. Join a group of this year’s attending filmmakers as they give insight into their latest work. Panelists include Francisca Alegria (And the Whole Sky Fit in a Dead Cow’s Eye), Lewie Kloster (Legal Smuggling with Christine Choy), Nadav Lapid (From the Diary of a Wedding Photographer), Lisanne Skyler (Brillo Box [3¢ off]), and Matt Tyrnauer (Jean Nouvel: Reflections). Moderated by IndieWire’s Jude Dry.
Tuesday, October 4, 7:00pm
NYFF54 Filmmaker in Residence Conversation: Alice Rohrwacher
The first two films by Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (Corpo Celeste, The Wonders) screened at the New York Film Festival, and this year she is back as the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s fourth Filmmaker in Residence, a collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre. During her residency in New York, Rohrwacher is writing her third feature, Lazzaro Felice, about the adventures of a man, almost a saint, who lives on the margins of his society and can seemingly travel through time. At this special conversation, Rohrwacher will talk about her work and career with Film Society of Lincoln Center Director of Programming Dennis Lim.
Rohrwacher was born in Florence, Italy, in 1981. She graduated with a degree in Classic Literature from Torino University, and wrote for theater and worked as a musician before approaching filmmaking, initially as a documentary editor. Her first feature, Corpo Celeste, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2011, and was then selected for Sundance, New York, London, Rio, and Tokyo film festivals before being released in the U.S., UK, and France. Rohrwacher’s second feature, The Wonders, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival along with the Best Film Prize at Filmfest München, and the Black Pearl Award at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Film Festival. In 2015 she directed The Djess, a short film commissioned by Prada as part of Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales film series that premiered during New York Fashion Week, and was also presented at the Venice Film Festival. She is currently working on directing her first opera, a new version of La Traviata for Teatri di Reggio Emilia that will open in Fall 2016. Past Filmmakers in Residence include Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier), Lisandro Alonso (Jauja), and Andrea Arnold (American Honey).
Tuesday, October 4, 8:00pm
Screenwriters Panel
Fully conceptualized, credible characters bring viewers into a film. Without them, even the most engrossing plot may not resonate. The Writers Guild of America, East brings together the creators behind some unforgettable recent movie characters to tell us how they made them intriguing and believable. Panelists include Jean-Christophe Castelli (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), Rebecca Miller (Maggie’s Plan), and Mike Mills (20th Century Women). Moderated by WGAE President Michael Winship.
Wednesday, October 5, 7:00pm
Casting Panel
Join three of New York’s foremost casting directors, Gayle Keller (Certain Women, Louie), Henry Russell Bergstein (Manchester by the Sea, Mozart in the Jungle) and moderator Richard Hicks (Zero Dark Thirty, Hell or High Water, President of the Casting Society of America), as they shine a light on the intensely creative and collaborative art of casting. Topics will include the casting process for the festival films listed above, finding and advocating for that perfect match of actor to role, and opportunities and pitfalls surrounding casting in the digital age.
Wednesday, October 5, 8:00pm
Gael García Bernal and Pablo Larraín (Neruda)
After collaborating on the 2012 feature No, Chilean director Pablo Larraín and Mexican actor Gael García Bernal joined forces again forNeruda, screening in this year’s Main Slate. Join the duo as they talk about this latest project, a drama that blends fact and fiction in telling the story of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s years of flight and exile after his 1948 denunciation of his government. A cat-and-mouse game ensues with a detective, played by Bernal.
Thursday, October 6, 7:00pm
New Challenges in Film Preservation, presented with New York Women in Film & Television
The Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film & Television has helped to restore and preserve over 100 films in which women had a key creative role. Among these is Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning Harlan County USA, showing in the Revivals section at this year’s NYFF. The result of this preservation project was a new 16mm print, which was used for exhibition. But what’s next? There are few 16mm exhibition venues available today. However, we know that film is the most stable of all available moving image media. How does this affect the work of the preservationist? Should 16mm prints continue to be made? The conversation will also address the larger issue of the need for film preservation and the work of the WFPF. Panelists include NYWIFT Women’s Film Preservation Fund Committee Co-chair Ann Deborah Levy, previous WFPF Chair and Producer/Post-Production Supervisor Susan Lazarus, and other experts in the preservation field.
Thursday, October 6, 8:00pm
I Am Indie: 20 Years of Independent Film, presented with IndieWire
Independent filmmakers are working harder than ever to sustain their work. For 20 years, IndieWire has tracked the efforts of artists in the film community as they have evolved their careers on their own terms. To mark this anniversary, IndieWire has assembled a panel of several influential filmmakers whose work has made an impact. We’ll hear from them about the biggest challenges they face as they continue to pursue the stories they want to tell—and what gives them hope for the future. Confirmed panelists include cinematographer Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Abacus: Too Small to Jail), Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Ira Sachs (Little Men), and Roger Ross Williams (Life Animated). Moderated by Eric Kohn, Deputy Editor & Chief Film Critic of IndieWire.
Friday, October 7, 7:00pm
Film Comment Live: Filmmakers Chat
In this special roundtable discussion, a selection of different directors from around the world whose films are screening in this year’s New York Film Festival talk together in a discussion moderated by Film Comment editor Nicolas Rapold. It’s the rare chance to see some of today’s most important filmmakers in dialogue with each other, talking about their experiences watching and creating movies. Scheduled guests are Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper), Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius), and Alison Maclean (The Rehearsal).
Saturday, October 8, 7:00pm
David Godlis, History Is Made at Night
A frequenter of the Film Society of Lincoln Center will likely have noticed the ubiquitous David Godlis, a longtime presence here who has documented on his camera our year-round events. What some may not know is that Godlis was also front and center during the heyday of the New York Punk scene, capturing the likes of the Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, Television, Talking Heads, and Suicide. His new book, History Is Made At Night, includes 119 of his iconic black-and-white images from nights on the Bowery at CBGB between 1974 and 1979, shot with his handheld Leica and TRI-X film. Salon noted, “These pictures are so intimate you can practically smell the sweat.” The event is moderated by FSLC Academy Organizer Brian Brooks and features a book-signing.
Sunday, October 9, 7:00pm
Sônia Braga and Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius)
Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius centers on Clara, a 65-year-old widow and retired music critic living in Recife. She is the last resident of the Aquarius, an original two-story building built in the 1940s on Boa Viagem Beach. All the neighboring apartments have already been acquired by a company that has other plans for the building; Clara, unwilling to leave, engages in a cold war with the company. Join Kleber Mendonça Filho and actress Sônia Braga as they talk about Aquarius, screening in NYFF’s Main Slate. Moderated by FSLC Director of Digital Platforms Michael Gibbons.
Monday, October 10, 7:00pm
Documentary Panel
Compressed and expansive, eclectic and vérité, objective examinations and works of passionate advocacy: this year’s Spotlight on Documentary selections represent a wide spectrum of today’s nonfiction cinema. A cross-section of this year’s directors will be present to discuss their films in this panel. Guests include Kasper Collin (I Called Him Morgan), Simon Dotan (The Settlers), Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens (Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds), and Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger (Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan). Moderated by FSLC Executive Director Lesli Klainberg.
Tuesday, October 11, 7:00pm
Making My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea
With My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea playing in this year’s Main Slate, celebrated graphic novelist Dash Shaw and his team have created a beautifully layered, colorful, and entertaining new animated film. Shaw’s first feature is a comic adventure about friends overcoming their differences and having each other’s backs in times of crisis, and its marvelously complex characters are voiced by Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and Susan Sarandon. This discussion—featuring writer-director Dash Shaw, lead animator Jane Samborski, and producer Kyle Martin—will go behind the scenes to explore the making of this distinctive new movie.
