{"id":10622,"date":"2018-08-09T11:25:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T15:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/?p=10622"},"modified":"2020-05-22T11:28:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T15:28:29","slug":"56thnyfilmfestival-main-slate-greggwmorris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/56thnyfilmfestival-main-slate-greggwmorris\/","title":{"rendered":"Main Slate Selections for This Year’s New York Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gregg W. Morris<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty features include new films from Olivier Assayas, Bi Gan, Richard Billingham, Joel & Ethan Coen, Paul Dano, Claire Denis, Louis Garrel, Jean-Luc Godard, Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi, Hong Sangsoo, Christophe Honor\u00e9, Barry Jenkins, Tamara Jenkins, Jia Zhangke, Ulrich K\u00f6hler, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lee Chang-dong, Mariano Llin\u00e1s, Jafar Panahi, Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski, Alex Ross Perry, Christian Petzold, Alice Rohrwacher, Dominga Sotomayor, Frederick Wiseman, and Ying Liang<\/h3>\n

\u201cFrancis Ford Coppola said that the cinema would become a real art form only when the tools of moviemaking became as inexpensive as paints, brushes, and canvases,” says NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent. “That has come to pass, but at the same time it\u2019s become increasingly tough to do serious work that is beholden to nothing but the filmmaker\u2019s need to express these <\/i>emotions in this <\/i>form in moving images and sound.”<\/p>\n

“So if I were pressed to choose one word to describe the films in this year\u2019s Main Slate, it would be: bravery. These films were made all over the globe by young filmmakers like Dominga Sotomayor and masters like Fred Wiseman, by artists of vastly different sensibilities from Claire Denis to the Coen Brothers, Jafar Panahi to Jean-Luc Godard. And the unifying thread is their bravery, the bravery needed to fight past the urge to commercialized smoothness and mediocrity that is always assuming new forms. That\u2019s what makes every single title in this year\u2019s Main Slate so precious, and so vital.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Main Slate showcases films from 22 different countries, including new titles from celebrated auteurs, extraordinary work from directors making their first NYFF bows, and captivating features that wowed audiences at international festivals. Five films in the festival were honored at Cannes, including Hirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s Palme d\u2019Or\u2013winner Shoplifters<\/i>; Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s The Image Book<\/i>, awarded a Special Palme d\u2019Or; Cold War, <\/i>which took home the Best Director prize for Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski; <\/i>and Alice Rohrwacher\u2019s Happy as Lazzaro<\/i> and Jafar Panahi\u2019s 3 Faces<\/i>, which shared the Best Screenplay award.<\/p>\n

Returning to the festival for the third consecutive year is Hong Sangsoo with two new films. He is joined by fellow NYFF54 filmmakers Olivier Assayas and Barry Jenkins. Frederick Wiseman makes his tenth appearance at the festival. Other returning filmmakers include Joel & Ethan Coen, Alex Ross Perry, Claire Denis, Ulrich K\u00f6hler, Lee Chang-dong, Jia Zhangke, and Christian Petzold. Making both their directorial and NYFF debuts are Paul Dano and Richard Billingham, and Louis Garrel makes his first NYFF showing as a director.<\/p>\n

Other filmmakers new to the festival include Dominga Sotomayor, Christophe Honor\u00e9, Tamara Jenkins, Mariano Llin\u00e1s, and Ying Liang, as well as Bi Gan and Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi, both alumni of New Directors\/New Films 2016.<\/p>\n

As previously announced, the NYFF56 Opening Night is Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019s The Favourite<\/i>, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s ROMA<\/i> is Centerpiece, and Julian Schnabel\u2019s At Eternity\u2019s Gate <\/i>will close the festival.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

The 56th New York Film Festival Main Slate<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Opening Night<\/strong>
\nThe Favourite
\nDir. Yorgos Lanthimos<\/h3>\n

Centerpiece<\/strong>
\nROMA
\nDir. Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n<\/h3>\n

Closing Night<\/strong>
\nAt Eternity\u2019s Gate
\nDir. Julian Schnabel<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

3 Faces
\nDir. Jafar Panahi<\/p>\n

Asako I & II
\nDir. Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi<\/p>\n

Ash Is Purest White
\nDir. Jia Zhangke<\/p>\n

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
\nDir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen<\/p>\n