Wednesday, October 12, 7:00pm
Film Comment Live: Festival Wrap
For the second year in a row, Film Comment contributing critics and editors gather for the festival’s last weekend and talk about the films they’ve seen, discussing—and arguing about—their favorites in the lineup, from Main Slate to beyond. Scheduled guests include critics K. Austin Collins, Eric Hynes, Violet Lucca, Aliza Ma, and Nick Pinkerton. Moderated by Film Comment Editor Nicolas Rapold.
Friday, October 14, 7:00pm
Directors Dialogues: Ang Lee (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk)
One of the most versatile artists at work in cinema today, Ang Lee has brought his extraordinary skills to a wide array of projects since he started making films in the early 90s. His work is as emotionally complex and delicate as it is challenging and technically adventurous. WithBilly Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, screening as a special world premiere presentation in this year’s festival, Lee reaches a new peak in his career and takes the art of cinema one step further. Lee will join Kent Jones, Director of the New York Film Festival, for a wide-ranging discussion of his remarkable career.
Saturday, October 15, 3:30pm
SCHEDULE
Saturday, October 1
7:00PM 13TH Panel
Sunday, October 2
7:00PM HBO Directors Dialogues: Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann)
8:00PM Film Comment Live: Living Cinema
Monday, October 3
7:00PM Making Moonlight
Tuesday, October 4
7:00PM Shorts Panel
8:00PM NYFF54 Filmmaker in Residence Conversation: Alice Rohrwacher
Wednesday, October 5
7:00PM Screenwriters Panel
8:00PM Casting Panel
Thursday, October 6
7:00PM Gael García Bernal and Pablo Larraín (Neruda)
8:00PM New Challenges in Film Preservation, presented with New York Women in Film & Television
Friday, October 7
7:00PM I Am Indie: 20 Years of Independent Film, presented with IndieWire
Saturday, October 8
7:00PM Film Comment Live: Filmmakers Chat
Sunday, October 9
7:00PM David Godlis, History Is Made at Night
Monday, October 10
7:00PM Sônia Braga and Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius)
Tuesday, October 11
7:00PM Documentary Panel
Wednesday, October 12
7:00PM Making My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea
Thursday, October 13
7:00PM HBO Directors Dialogues: Paul Verhoeven (Elle)
Friday, October 14
7:00PM Film Comment Live: Festival Wrap
Saturday, October 15
3:30PM Directors Dialogues: Ang Lee (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk)
SOUTHWEST OF SALEM: THE STORY OF THE SAN ANTONIO FOUR, opening in NEW YORK on SEPTEMBER 16 at CINEMA VILLAGE.
More often than not, when we think about our legal system today, perhaps the word that comes to the mind of many is “Injustice” How much does personal belief, whether religious or political, sway the decision of a DA’s office or a jury. My husband recently served on a jury here in Manhattan, on a relatively well known case. After his month long ordeal, he stated, “In some alternate universe, if I was ever thinking about breaking the law, well, God help me. A jury of my peers is anything but.” He explained that the particular jury he served on contained individuals who slept during proceedings, doodled in their notebooks, sighed audibly in court, and verbally fought to be excused on a daily basis. He cannot imagine what it would have been like had he been the defendant. In a very important documentary, SOUTHWEST OF SALEM, four women, who happen to be lesbians, were convicted of a heinous crime based upon a modern day witch hunt. In Texas, their jury was most certainly not comprised of their peers. 
“The San Antonio Four” — Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh, and Anna Vasquez. They are four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of gang-raping two little girls in San Antonio, Texas. However, the evidence was never there. The San Antonio Four continues to fight against mythology, faux-science, homophobia, and the prosecutorial fervor in their continuous struggle for exoneration in this riveting ‘True Crime’ tale. The suffering, outlandish, and baseless accusations caught one man’s attention who helped to garner the support of the Innocent Project.
In 2012, writer Maurice Chammah‘s New York Times coverage “Fighting to Exonerate Texas Women Convicted of Child Sexual Assault ” goes into details of the four women’s ordeal. In February 2016, Texas-based Judge Pat Priest released the ruling that these women are entitled to new trials but not exoneration. The fight to free the innocent continues.
Directed by filmmaker journalist Deborah Esquenazi, this emotional documentary first made its big splash earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival and received audience accolades. It recently garnered Grand Jury Award at 2016 Outfest and Outstanding Documentary Jury Award at the 2016 Frameline Film Festival.
This film is so essential in aiding these four innocent women in their complete exoneration. In the 80’s and 90’s there existed this idea that satanic cults were operating inside day cares and preschools. This strange concept infiltrated DA and child protective service offices across the country. The suspects brought forth in these cases were predominantly homosexual or suspected to be so. In this case in particular, the children were labeled as being “offered up” as “sacrificial lambs”. Anna states the bias was ripe through the prosecution, essentially telling the jury, “this is what gay people do.” One man, a professor in the Yukon, gets wind of this story. A man named Darrel Otto, goes to bat for these women, reaching out to Liz Ramirez, then contacting The Innocence Project of Texas. The ball starts rolling. Changes in science, recantations, the changing of the times, people are finally getting on board with the truth. But the road is long and slow. These women need our help.
Watching this documentary is devastating. The lives impacted by these lies, the damage done. I cannot imagine the heartache of Anna, Liz, Cassie, and Kristie, and their loved ones have endured during these many long years. What these four beautiful, strong women, need more than anything right now, is your support, belief, and fight. Call, text, tweet, share their story. They deserve new trials. They deserve complete exoneration. They deserve justice.
You can find out more about this extraordinary story by seeing the film now in New York, and September 30th in LA. Investigation Discovery has recently acquired the television rights and will be airing the film in October, if you’re unable to make it to the theaters.
Southwest of Salem – Festival Trailer from Deborah S. Esquenazi on Vimeo.
SOUTHEWEST OF SALEM- by Deborah S. Esquenazi
OPENING SEPTEMBER 16– NEW YORK- CINEMA VILLAGE
SEPTEMBER 30– LOS ANGELES – LAEMMLE MUSIC HALL BEVERLY HILLS
1. Call 1-210-335-2311 and ask for District Attorney Nico LaHood’s office.
Here’s what to say: “I am angered by Judge Pat Priest’s ruling to not recommend exoneration for Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Anna Vasquez, and Kristie Mayhugh. I want Nico LaHood and the District Attorney’s office of Bexar County to take a stand on the San Antonio Four case to declare actual innocence and have the women exonerated for their wrongful convictions.”
2. Tweet/Facebook the district attorney’s office to take a stand!
Twitter: @BexarCounty @Nico4DA Take a stand about the @SanAntonioFour injustice! Recommend exoneration #FreetheSA4 @IPofTexas #southwestOfSalem
Facebook: I am angered by Judge Pat Priest’s ruling to not recommend exoneration for Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Anna Vasquez, and Kristie Mayhugh. I want Nico LaHood and the District Attorney’s office of @Bexar County to take a stand on the San Antonio Four case to declare actual innocence and have the women exonerated for their wrongful convictions. #FreetheSA4 #SouthwestOfSalem
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Ang Lee’s highly anticipated Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk as a Special World Premiere Presentation of the 54th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16) on Friday, October 14, at AMC Lincoln Square.
New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walkastonished me, and it moved me deeply—in the grandest way, as a story of America in the years after the invasion of Iraq, and on the most intimate person-to-person wavelength. Ang Lee has always gone deep into the nuances of the emotions between his characters, and that’s exactly what drove him to push cinema technology to new levels. It’s all about the faces, the smallest emotional shifts. In every way, Billy Lynn is the work of a master.”