Burning
\nDir. Lee Chang-dong<\/p>\n

Cold War
\nDir. Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski<\/p>\n

A Faithful Man \/ L\u2019Homme fid\u00e8le
\nDir. Louis Garrel<\/p>\n

A Family Tour
\nDir. Ying Liang<\/p>\n

La Flor
\nDir. Mariano Llin\u00e1s<\/p>\n

Grass
\nDir. Hong Sangsoo<\/p>\n

Happy as Lazzaro \/ Lazzaro felice
\nDir. Alice Rohrwacher<\/p>\n

Her Smell
\nDir. Alex Ross Perry<\/p>\n

High Life
\nDir. Claire Denis<\/p>\n

Hotel by the River
\nDir. Hong Sangsoo<\/p>\n

If Beale Street Could Talk
\nDir. Barry Jenkins<\/p>\n

The Image Book \/ Le Livre d\u2019image
\nDir. Jean-Luc Godard<\/p>\n

In My Room
\nDir. Ulrich K\u00f6hler<\/p>\n

Long Day\u2019s Journey Into Night
\nDir. Bi Gan<\/p>\n

Monrovia, Indiana
\nDir. Frederick Wiseman<\/p>\n

Non-Fiction \/ Doubles vies
\nDir. Olivier Assayas<\/p>\n

Private Life
\nDir. Tamara Jenkins<\/p>\n

RAY & LIZ
\nDir. Richard Billingham<\/p>\n

Shoplifters
\nDir. Hirokazu Kore-eda<\/p>\n

Sorry Angel
\nDir. Christophe Honor\u00e9<\/p>\n

Too Late to Die Young
\nDir. Dominga Sotomayor<\/p>\n

Transit
\nDir. Christian Petzold<\/p>\n

Wildlife
\nDir. Paul Dano<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

NYFF Special Events, Spotlight on Documentary, Retrospective, Revivals, Convergence, Shorts, and Projections sections, as well as filmmaker conversations and panels, will be announced in the coming weeks. 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, and Florence Almozini, FSLC Associate Director of Programming.<\/p>\n

Tickets for the 56th New York Film Festival will go on sale to the general public on September 9. Festival and VIP passes are on sale now and offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival\u2019s biggest events, including Opening and Closing Night. Learn more at filmlinc.org\/NYFF56Passes. Press and industry accreditation for NYFF56 is open now and closes August 13th; apply at filmlinc.org\/press.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

56th NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL Films & Descriptions<\/h3>\n

Opening Night<\/strong>
\nThe Favourite
\nDir. Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland\/UK\/USA, 2018, 121m
\nIn Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019s wildly intricate and very darkly funny new film, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and her servant Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) engage in a sexually charged fight to the death for the body and soul of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession. This trio of truly brilliant performances is the dynamo that powers Lanthimos\u2019s top-to-bottom reimagining of the costume epic, in which the visual pageantry of court life in 18th-century England becomes not just a lushly appointed backdrop but an ironically heightened counterpoint to the primal conflict unreeling behind closed doors. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release.<\/p>\n

Centerpiece<\/strong>
\nROMA
\nDir. Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, Mexico\/USA, 2018, 135m
\nIn Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s autobiographically inspired film, set in Mexico City in the early \u201970s, we are placed within the physical and emotional terrain of a middle-class family whose center is quietly and unassumingly held by its beloved live-in nanny and housekeeper (Yalitza Aparicio). The cast is uniformly magnificent, but the real star of ROMA is the world itself, fully present and vibrantly alive, from sudden life-changing events to the slightest shifts in mood and atmosphere. Cuar\u00f3n tells us an epic story of everyday life while also gently sweeping us into a vast cinematic experience, in which time and space breathe and majestically unfold. Shot in breathtaking black and white and featuring a sound design that represents something new in the medium, ROMA is a truly visionary work. A Netflix release.<\/p>\n

Closing Night<\/strong>
\nAt Eternity\u2019s Gate
\nDir. Julian Schnabel, USA\/France, 2018, 106m
\nNorth American Premiere
\nJulian Schnabel\u2019s ravishingly tactile and luminous new film takes a fresh look at the last days of Vincent van Gogh, and in the process revivifies our sense of the artist as a living, feeling human being. Schnabel; his co-writers Jean-Claude Carri\u00e8re and Louise Kugelberg, also the film’s editor; and cinematographer Beno\u00eet Delhomme strip everything down to essentials, fusing the sensual, the emotional, and the spiritual. And the pulsing heart of At Eternity\u2019s Gate is Willem Dafoe\u2019s shattering performance: his Vincent is at once lucid, mad, brilliant, helpless, defeated, and, finally, triumphant. With Oscar Isaac as Gauguin, Rupert Friend as Theo, Mathieu Amalric as Dr. Gachet, Emmanuelle Seigner as Madame Ginoux, and Mads Mikkelsen as The Priest. A CBS Films release.<\/p>\n

3 Faces
\nDir. Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2018, 100m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nIranian director Jafar Panahi\u2019s fourth completed feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking is one of his very best. Panahi begins with a smartphone video shot by a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei) who announces to the camera that her parents have forbidden her from realizing her dream of acting and then, by all appearances, takes her own life. The recipient of the video, Behnaz Jafari, as herself, asks Panahi, as himself, to drive her to the woman\u2019s tiny home village near the Turkish border to investigate. From there, 3 Faces builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy to put forth a grand expression of community and solidarity under the eye of oppression.<\/p>\n

Asako I & II<\/span>
\nDir. Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi, Japan\/France, 2018, 119m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nA truly original Vertigo riff, based on a novel by Tomoka Shibasaki, Asako I & II is an enchanting, unnerving paean to the notion of love as a trance state. Asako (Erika Karata) and Baku (Masahiro Higashide) share an intense, all-consuming romance\u2014but one day the moody Baku ups and vanishes. Two years later, having moved from Osaka to Tokyo, Asako meets Baku\u2019s exact double. Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi, who gained plenty of attention for 2015\u2019s five-hour-plus Happy Hour, has returned with a beguiling and mysterious film that traces the trajectory of a love\u2014or, to be accurate, two loves\u2014found, lost, displaced, and regained. A Grasshopper Film release.<\/p>\n

Ash Is Purest White<\/span>
\nDir. Jia Zhangke, China, 2018, 142m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nJia Zhangke\u2019s extraordinary body of work has doubled as a record of 21st-century China and its warp-speed transformations. A tragicomedy in the fullest sense, Ash Is Purest White is at once his funniest and saddest film, portraying the passage of time through narrative ellipses and, like his Mountains May Depart (NYFF53), a three-part structure. Despite its jianghu\u2014criminal underworld\u2014setting, Ash is less a gangster movie than a melodrama, beginning by following Qiao and her mobster boyfriend Bin as they stake out their turf against rivals and upstarts in 2001 postindustrial Datong before expanding out into an epic narrative of how abstract forces shape individual lives. As the formidable, quick-witted Qiao, a never better Zhao Tao has fashioned a heroine for the ages. A Cohen Media Group release.<\/p>\n

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs<\/span>
\nDir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, USA, 2018, 128m
\nNorth American Premiere
\nHere\u2019s something new from the Coen Brothers\u2014an anthology of short films based on a fictional book of \u201cwestern tales,\u201d featuring Tim Blake Nelson as a murderous, white-hatted singing cowboy; James Franco as a bad luck bank-robber; Liam Neeson as the impresario of a traveling medicine show with increasingly diminishing returns; Tom Waits as a die-hard gold prospector; Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck as two shy people who almost come together on the wagon trail; and Tyne Daly, Saul Rubinek, Brendan Gleeson, Chelcie Ross, and Jonjo O\u2019Neill as a motley crew on a stagecoach to nowhere. Each story is distinct, but unified by the thematic thread of mortality. As a whole movie experience, Buster Scruggs is wildly entertaining, and, like all Coen films, endlessly surprising. An Annapurna Production and Netflix release.<\/p>\n

Burning<\/span>
\nDir. Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 2018, 148m
\nExpanded from Haruki Murakami\u2019s short story \u201cBarn Burning,\u201d the sixth feature from Korean master Lee Chang-dong, known best in the U.S. for such searing, emotional dramas as Secret Sunshine (NYFF45) and Poetry (NYFF48), begins by tracing a romantic triangle of sorts: Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in), an aspiring writer, becomes involved with a woman he knew from childhood, Haemi (Jun Jong-seo), who is about to embark on a trip to Africa. She returns some weeks later with a fellow Korean, the Gatsby-esque Ben (Steven Yeun), who has a mysterious source of income and a very unusual hobby. A tense, haunting multiple-character study, the film accumulates a series of unanswered questions and unspoken motivations to conjure a totalizing mood of uncertainty and quietly bends the contours of the thriller genre to brilliant effect. A Well Go USA release.<\/p>\n