Billy Lynn is also a giant step forward in the art of cinema, made with a cinematographic process years ahead of its time. The film, from TriStar Pictures and Studio 8 in association with LStar Capital, Film4, Bona Film Group, and Fosun Media, is the first full-length narrative film shot in 4K, native 3D at the ultra high rate of 120 frames-per-second. The NYFF event will be the first time ever the format will be screened publicly. Creating the film in this immersive format required technical invention at each stage of the process—prep, shooting, and postproduction. The commercial run of the film will play in a variety of 2D and 3D formats, all of which display the new techniques with which the film was made.
Lee’s stunning adaptation of Ben Fountain’s novel is the story of an Iraq war hero (newcomer Joe Alwyn) who comes home with his fellow members of Bravo Company for a victory tour. This culminates in a halftime show at a Thanksgiving Day football game—a high-intensity media extravaganza summoning memories of the trauma of losing his beloved sergeant in a firefight. Lee’s brave, heartbreaking film goes right to the heart of a great division that haunts this country: between the ideal image of things as they should be and the ongoing reality of things as they are. With a brilliant supporting cast, including Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund with Vin Diesel and Steve Martin.
“I’m very grateful to the New York Film Festival for selecting our film and giving it such a unique platform,” said Lee. “The New York Film Festival has been such an important event for me both as a New Yorker and a filmmaker, and I am honored to be represented this year with Billy Lynn. With each film, I try to learn fresh ways to connect with the audience and with myself. Since Life of Pi, I have been working with my team towards a new cinematic approach that I hope will revitalize that connection. But technology is merely a tool; it should always be in service of artistic expression, to make it strong and fresh, because story and drama matter most. I thought Billy’s journey, which is both intimate and epic, and told almost entirely from his point of view, lent itself particularly well to the emotion and intensity that this new approach fosters. At least I hope so, as many people have worked long and hard to help me try to make the future a reality today. I am thankful to them all.”
Lee has a long history with the festival. Most recently, his Oscar-winning Life of Pi was Opening Night of NYFF50 in 2012. His 1997 film The Ice Storm opened NYFF35, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was Closing Night of the 38th festival in 2000.
Directed by Ang Lee and produced by Marc Platt, Ang Lee, Rhodri Thomas, and Stephen Cornwell, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is based on the widely acclaimed, best-selling novel by Ben Fountain, with a screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli.
The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Jones, also includes Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Programming; Florence Almozini, FSLC Associate Director of Programming; Amy Taubin, Contributing Editor,Artforum and Film Comment; and Gavin Smith, who serves as a consultant.
The complete lineup of Special Events at the 54th New York Film Festival will be announced in the coming days. NYFF previously announced the world premieres of Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection, Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women as Centerpiece, and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z as Closing Night. The complete Main Slate lineup can be found here, along with the complete programs for Convergence, Projections,Revivals, and Retrospective.
Tickets for the 54th New York Film Festival will go on sale September 11. Becoming a Film Society Member at the Film Buff Level or above provides early ticket access to festival screenings and events ahead of the general public, along with the exclusive member ticket discount. Learn more at filmlinc.org/membership.
For even more access, VIP passes and subscription packages offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival’s biggest events including Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Nights. VIP passes also provide access to many exciting events, including the invitation-only Opening Night party, “An Evening With…” dinner, Filmmaker Brunch, and VIP Lounge. Benefits vary based on the pass or package type purchased. VIP passes and subscription packages are on sale now. Learn more at filmlinc.org/NYFF.
25 features include new films from Maren Ade, Pedro Almodóvar, Olivier Assayas, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Alain Guiraudie, Eugène Green, Mia Hansen-Løve, Hong Sangsoo, Jim Jarmusch, Barry Jenkins, Pablo Larraín, Ken Loach, Kenneth Lonergan, Alison Maclean, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Cristian Mungiu, Matías Piñeiro, Cristi Puiu, Kelly Reichardt, Gianfranco Rosi, Dash Shaw, and Paul Verhoeven
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces the 25 films for the Main Slate of the 54th New York Film Festival, September 30 – October 16.
NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “The cinema is so many things at once. And when I look at the films in this year’s selection, I’m aware of the fact that it is a form of response. The Dardenne Brothers, Ken Loach, Cristian Mungiu, Gianfranco Rosi, Kleber Mendonça Filho, and Ava DuVernay are sounding alarms, while Jim Jarmusch, Kenneth Lonergan, Barry Jenkins, Maren Ade, Olivier Assayas, James Gray, and Mike Mills are fixed on internal landscapes, proclaiming the urgency of self-realization. I also see in this year’s lineup a bounty of vital work from artists from all around the world who will not stop until they see their visions all the way to the end.”
This year’s Main Slate showcases award-winning films that wowed viewers at international festivals, presented to New York audiences for the first time. Selections from Cannes include Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or-winning I, Daniel Blake; Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper and Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, which tied for Best Director; and Maren Ade’s highly acclaimed Toni Erdmann, awarded the Cannes Critics’ Prize. From Berlin, Gianfranco Rosi’s Golden Bear winner, Fire at Sea, will mark the director’s NYFF debut, and Mia Hansen-Løve returns to the festival with Things to Come, which won her Berlin’s Best Director award.
Other festival veterans returning to NYFF include Pedro Almodóvar, Kelly Reichardt, Hong Sangsoo, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Matías Piñeiro, Paul Verhoeven, Alain Guiraudie, Cristi Puiu, and Eugène Green. A number of celebrated filmmakers will make their NYFF debuts, such as Kenneth Lonergan with his third feature Manchester by the Sea; Kleber Mendonça Filho, presenting Aquarius, his anticipated follow-up to Neighboring Sounds; Alison Maclean with her coming-of-age story The Rehearsal; Dash Shaw, whose animated My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea is his first feature; and Barry Jenkins, with his three-part portrait of a young gay African-American man,Moonlight.
Strong female performances are a prominent focus this year, with standout turns from Isabelle Huppert in Verhoeven’sElle and Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come; Brazilian legend Sônia Braga in Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius; Piñeiro favorite Agustina Muñoz in Hermia and Helena; and Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern in Reichardt’s triptychCertain Women, among others. The Main Slate also features two films that bring poetry to the screen: Pablo Larraín’sNeruda, a portrait of the beloved Chilean poet, and Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, which carries the spirit of William Carlos Williams through the story of a city bus driver (Adam Driver) who also writes poetry.
As previously announced, the festival also boasts three World Premieres in the gala slots: Ava DuVernay’s The 13th(Opening Night), Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women (Centerpiece), and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z (Closing Night).
The 13th (Opening Night, previously announced)
Directed by Ava DuVernay
USA, 2016
World Premiere
The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis. A Netflix original documentary.
The 13th (Opening Night, previously announced)
Directed by Ava DuVernay
USA, 2016
World Premiere
The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis. A Netflix original documentary.
20th Century Women (Centerpiece, previously announced)
Directed by Mike Mills
USA, 2016
World Premiere
Mike Mills’s texturally and behaviorally rich new comedy seems to keep redefining itself as it goes along, creating a moving group portrait of particular people in a particular place (Santa Barbara) at a particular moment in the 20th century (1979), one lovingly attended detail at a time. The great Annette Bening, in one of her very best performances, is Dorothea, a single mother raising her teenage son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), in a sprawling bohemian house, which is shared by an itinerant carpenter (Billy Crudup) and a punk artist with a Bowie haircut (Greta Gerwig) and frequented by Jamie’s rebellious friend Julie (Elle Fanning). 20th Century Women is warm, funny, and a work of passionate artistry. An A24 Release.