Cold War<\/span>
\nDir. Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski, Poland, 2018, 90m
\nAcademy Award\u2013winner Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski follows up his box-office sensation Ida with this bittersweet, exquisitely crafted tale of an impossible love. Set between the late 1940s and early 1960s, Cold War is, as the title implies, a Soviet-era drama, but it stringently and inventively avoids the clich\u00e9s of many a classical-minded World War II art film, tracking the tempestuous love between pianist (Tomasz Kot) and singer (Joanna Kulig) as they navigate the realities of living in both Poland and Paris, in and outside of the Iron Curtain. Shot in crisp black-and-white and set to a bewitching jazzy score, Pawlikowski\u2019s evocative film consummately depicts an uncompromising passion caught up in the gears of history. An Amazon Studios release.<\/p>\n

A Faithful Man \/ L\u2019Homme fid\u00e8le<\/span>
\nDir. Louis Garrel, France, 2018, 75m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nNine years after she left him for his best friend, journalist Abel (Louis Garrel) gets back together with his recently widowed old flame Marianne (Laetitia Casta). It seems to be a beautiful new beginning, but soon the hapless Abel finds himself embroiled in all sorts of dramas: the come-ons of a wily jeune femme (Lily-Rose Depp), the machinations of Marianne\u2019s morbid young son, and some unsavory questions about what exactly happened to his girlfriend\u2019s first husband. Shifting points of view as nimbly as its players switch partners, the sophomore feature from actor\/director Louis Garrel\u2014co-written with the legendary Jean-Claude Carri\u00e8re\u2014is at once a beguiling bedroom farce and a slippery inquiry into truth, subjectivity, and the elusive nature of romantic attraction.<\/p>\n

A Family Tour<\/span>
\nDir. Ying Liang, Taiwan\/Hong Kong\/Singapore\/Malaysia, 2018, 107m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nSince his 2012 feature When Night Falls, a stinging critique of state power that the Chinese authorities attempted to suppress, the director Ying Liang has been forced to live in exile in Hong Kong. His return to feature filmmaking is a characteristically precise and powerful work, and, as inspired by his own precarious situation and based on a reunion with his in-laws, an autobiographical one. The film follows a Hong Kong\u2013exiled director (Gong Zhe) as she travels to a film festival in Taiwan with her husband and toddler, while her ailing mother (Nai An) vacations there separately with a tour group. To avoid attracting attention, the family shadows the tour\u2019s sightseeing itinerary, visiting each other during photo stops and mealtimes. An empathetic snapshot of a mother-daughter relationship, this brave, poised film is also a deeply moving testament to the inseparability of the personal and the political.<\/p>\n

La Flor<\/span>
\nDir. Mariano Llin\u00e1s, Argentina, 2018, 807m
\nNorth American Premiere
\nA decade in the making, Mariano Llin\u00e1s\u2019s follow-up to his 2008 cult classic Extraordinary Stories is an unrepeatable labor of love and madness that redefines the concept of binge viewing. The director himself appears at the start to preview the six disparate episodes that await, each starring the same four remarkable actresses: Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, and Laura Paredes. Overflowing with nested subplots and whiplash digressions, La Flor shape-shifts from a B-movie to a musical to a spy thriller to a category-defying metafiction\u2014all of them without endings\u2014to a remake of a very well-known French classic and, finally, to an enigmatic period piece that lacks a beginning (granted, all notions of beginnings and endings become fuzzy after 14 hours). An adventure in scale and duration, La Flor is a marvelously entertaining exploration of the possibilities of fiction that lands somewhere close to its outer limits.<\/p>\n

Grass<\/span>
\nDir. Hong Sangsoo, South Korea, 2018, 66m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nSitting in a caf\u00e9, typing on a laptop, Areum (Kim Min-hee) eavesdrops on three dramatic situations unfolding in her general vicinity: a young woman bound for Europe and a male friend who erupt in vitriolic accusations, a washed-up actor trying to sweet-talk his way into staying with an old friend, and a narcissistic actor-director (Jung Jin-young) trying to rope a young writer into his next project. Playing out largely in long-take two-shots, these conversations create a kind of never-ending theatrical performance, with Areum as the anchor. With its raw emotions and seeming formal simplicity masking a complex episodic approach, Grass finds Korean master Hong Sangsoo setting up a fascinating narrative problem for himself and solving it as only he can. A Cinema Guild release.<\/p>\n

Happy as Lazzaro \/ Lazzaro felice<\/span>
\nDir. Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, 2018, 128m
\nNorth American Premiere
\nIn the transfiguring and transfixing third feature from Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, NYFF52), we find ourselves amid a throng of tobacco farmers living in a state of extreme deprivation on an estate known as Inviolata, with wide-eyed teenager Lazzaro (nonprofessional discovery Adriano Tardiolo) emerging as a focal point. Although this all seems to be taking place in the past (as implied by the warm grain of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Louvart\u2019s 16mm cinematography), a stunning mid-movie leap vaults the narrative squarely into the present day and into the realm of parable. In a fable touching on perennial class struggle with Christian overtones, Rohrwacher summons the spirit of Pasolini, while also nodding to Ermanno Olmi and Visconti. A Netflix release.<\/p>\n

Her Smell<\/span>
\nDir. Alex Ross Perry, USA, 2018, 134m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nThe latest from Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip, NYFF52) traces the psychology of an unforgettable woman under the influence. Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss, in a powerhouse performance), the influential lead singer of a popular \u201990s alt-rock outfit, struggles with her demons as friends, family, and bandmates alike behold her unraveling through a prism of horror, empathy, and resentment. Perry tracks Becky\u2019s self-destruction\u2014and potential creative redemption\u2014through snaking long takes (arguably some of DP Sean Price Williams\u2019s finest work) in claustrophobic backstage hallways, garishly lit dressing rooms, and recording studios, and the film\u2019s ensemble cast (including Cara Delevingne, Ashley Benson, Amber Heard, Virginia Madsen, Dan Stevens, and Eric Stoltz) is impeccable in support of Moss\u2019s rattling trip to the brink.<\/p>\n

High Life<\/span>
\nDir. Claire Denis, Germany\/France\/USA\/UK\/Poland, 2018, 110m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nClaire Denis\u2019s latest film is set aboard a spacecraft piloted by death row prisoners on a decades-long suicide mission to enter and harness the power of a black hole. But as is always the case with this filmmaker, the actual structure seems to evolve organically through moods and uncanny spells, and the closest juxtapositions of violence and intimacy. High Life features some of the most unsettling passages Denis has ever filmed, as well as moments of the greatest delicacy and tenderness. With Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Andr\u00e9 Benjamin, and Mia Goth.<\/p>\n

Hotel by the River<\/span>
\nDir. Hong Sangsoo, South Korea, 2018, 96m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nTwo tales intersect at a riverside hotel: an elderly poet (Ki Joo-bong), invited to stay there for free by the owner, summons his two estranged sons, sensing his life drawing to a close; and a young woman (Kim Min-hee) nursing a recently broken heart is visited by a friend who tries to console her. At times these threads overlap, at others they run tantalizingly close to each other. Using a stark black-and-white palette and handheld cinematography (with frequent DP Kim Hyung-ku), Hong crafts an affecting examination of family, mortality, and the ways in which we attempt to heal wounds old and fresh.<\/p>\n

If Beale Street Could Talk<\/span>
\nDir. Barry Jenkins, USA, 2018
\nU.S. Premiere
\nBarry Jenkins\u2019s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight is a carefully wrought adaptation of James Baldwin\u2019s penultimate novel, set in Harlem in the early 1970s. Fonny (Stephan James) and Tish (KiKi Layne) are childhood friends who fall in love as young adults. Tish becomes pregnant, and Fonny suffers a fate tragically common to young African-American men: he is arrested and convicted for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. Jenkins\u2019s deeply soulful film stays focused on the emotional currents between parents and children, couples and friends, all of whom spend their lives repairing and reinforcing the precious but fraying bonds of family and community in an unforgiving racist world. With Regina King, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Aunjanue Ellis, and Michael Beach. An Annapurna Pictures release.<\/p>\n

The Image Book \/ Le Livre d\u2019image<\/span>
\nDir. Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland, 2018, 90m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nJean-Luc Godard\u2019s \u201clate period\u201d probably began with 2001\u2019s In Praise of Love, and since then he has been formulating and enacting a path toward an ending: the ending of individual films, the ending of engagement with cinema, and, now that he\u2019s 87, the possible ending of his own existence. With The Image Book all barriers between the artist, his art, and his audience have dissolved. The film is structured in chapters and predominantly comprised of pre-existing images, many of which will be familiar from Godard\u2019s previous work. The relationship between image and sound is, as always, intensely physical and sometimes jaw-dropping. And\u2026isn\u2019t it enough to say, simply, that this is the work of a master? And that you have to see it? A Kino Lorber release.<\/p>\n