The Lost City of Z (Closing Night, previously announced)
Directed by James Gray
USA, 2016
World Premiere
James Gray’s emotionally and visually resplendent epic tells the story of Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett (a remarkable Charlie Hunnam), the British military-man-turned-explorer whose search for a lost city deep in the Amazon grows into an increasingly feverish, decades-long magnificent obsession that takes a toll on his reputation, his home life with his wife (Sienna Miller) and children, and his very existence. Gray and cinematographer Darius Khondji cast quite a spell, exquisitely pitched between rapture and dizzying terror. Also starring Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, The Lost City of Z represents a form of epic storytelling that has all but vanished from the landscape of modern cinema, and a rare level of artistry.
Aquarius
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Brazil/France, 2016, 142m
Portuguese with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
A highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s follow-up to his acclaimed Neighboring Sounds revolves around the leisurely days of a 65-year-old widow, transcendently played by the great Brazilian actress Sônia Braga. Clara is a retired music critic and the only remaining resident of the titular apartment building in Recife. Trouble starts when an ambitious real estate promoter who has bought up all of Aquarius’s other units comes knocking on Clara’s door. She has no intention of leaving, and a protracted struggle ensues. Braga’s transfixing, multilayered performance and the film’s deliberate pacing and stylistic flourishes yield a sophisticated, political, and humane work.
Certain Women. Photo courtesy of IFC Films.
Certain Women
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
USA, 2016, 107m
The seventh feature by Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff), a lean triptych of subtly intersecting lives in Montana, is a work of no-nonsense eloquence. Adapting short stories by Maile Meloy, Certain Women follows a lawyer (Laura Dern) navigating an increasingly volatile relationship with a disgruntled client; a couple (Michelle Williams and James Le Gros) in a marriage laden with micro-aggression and doubt, trying to persuade an old man (Rene Auberjonois) to sell his unused sandstone; and a young ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) fixated on a new-in-town night school teacher (Kristen Stewart). Shooting on 16mm, Reichardt creates understated, uncannily intimate dramas nestled within a clear-eyed depiction of the modern American West. An IFC Films release.
Elle
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
France/Germany/Belgium, 2016, 131m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Paul Verhoeven’s first feature in a decade—and his first in French—ranks among his most incendiary, improbable concoctions: a wry, almost-screwball comedy of manners about a woman who responds to a rape by refusing the mantle of victimhood. As the film opens, Parisian heroine Michèle (a brilliant Isabelle Huppert) is brutally violated in her kitchen by a hooded intruder. Rather than report the crime, Michèle, the CEO of a video game company and daughter of a notorious mass murderer, calmly sweeps up the mess and proceeds to engage her assailant in a dangerous game of domination and submission in which her motivations remain a constant source of mystery, humor, and tension. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
Fire at Sea. Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber.
Fire at Sea / Fuocoammare
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi
Italy/France, 2016, 108m
English and Italian with English subtitles
Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary observes Europe’s migrant crisis from the vantage point of a Mediterranean island where hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing war and poverty, have landed in recent decades. Rosi shows the harrowing work of rescue operations but devotes most of the film to the daily rhythms of Lampedusa, seen through the eyes of a doctor who treats casualties and performs autopsies, and a feisty but anxious pre-teen from a family of fishermen for whom it is simply a peripheral fact of life. With its emphasis on the quotidian, the film reclaims an ongoing tragedy from the abstract sensationalism of media headlines. A Kino Lorber release.
Graduation / Bacalaureat
Directed by Cristian Mungiu
Romania, 2016, 127m
Romanian with English subtitles
Cristian Mungiu’s expertly constructed drama concerns a doctor desperate for his daughter to escape corruption-plagued Romania by accepting a scholarship offer from a British university (after-the-fact layer of irony courtesy of Brexit), contingent on her high school final exams. But after she’s assaulted, perhaps for past sins of her father, the doctor must decide whether he will take advantage of his position to ensure that she receives high marks, despite her trauma. Parents anxious about their children’s education will appreciate the moral dilemma the film poses. Like Mungiu’s superb 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (NYFF ’07), Graduation resonates beyond national boundaries. A Sundance Selects release.
Hermia and Helena
Directed by Matías Piñeiro
Argentina/USA, 2016, 87m
English and Spanish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Shooting outside his native Argentina for the first time, New York–based Matías Piñeiro fashions a bittersweet comedy of coupling and uncoupling that doubles as a love letter to his adopted city. Working on a Spanish translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on an artist residency, Camila (Agustina Muñoz) finds herself within a constellation of shifting relationships (an old flame, a new one, a long-lost relative). Mingling actors from the director’s Buenos Aires repertory with stalwarts of New York’s independent film scene (Keith Poulson, Dustin Guy Defa, Dan Sallitt), Hermia and Helena offers the precise gestures, mercurial moods, and youthful energies of all Piñeiro’s cinema, with an emotional depth and directness that make this his most mature work yet.
I, Daniel Blake. Photo courtesy of Sundance Selects .
I, Daniel Blake
Directed by Ken Loach
UK, 2016, 100m
U.S. Premiere
Unable to work after suffering a heart attack, Daniel (Dave Johns) must apply to the government for benefits. But with the seemingly endless documentation he has to provide, his lack of familiarity with computers, and the condescending attitudes of the functionaries to whom he must repeat the same information in one soul-killing encounter after another, he is all but defeated from the beginning, as is his new comrade in misery, Katie (Hayley Squires). English director Ken Loach’s thoroughly shattering film, which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will strike a chord with anyone who has ever tried to negotiate their way through the labyrinth of bureaucracy. A Sundance Selects release.
Julieta
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 2016, 99m
Spanish with English subtitles
Pedro Almodóvar explores his favorite themes of love, sexuality, guilt, and destiny through the poignant story of Julieta, played to perfection by Emma Suárez (younger) and Adriana Ugarte (middle-aged), over the course of a 30-year timespan. Just as she is about to leave Madrid forever, the seemingly content Julieta has a chance encounter that stirs up sorrowful memories of the daughter who brutally abandoned her when she turned eighteen. Drawing on numerous film historical references, from Hitchcock to the director’s own earlier Movida era work, Almodóvar’s twentieth feature, adapted from three short stories by Alice Munro (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”), is a haunting drama that oscillates between disenchanted darkness and visual opulence. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
Manchester by the Sea. Photo by Claire Folger, courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions.
Manchester by the Sea
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan
USA, 2016, 137m
Casey Affleck is formidable as the volatile, deeply troubled Lee Chandler, a Boston-based handyman called back to his hometown on the Massachusetts North Shore after the sudden death of his brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler), who has left behind a teenage son (Lucas Hedges). This loss and the return to his old stomping grounds summon Lee’s memories of an earlier, even more devastating tragedy. In his third film as a director, following You Can Count on Me (2000) and Margaret (2011), Kenneth Lonergan, with the help of a remarkable cast, unflinchingly explores grief, hope, and love, giving us a film that is funny, sharply observed, intimately detailed yet grand in emotional scale. An Amazon Studios Release.
Moonlight
Directed by Barry Jenkins
USA, 2016, 110m
Barry Jenkins more than fulfills the promise of his 2008 romantic two-handerMedicine for Melancholy in this three-part narrative spanning the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of a gay African-American man who survives Miami’s drug-plagued inner city, finding love in unexpected places and the possibility of change within himself. Moonlight offers a powerful sense of place and a wealth of unpredictable characters, featuring a fantastic ensemble cast including André Holland, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali—delivering performances filled with inner conflict and aching desires that cut straight to the heart. An A24 release.
My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea. Photo by Dash Shaw.
My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea
Directed by Dash Shaw
USA, 2016, 75m
U.S. Premiere
No matter your age, part of you never outgrows high school, for better or worse. Dash Shaw, known for such celebrated graphic novels as Bottomless Belly Button and New School, brings his subjective, dreamlike sense of narrative; his empathy for outsiders and their desire to connect; and his rich, expressive drawing style to his first animated feature. Packed with action but seen from the inside out, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea is about friends overcoming their differences and having each other’s backs in times of crisis, and its marvelously complex characters are voiced by Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and John Cameron Mitchell.