In My Room<\/span>
\nDir. Ulrich K\u00f6hler, Germany, 2018, 119m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nThe fourth feature from German director Ulrich K\u00f6hler (Sleeping Sickness, NYFF49) takes a disarmingly realistic and restrained approach to a fantastical premise: the eternally popular fantasy of the last man on earth. Sad-sack, 40ish TV cameraman Armin (Hans L\u00f6w) has been summoned home by his father to help tend to his terminally ill grandmother, but awakens one morning to find the world around him entirely depopulated. Eventually, the film introduces a fellow survivor, an Eve (Elena Radonicich) to complicate the apparent contentment of its Adam. In My Room is a film of meticulous details and sly, subtle ironies, crafted by the skills, temperament, and philosophical inquiry of an emerging master. A Grasshopper Film release.<\/p>\n

Long Day\u2019s Journey Into Night<\/span>
\nDir. Bi Gan, China\/France, 2018, 133m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nAs proven by his knockout debut, Kaili Blues, Bi Gan is preoccupied with film\u2019s potential to both materialize mental space and convey physical sensation. His cinematic ambitions are further crystallized, to say the least, in Long Day\u2019s Journey Into Night, a noir-tinged film about a solitary man (Huang Jue) haunted by loss and regret, told in two parts: the first an achronological mosaic, the second a nocturnal dream. Again centering around his native province of Guizhou in southwest China, the director has created a film like nothing you\u2019ve seen before, especially in the second half\u2019s hour-long, gravity-defying 3D sequence shot, which plunges its protagonist\u2014and us\u2014through a labyrinthine cityscape.<\/p>\n

Monrovia, Indiana<\/span>
\nDir. Frederick Wiseman, USA, 2018, 143m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nEvery new film from Frederick Wiseman, now 88 years old, seems more vigorous and acute than the last. His subject here is Monrovia, Indiana; population 1063, as of 2017; located deep in the American heartland. Wiseman alights on key activities: talk among friends over coffee at the diner, packaging meat at the supermarket, trucks loading with corn, expansion debates at town planning commission meetings, and, most intriguingly, a funeral. Monrovia, Indiana is a tough, piercing look at the rhythm and texture of life as it is lived in a wide swathe of this country. A Zipporah Films release.<\/p>\n

Non-Fiction \/ Doubles vies<\/span>
\nDir. Olivier Assayas, France, 2018, 106m
\nSet within the world of publishing, Olivier Assayas\u2019s new film finds two hopelessly intertwined couples\u2014Guillaume Canet\u2019s troubled book executive and Juliette Binoche\u2019s weary actress; Vincent Macaigne\u2019s boorish novelist and Nora Hamzawi\u2019s straight-and-balanced political operative\u2014obsessed with the state of things, and how (or when) it will (or might) change. Is print dying? Has blogging replaced writing? Is fiction over? But the divide between what these characters\u2014and their friends, and their enemies, and everyone in between\u2014talk about and what is actually happening between them, moment by moment, is what gives Non-Fiction its very particular charm, humor, and lifelike stabs of emotion. A Sundance Selects release.<\/p>\n

Private Life<\/span>
\nDir. Tamara Jenkins, USA, 2017, 123m
\nIn Tamara Jenkins\u2019s first film in ten years, Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti are achingly real as Rachel and Richard, a middle-aged New York couple caught in the desperation, frustration, and exhaustion of trying to have a child, whether by fertility treatments or adoption or surrogate motherhood. They find a willing partner in Sadie (the formidable Kayli Carter), Richard\u2019s niece by marriage, who happily agrees to donate her eggs, and the three of them build their own little outcast family in the process. Private Life is a wonder, by turns hilarious and harrowing (sometimes at once), and a very carefully observed portrait of middle-class Bohemian Manhattanites. With John Carroll Lynch and Molly Shannon. A Netflix release.<\/p>\n