Neruda
Directed by Pablo Larraín
Chile/Argentina/France/Spain, 2016, 107m
Spanish and French with English subtitles
Pablo Larraín’s exciting, surprising, and colorful new film is not a biopic but, as the director himself puts it, a “Nerudean” portrait of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s years of flight and exile after his 1948 denunciation of his government’s leadership. Larraín’s heady blend of fact and fancy (the latter embodied in an invented character, straight out of detective fiction, played by Gael García Bernal) is many things at once: a loving, kaleidoscopic recreation of a particular historical moment; a comical cat-and-mouse game; and a pocket epic. Featuring Luis Gnecco, a dead ringer for the poet and a formidable actor, alongside a terrific cast. A release of The Orchard.
Paterson
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
USA, 2016, 118m
U.S. Premiere
Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver who writes poetry drawn from the world around him. Paterson is also the name of the New Jersey city where he works and lives with his effervescent and energetic girlfriend (Golshifteh Farahani). And Paterson is the title of the great epic poem by William Carlos Williams, whose spirit animates Jim Jarmusch’s exquisite new film. This is a rare movie experience, set to the rhythm of an individual consciousness absorbing the beauties and mysteries and paradoxes and joys and surprises of everyday life, at home and at work, and making them into art. An Amazon Studios release.
Personal Shopper. Photo courtesy of Sundance Selects.
Personal Shopper
Directed by Olivier Assayas
France, 2016, 105m
French and English with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Kristen Stewart is the medium, in more ways than one, for this sophisticated genre exploration from director Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria). As a fashion assistant whose twin brother has died, leaving her bereft and longing for messages from the other side, Stewart is fragile and enigmatic—and nearly always on-screen. From an opening sequence in a haunted house with an intricately constructed soundtrack to a high-tension, cat-and-mouse game on a trip from Paris to London and back set entirely to text messaging, Personal Shopper brings the psychological and supernatural thriller into the digital age. An IFC Films release.
The Rehearsal
Directed by Alison Maclean
New Zealand, 2016, 75m
U.S. Premiere
Alison Maclean (Jesus’ Son) returns to her New Zealand filmmaking roots with a multilayered coming-of-age story about a young actor (James Rolleston) searching for the truth of a character he’s playing onstage and the resulting moral dilemma in his personal life. Set largely in a drama school, featuring Kerry Fox as a diva-like teacher who tries to shape her student’s raw talent, The Rehearsal, adapted from the novel by Eleanor Catton, demystifies actors and acting in order to reveal the moments where craft becomes art. The same happens with Maclean’s understated but penetrating filmmaking. Her concentration on the quotidian yields a finale that borders on the sublime.
Sieranevada. Photo courtesy of Elle Driver.
Sieranevada
Directed by Cristi Puiu
Romania, 2016, 173m
Romanian with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
A decade after jumpstarting the Romanian New Wave with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Cristi Puiu returns with a virtuosic chamber drama set largely within a labyrinthine Bucharest apartment where a cantankerous extended family has gathered forty days after its patriarch’s death (and three days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris). Rituals and meals are anticipated and delayed, doors open and close, and the camera hovers at thresholds and in corridors. As claustrophobia mounts, heated, humorous exchanges—about the old Communist days and the present age of terror—coalesce into a brilliantly staged and observed portrait of personal and social disquiet.
Son of Joseph / Le fils de Joseph
Directed by Eugène Green
France/Belgium, 2016, 113m
French with English Subtitles
U.S. Premiere
The American-born expatriate filmmaker Eugène Green exists in his own special artistic orbit. All Green’s films share a formal rigor and an increasingly refined modulation between the playfully comic, the urgently human, and the transcendent, and they are each as exquisitely balanced as the baroque music and architecture that he cherishes. His latest movie, Son of Joseph, is perhaps his most buoyant. A nativity story reboot that gently skewers French cultural pretensions, it features newcomer Victor Ezenfis as a discontented Parisian teenager in search of a father, Mathieu Amalric and Fabrizio Rongione as his, respectively, callous and gentle alternative paternal options, and Natacha Régnier as his single mother. A Kino Lorber Films release.
Staying Vertical / Rester vertical
Directed by Alain Guiraudie
France, 2016, 100m
French with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Léo (Damien Bonnard), a blocked filmmaker seeking inspiration in the French countryside for an overdue script, begins an affair with a shepherdess (India Hair), with whom he almost immediately has a child. Combining the formal control of his 2013 breakthrough Stranger by the Lake with the shapeshifting fabulism of his earlier work, Alain Guiraudie’s new film is a sidelong look at the human cycle of birth, procreation, and death, as well as his boldest riff yet on his signature subjects of freedom and desire. The title has the ring of both a rallying cry and a dirty joke—fitting for a film that is, above all else, a rumination on what it means to be a human being, a vertical animal. A Strand Releasing release.
Things to Come. Photo courtesy of Sundance Selects.
Things to Come / L’Avenir
Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
France/Germany, 2016, 100m
French with English subtitles
In the new film from Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden), Isabelle Huppert is Nathalie, a Parisian professor of philosophy who comes to realize that the tectonic plates of her existence are slowly but inexorably shifting: her husband (André Marcon) leaves her, her mother (Edith Scob) comes apart, her favorite former student decides to live off the grid, and her first grandchild is born. Hansen-Løve carefully builds Things to Come around her extraordinary star: her verve and energy, her beauty, her perpetual motion. Huppert’s remarkable performance is counterpointed by the quietly accumulating force of the action, and the result is an exquisite expression of time’s passing. A Sundance Selects release.
Toni Erdmann
Directed by Maren Ade
Germany, 2016, 162m
German with English subtitles
An audacious twist on the screwball comedy—here, the twosome is an aging-hippie prankster father and his corporate-ladder-climbing daughter—Toni Erdmann delivers art and entertainment in equal measure and charmed just about everyone who saw it at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Maren Ade’s dazzling script has just enough of a classical comedic structure to support 162 minutes of surprises big and small. Meanwhile, her direction is designed to liberate the actors as much as possible while the camera rolls, resulting in sublime performances by Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek, who leave the audience suspended between laughter and tears. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
The Unknown Girl. Photo courtesy of Sundance Selects.
The Unknown Girl
Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Belgium, 2016, 106m
U.S. Premiere
It’s a few minutes after closing time in a medical clinic in Seraing, Belgium. The buzzer rings. Doctor Jenny (Adèle Haenel) tells her assistant (Olivier Bonnaud) to ignore it. She is later informed that the girl she turned away was soon found dead on the riverside. From that moment, Jenny becomes a different kind of doctor, diagnosing not just her dispossessed patients’ illnesses but also the greater malady afflicting her community. And this is a different kind of movie for Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, in which the urgency pulses beneath the seemingly placid surface, and it is all keyed to Haenel’s extraordinary performance. A Sundance Selects release.
Yourself and Yours
Directed by Hong Sangsoo
South Korea, 2016, 86m
Korean with English subtitles
Prolific NYFF favorite Hong Sangsoo boldly and wittily continues his ongoing exploration of the painful caprices of modern romance. Painter Youngsoo (Kim Joo-hyuk) hears secondhand that his girlfriend, Minjung (Lee Yoo-young), has recently had (many) drinks with an unknown man. This leads to a quarrel that seems to end their relationship. The next day, Youngsoo sets out in search of her, at the same time that Minjung—or a woman who looks exactly like her and may or may not be her twin—has a series of encounters with strange men, some of whom claim to have met her before . . . Yourself and Yours is a break-up/make-up comedy unlike any other, suffused with sophisticated modernist mystery.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces The Lost City of Z, written and directed by James Gray (The Immigrant, Two Lovers), as the Closing Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival. The film, based on journalist David Grann’s nonfiction book of the same name, will make its World Premiere at the festival’s final gala screening on Saturday, October 15.
James Gray’s emotionally and visually resplendent epic tells the story of Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett (a remarkable Charlie Hunnam), the British military-man-turned-explorer whose search for a lost city deep in the Amazon grows into an increasingly feverish, decades-long magnificent obsession that takes a toll on his reputation, his home life with his wife (Sienna Miller) and children, and his very existence. Gray and cinematographer Darius Khondji cast quite a spell, exquisitely pitched between rapture and dizzying terror. Also starring Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, The Lost City of Z represents a form of epic storytelling that has all but vanished from the landscape of modern cinema, and a rare level of artistry.
New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “James Gray is one of the finest filmmakers we have. Each of his movies is so beautifully wrought, visually and emotionally, but The Lost City of Z represents something new. It’s a true epic, spanning two continents and three decades, and it’s a genuine vision of the search for sublimity.”
“It’s truly a dream come true for me to have The Lost City of Z selected for the closing night of the New York Film Festival,” said Gray. “I couldn’t be more honored that the film’s world premiere will be in my hometown, a city I still love above all others.”
Gray’s previous film, 2014’s The Immigrant, was an official selection of the 51st New York Film Festival.
The Lost City of Z is produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Anthony Katagas, and Dale Armin Johnson, and is executive produced by Brad Pitt and Marc Butan.
The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Jones, also includes Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Programming; Florence Almozini, FSLC Associate Director of Programming; Amy Taubin, Contributing Editor, Film Comment and Sight & Sound; and Gavin Smith, who serves as a consultant.
NYFF previously announced Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection—the first nonfiction work ever to open the festival—and Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women as Centerpiece.
Tickets for the 54th New York Film Festival will go on sale September 11. Becoming a Film Society Member at the Film Buff Level or above provides early ticket access to festival screenings and events ahead of the general public, along with the exclusive member ticket discount. Learn more at filmlinc.org/membership.
For even more access, VIP passes and subscription packages offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival’s biggest events including Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Nights. VIP passes also provide access to many exciting events, including the invitation-only Opening Night party, “An Evening With…” dinner, Filmmaker Brunch, and VIP Lounge. Benefits vary based on the pass or package type purchased. VIP passes and subscription packages are on sale now. Learn more atfilmlinc.org/NYFF.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces the selection of 20th Century Women, written and directed by Mike Mills (Beginners), as the Centerpiece of the 54th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16). The gala screening on Saturday, October 8, will be the film’s World Premiere.
Available on Netflix
Mills’s texturally and behaviorally rich new comedy keeps redefining itself as it goes along, creating a moving group portrait of particular people in a particular place (Santa Barbara) at a particular moment in the 20th century (1979), one lovingly attended detail at a time. The great Annette Bening, in one of her very best performances, is a single mother raising her teenage son (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann) in a sprawling bohemian house, shared by an itinerant carpenter (Billy Crudup) and a punk artist with a Bowie haircut (Greta Gerwig), and frequented by her son’s rebellious friend (Elle Fanning). 20th Century Women is warm, funny, and a work of passionate artistry.
New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “I was taken aback by 20th Century Women. It’s made with an extraordinarily unusual level of craft and attention to detail, human and visual, which is now all but extinct. As someone who actually lived through 1979 in middle-class America, I will testify to the fact that Mike Mills and his remarkable cast approach the level of the uncanny. I felt like I was back there, with all the shared behaviors and worries, the divisions, the look and feel and smell of the world as it was.”
“Everyone who worked on this film is so honored we’re a part of NYFF,” said Mills. “It’s very exciting for me to premiere my film in the city where I discovered I wanted to be a writer and director, and at the film festival where I saw so many films that inspired me and truly showed me the way. My first film school was a combination of Kim’s Video on Avenue A, Theatre 80 St Marks, and all the innovations I saw at NYFF—so beginning this film’s public life here is especially meaningful to me.”
20th Century Women will be released by A24 in December. The film is produced by Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, Anne Carey of Archer Gray, and Youree Henley.
The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Jones, also includes Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Programming; Florence Almozini, FSLC Associate Director of Programming; Amy Taubin, Contributing Editor, Film Comment and Sight & Sound; and Gavin Smith, who serves as a consultant.
Earlier this month, NYFF announced Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection, the first-ever nonfiction work to open the festival.
Tickets for the 54th New York Film Festival will go on sale September 11. Becoming a Film Society Member at the Film Buff Level or above provides early ticket access to festival screenings and events ahead of the general public, along with the exclusive member ticket discount. Learn more at filmlinc.org/membership.
For even more access, VIP passes and subscription packages offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival’s biggest events including Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Nights. VIP passes also provide access to many exciting events, including the invitation-only Opening Night party, “An Evening With…” dinner, Filmmaker Brunch, and VIP Lounge. Benefits vary based on the pass or package type purchased. VIP passes and subscription packages are on sale now. Learn more at filmlinc.org/NYFF.
FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is devoted to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema. The only branch of the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center to shine a light on the everlasting yet evolving importance of the moving image, this nonprofit organization was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international film. Via year-round programming and discussions; its annual New York Film Festival; and its publications, including Film Comment, the U.S.’s premier magazine about films and film culture, the Film Society endeavors to make the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broader audience, as well as to ensure that it will remain an essential art form for years to come.
The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Loews Regency Hotel, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Support for the New York Film Festival is also generously provided by Jaeger-LeCoultre.
For more information about the New York Film Festival, visit filmlinc.org/NYFF. For the latest news, subscribe to the festival’s newsletter, follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter, and use the hashtag: #NYFF.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16), making its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall. The 13th is the first-ever nonfiction work to open the festival, and will debut on Netflix and open in a limited theatrical run on October 7.
Chronicling the history of racial inequality in the United States, The 13th examines how our country has produced the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the majority of those imprisoned being African-American. The title of DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution—“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States . . . ” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass incarceration and the prison industry in the U.S. is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity.
New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “While I was watching The 13th, the distinction between documentary and fiction gave way and I felt like I was experiencing something so rare: direct contact between the artist and right now, this very moment. In fact, Ava is actually trying to redefine the terms on which we discuss where we’re at, how we got here, and where we’re going. The 13th is a great film. It’s also an act of true patriotism.”
From D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) and the rebirth of the KKK to the Civil Rights Movement, the 1994 Crime Bill, the rise of ALEC, and the Black Lives Matter movement, DuVernay traces a pattern of fear and division that has consistently driven mass criminalization. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimonies from leading voices, including Michelle Alexander, Bryan Stevenson, Van Jones, Newt Gingrich, Angela Davis, Senator Cory Booker, Grover Norquist, Khalil Muhammad, Craig DeRoche, Shaka Senghor, Malkia Cyril, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.
“It is a true honor for me and my collaborators to premiere The 13th as the opening night selection of the New York Film Festival,” said Ava DuVernay. “This film was made as an answer to my own questions about how and why we have become the most incarcerated nation in the world, how and why we regard some of our citizens as innately criminal, and how and why good people allow this injustice to happen generation after generation. I thank Kent Jones and the selection committee for inviting me to share what I’ve learned.”
“Ava gives us a remarkable and ambitious framework for understanding why the U.S. represents 5% of the world’s population, yet is home to nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. Her work has been tireless and passion-fueled and has resulted in a sweeping view at a tenuous time. We are honored to provide a global platform for this deeply urgent work,” said Lisa Nishimura, Netflix VP of Original Documentary Programming.
The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Jones, also includes Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Programming; Florence Almozini, FSLC Associate Director of Programming; Amy Taubin, Contributing Editor, Film Comment and Sight & Sound; and Gavin Smith, who serves as a consultant.
Tickets for the 54th New York Film Festival will go on sale September 11. Becoming a Film Society Member at the Film Buff Level or above provides early ticket access to festival screenings and events ahead of the general public, along with the exclusive member ticket discount. Learn more at filmlinc.org/membership.
For even more access, VIP passes and subscription packages offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival’s biggest events including Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Nights. VIP passes also provide access to many exciting events, including the invitation-only Opening Night party, “An Evening With…” dinner, Filmmaker Brunch, and VIP Lounge. Benefits vary based on the pass or package type purchased. VIP passes and subscription packages are on sale now. Learn more at filmlinc.org/NYFF.
2015 The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, US)
2014 Gone Girl (David Fincher, US)
2013 Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, US)
2012 Life of Pi (Ang Lee, US)
2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, US)
2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US)
2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, US)
2004 Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US)
2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US)
2001 Va savoir (Jacques Rivette, France)
2000 Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
1999 All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1998 Celebrity (Woody Allen, US)
1997 The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US)
1996 Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK)
1995 Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US)
1993 Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US)
1992 Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1991 The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France)
1990 Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, US)
1989 Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier, France)
1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1987 Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union)
1986 Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, US)
1985 Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1984 Country (Richard Pearce, US)
1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US)
1982 Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1981 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK)
1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US)
1979 Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US)
1978 A Wedding (Robert Altman, US)
1977 One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, France)
1976 Small Change (François Truffaut, France)
1975 Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy)
1974 Don’t Cry with Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France)
1973 Day for Night (François Truffaut, France)
1972 Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France)
1971 The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union)
1970 The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France)
1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, US)
1968 Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1967 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1966 Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1965 Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1964 Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, USSR)
1963 The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)
FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is devoted to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema. The only branch of the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center to shine a light on the everlasting yet evolving importance of the moving image, this nonprofit organization was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international film. Via year-round programming and discussions; its annual New York Film Festival; and its publications, including Film Comment, the U.S.’s premier magazine about films and film culture, the Film Society endeavors to make the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broader audience, as well as to ensure that it will remain an essential art form for years to come.
The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Loews Regency Hotel, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Support for the New York Film Festival is also generously provided by Jaeger-LeCoultre.
For more information, visit www.filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.
As a New Yorker, post-9/11, we want to believe that we’re safer. We want to think that the heightened presence of armed guards at Grand Central means something. But, it’s the forces we don’t see that should freak us out. Did you know that just 35 miles north of Times Square is an aging nuclear power plant called Indian Point? I sure didn’t. Not scary enough for you? Alright, the government has downgraded evacuation plans since the Fukushima meltdown. Still no? 6% of the country’s population lives with 50 miles of the plant. You cannot outrun radiation.
The plant was built in the 1950’s and has not been sufficiently updated since. This is not a one-off for the plants across the country. Old technology cannot be applied fast enough for the amount of old cores we are storing on site (encased in cement). The volatility of this waste is unbelievable. When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, Fukushima’s waste was jostled enough to cause multiple reactor meltdown, something that the industry claims is impossible in the US. That radiation has traveled across the ocean and is now causing birth defects in California. Indian Point shows this issue from all sides; activists, journalists, plants supervisors, residents, and the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is an eye-opening doc about money Vs power. When you get the end of the film, the information provided will downright piss you off more than you ever thought possible. Indian Point should stand as a warning for us all. Complacency is the way we power our planet is no longer an option.
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First Run Features announces the US theatrical premiere of Ivy Meeropol’s documentary INDIAN POINT at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York on July 8, 2016, with Los Angeles to follow on July 22, 2016 at Laemmle Music Hall. INDIAN POINT takes an unblinking look at the dramatic debate over nuclear power by going inside the aging plant that looms just 35 miles from New York City. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the facility, it has stoked a great deal of controversy in the surrounding community, including a vocal anti-nuclear contingent concerned that the kind of disaster that happened at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant could happen here. At the same time, its continued operation has the support of the plant’s operators and the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) as they campaign to relicense Indian Point for another 20 years of operation. INDIAN POINT presents a complex story through the people who are most invested in the nuclear industry—the owners of the plant, the workers at the plant and the activists who want to shut it down. The film begins inside Indian Point with Brian Vangor, senior control room operator and 35-year veteran who says his job is making sure the plant’s workers “get through their shifts unscathed.” We hear from Marilyn Elie, a leader of the anti-Indian Point group IPSEC and her husband Roger Witherspoon, an environmental journalist. We also meet attorney Phillip Musegaas from Riverkeeper in New York who reveals what few people understand—the enormous damage the plant causes to the water that surrounds it. As nuclear disaster struck in Japan, Gregory Jaczko, then Chairman of the NRC, was shaken by the news. INDIAN POINT follows Jaczko to Fukushima as he attempts to understand the tragedy no one in his field thought possible. The debate at the center of INDIAN POINT is more timely now than ever. In February of 2016, news broke that the groundwater below Indian Point had been contaminated with radioactive material, prompting a state investigation. Filmmaker Ivy Meeropol had unprecedented access to the plant at the center of the most contentious relicensing process in the history of the industry. In the brewing fight for clean energy,INDIAN POINT presents a nuanced argument about the issues surrounding nuclear energy and offers a startling reality check for our uncertain nuclear future. Filmmaker Biography Ivy Meeropol is a producer and director of an array of acclaimed documentary feature films and television series. Meeropol recently directed and produced an episode for CNN’s docuseries Death Row Stories, Executive Produced by Alex Gibney and Robert Redford. Her documentary series The Hill premiered on The Sundance Channel in 2006 and received an IDA nomination for best series. In 2007, Meeropol directed the feature documentary All About Abe and in 2003, she produced and directed Heir to An Execution, which had its world premiere at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award®. She is currently directing and producing for an Emmy® award-winning climate change documentary series on the National Geographic channel. INDIAN POINT |
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“See it if you want to lose sleep.” – Vulture “Must-see.” – New York Post “An effective case study in the long debate over nuclear energy.” “A cautionary tale about a technology once seen as an abundant and non-polluting energy source, but with downsides that could make oil spills and electrical brownouts seem as minor as a fender bender.” “Nuclear power is incredibly efficient… but highly dangerous if anything goes awry. That looming threat of danger pushes at the edges of the film, threatening rupture like a nuclear reactor. Someone needs to ask questions; here they are.” |
Presents
THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE
A Film by David Ruehm
Opening in New York and Los Angeles June 10th
How long do you have to be a couple in order to know everything about the other person? A few months? A few years? Does your lover leave their socks on the bedroom floor instead of putting them in the hamper? Do they slurp their soup, even in public. Is their neediness just too much to bear sometimes? How long is too long to have to endure these annoying habits? In the new festival favorite finally coming to theaters, THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE, 500 years is enough.
Running Time: 87 minutes
Vienna, 1932. Count von Közsnöm (Tobias Moretti) has lost his thirst for life, and his eternally long marriage to Countess Gräfin Elsa von Közsnöm (Jeanette Hain) cooled centuries ago. Fortunately, Sigmund Freud (Karl Fischer), with his innovative new approach to solving life’s existential problems, is accepting new patients. During their strictly nocturnal sessions, the good doctor suggests the Count appease his vain wife, desperate to see her own reflection, by commissioning a portrait of her by his assistant, Viktor (Dominic Oley), an aspiring painter. But it’s Viktor’s headstrong girlfriend Lucy (Cornelia Ivancan) who most intrigues the Count, convinced she’s the reincarnation of his one true love. Soon, the whole crowd is a hilarious mess of mistaken identities and misplaced affections in this send -up of the vampire genre, proving once and for all that 500 years of marriage is enough.
Writer/Director David Ruehm‘s script could not be funnier. The dialogue is filled to the brim with clever double entendre. Using Freud as a go-between was a massively ingenious choice, using his dream analysis and general beliefs as a backdrop for a film that is, in all accounts, about relationships and their deeper meaning. The story is a fantastical cat and mouse game, centered around longing, jealousy, boredom, and vanity. There is not a loose end when it comes to performances. For a brief moment, I tried to imagine an American version of this film and could not think of any other actors that would have done the roles justice. Tobias Moretti, as the Count, might very well be an actual vampire for all I know. His natural comic timing is a pure delight to watch. Jeanette Hain, as the Countess, is seductive and a sheer wonder to behold on-screen. Cornelia Ivancan, as Lucy, is effortless in her 1930’s ingenue look and quirkiness. Dominic Oley‘s portrayal of Viktor is dashing and adorable all in one, as a man who idolizes his restless lover. Karl Fischer, as Dr. Freud, is genuinely funny and endearing. The cast’s chemistry is immaculate from end to end. 
The cinematography from Austria’s preeminent DP Martin Gschlacht (Goodnight Mommy, Oscar-nominated Revanch
Official Website: www.musicboxfilms.
Starring Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella, Callum Keith Rennie, Michael Eklund and Wendy Crewson, INTO THE FOREST follows the story of two sisters (Page and Wood) who struggle to survive in a remote country house after a continent-wide power outage.
The film will be available exclusively on DirecTV June 23, and opens in theaters July 29!
Daniel Radcliffe’s Boner Compass Helps Paul Dano Find His Way Home in Official Red Band Trailer for SWISS ARMY MAN
Opening Theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on June 24th and Nationwide on July 1st
Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) discovers he is descended from a mysterious secret society, the Assassins, and amasses incredible knowledge and skills to take on the oppressive and powerful Templar organization. Watch the trailer now to get your first look at all the action!
ASSASSIN’S CREED hits theaters everywhere on December 21, 2016!
THE NEON DEMON will have its world premiere in the Official Competition of the 69th Cannes Film Festival
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Written by Nicolas Winding Refn, Mary Laws and Polly Stenham
Starring Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Elle Fannning, Abbey Lee, Bella Heathcote, Desmond Harrington and Karl Glusman
When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.
Amazon Studios and Broad Green Pictures will release THE NEON DEMON in theaters June 24, 2016
Disney’s “Queen of Katwe,” the vibrant true story of a young girl from the streets of rural Uganda whose world rapidly changes when she is introduced to the game of chess. The powerful film, which stars David Oyelowo, Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o and newcomer Madina Nalwanga and is directed by Mira Nair, will be released in U.S. theaters this September.
With CAFÉ SOCIETY, Woody Allen conjures up a 1930s world that has passed to tell a deeply romantic tale of dreams that never die.
CAFÉ SOCIETY will have its world premiere on opening night of the 69th Cannes Film Festival
Amazon Studios & Lionsgate will release CAFÉ SOCIETY on July 15, 2016
Directed by Ira Sachs (LOVE IS STRANGE, KEEP THE LIGHTS ON, FORTY SHADES OF BLUE) with his trademark humanism and insight, LITTLE MEN highlights the New York City landscape with a story of life-defining friendships in the midst of familial turmoil.
A blockbuster in its native Korea, where it would go on to become the country’s biggest independent film of all time, MY LOVE, DON’T CROSS THAT RIVER presents an unforgettable story of true love that transcends both generations and cultures.
OPENING THEATRICALLY:
New York on Friday, June 17 and Los Angeles on Friday, June 24 with a national release to follow
NYC Theaters: Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and Angelika Film Center
LA Theater: The Royal
IT’S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES is based on Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan’s New York Times best-selling memoir. The film chronicles Duff’s rise to fame, his near fatal struggles with addiction, and his transformation into the person he is today.
The doc also features exclusive archival footage and interviews from Duff’s closest friends including fellow GNR band member Slash, PEARL JAM guitarist Mike McCready, and MOTLEY CRUE bassist Nikki Sixx.
IN THEATERS: June 3, 2016
Michael Fassbender stars as Tom Sherbourne and Alicia Vikander as his wife Isabel in DreamWorks Pictures poignant drama THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the acclaimed novel by M.L. Stedman.
“The Light Between Oceans,” a heart-breaking drama about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths to which one couple will go to see their dreams realized. The film, which is based on the best-selling novel by M.L. Stedman and stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson and is written for the screen and directed by Derek Cianfrance, opens wide September 2.
CAFÉ SOCIETY will have its world premiere on opening night of the 69th Cannes Film Festival
Amazon Studios & Lionsgate will release CAFÉ SOCIETY on July 15, 2016
Directed and Written by Woody Allen
Starring Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, and Ken Stott
Produced by Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, and Edward Walson
Set in the 1930s, Woody Allen’s bittersweet romance CAFÉ SOCIETY follows Bronx-born Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) to Hollywood, where he falls in love, and back to New York, where he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.
Centering on events in the lives of Bobby’s colorful Bronx family, the film is a glittering valentine to the movie stars, socialites, playboys, debutantes, politicians, and gangsters who epitomized the excitement and glamour of the age.
Bobby’s family features his relentlessly bickering parents Rose (Jeannie Berlin) and Marty (Ken Stott), his casually amoral gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll); his good-hearted teacher sister Evelyn (Sari Lennick), and her egghead husband Leonard (Stephen Kunken). For the hooligan Ben, there are no questions that can’t be answered with brute force, but the others are more likely to ponder deeper matters, like right and wrong, life and death, and the commercial viability of religion.
Seeking more out of life, Bobby flees his father’s jewelry store for Hollywood, where he works for his high-powered agent uncle Phil (Steve Carell). He soon falls for Phil’s charming assistant Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), but as she’s involved with another man, he settles for friendship. Bobby also befriends Rad (Parker Posey), a model agency owner, and her husband Steve (Paul Schneider), a wealthy producer.
When Vonnie’s boyfriend breaks up with her, Bobby seizes the opportunity to romance her, and she ultimately returns his affections. When he asks her to marry him and move to New York, she is tempted, but things do not go as smoothly as planned.
Heartbroken, Bobby returns to New York, where he begins working for Ben, who has muscled his way into owning a nightclub. Bobby displays natural talents as an impresario and swiftly promotes the club into the hottest in town, renaming it “Les Tropiques.” Rad introduces him to the beautiful socialite Veronica (Blake Lively) and he courts her assiduously. Although he is still carrying a torch for Vonnie, when Veronica reveals she’s pregnant, they marry and begin a genuinely happy life together.
Everything seems to have fallen into place for Bobby until the night Vonnie walks into “Les Tropiques.”
Poignant, and often hilarious, CAFÉ SOCIETY, a film with a novel’s sweep, takes us on a journey from pastel-clad dealmakers in plush Hollywood mansions, to the quarrels and tribulations of a humble Bronx family, to the rough-and-tumble violence of New York gangsters, to the sparkling surfaces and secret scandals of Manhattan high life.
With CAFÉ SOCIETY, Woody Allen conjures up a 1930s world that has passed to tell a deeply romantic tale of dreams that never die.
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NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 20: (L-R) Actor Robert De Niro, director Alfonso Cuaron and director, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki attend Tribeca Talks Directors Series: Alfonso Cuaron at SVA Theatre 1 on April 20, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)
Thanks to the wonderful world of technology, all the talks from this year’s festival are now available to watch online! Two especially good ones are below. Enjoy!
Here’s the entire playlist below. Click on the little icon in the top left to scroll through which you want to watch!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGBMDhlSJgiMIyOOuMJK5D1Rsk7tT_ZR
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