RAY & LIZ<\/span>
\nDir. Richard Billingham, UK, 2018, 107m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nEnglish photographer and visual artist Richard Billingham\u2019s first feature is grounded in the visual and emotional textures of his family portraits, particularly those of his deeply dysfunctional parents, whose names give the film its title. Billingham builds astonishing and unflinching scenes with his principal actors\u2014Ella Smith as Liz, Justin Salinger as Ray, Patrick Romer as the older Ray, Tony Way and Sam Gittins as neighbors, and Joshua Millard-Lloyd as the youngest child\u2014that play out second by second as if by some new form of direct transmission from the artist\u2019s memory bank. There is not a single second of this electrifying debut that doesn\u2019t feel 100% rooted in personal experience.<\/p>\n

Shoplifters<\/span>
\nDir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2018, 121m
\nHirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s Cannes Palme d\u2019Or winner is a heartrending glimpse into an often invisible segment of Japanese society: those struggling to stay afloat in the face of crushing poverty. On the the margins of Tokyo, a most unusual \u201cfamily\u201d\u2014a collection of societal castoffs united by their shared outsiderhood and fierce loyalty to one another\u2014survives by petty stealing and grifting. When they welcome into their fold a young girl who\u2019s been abused by her parents, they risk exposing themselves to the authorities and upending their tenuous, below-the-radar existence. The director\u2019s latest masterful, richly observed human drama makes the quietly radical case that it is love\u2014not blood\u2014that defines a family. A Magnolia Pictures release.<\/p>\n

Sorry Angel<\/span>
\nDir. Christophe Honor\u00e9, France, 2018, 132m
\nNorth American Premiere
\nThe ever-unpredictable Christophe Honor\u00e9 (Love Songs) returns with perhaps his most personal, emotionally rich work yet. At once an intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of gay life in early 1990s France, Sorry Angel follows the intertwining journeys of Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps), a worldly, HIV-positive Parisian writer confronting his own mortality, and Arthur (Vincent Lacoste), a curious, carefree university student just beginning to live. Brought together by chance, the men find themselves navigating a casual fling that gradually deepens into a tender, transformative bond. Graced with vivid, complex characters and inspired flights of cinematic imagination, this is a vibrant, life-affirming celebration of love, friendship, and human connection. Released by Strand Releasing.<\/p>\n

Too Late to Die Young<\/span>
\nDir. Dominga Sotomayor, Chile\/Brazil\/Argentina\/Netherlands\/Qatar, 2018, 110m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nThe year 1990 was when Chile transitioned to democracy, but all of that seems a world away for 16-year-old Sofia, who lives far off the grid in a mountain enclave of artists and bohemians. Too Late to Die Young takes place during the hot, languorous days between Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day, when the troubling realities of the adult world\u2014and the elemental forces of nature\u2014begin to intrude on her teenage idyll. Shot in dreamily diaphanous, sun-splashed images and set to period-perfect pop, the second feature from one of Latin American cinema\u2019s most artful and distinctive voices is at once nostalgic and piercing, a portrait of a young woman\u2014and a country\u2014on the cusp of exhilarating and terrifying change.<\/p>\n

Transit<\/span>
\nDir. Christian Petzold, Germany\/France, 2018, 101m
\nU.S. Premiere
\nIn Christian Petzold\u2019s brilliant and haunting adaptation of German novelist Anna Seghers\u2019s 1942 book Transit Visa, a hollowed-out European refugee (Franz Rogowski), who has escaped from two concentration camps, arrives in Marseille assuming the identity of a dead novelist whose papers he is carrying. There he enters the arid, threadbare world of the refugee community, and becomes enmeshed in the lives of a desperate young mother and son, and a mysterious woman named Marie (Paula Beer). Transit is a film told in two tenses: 1940 and right now, historic past and immediate present, like two translucent panes held up to the light and mysteriously contrasting and blending.<\/p>\n

Wildlife<\/span>
\nDir. Paul Dano, USA, 2018, 104m
\nIn the impressive directorial debut from actor Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), a carefully wrought adaptation of Richard Ford\u2019s 1990 novel, a family comes apart one loosely stitched seam at a time. We are in the lonely expanses of the American west in the mid-\u201960s. An affable man (Jake Gyllenhaal), down on his luck, runs off to fight the wildfires raging in the mountains. His wife (Carey Mulligan) strikes out blindly in search of security and finds herself running amok. It is left to their young adolescent son Joe (Ed Oxenbould) to hold the center. Co-written by Zoe Kazan, Wildlife is made with a sensitivity and at a level of craft that are increasingly rare in movies. An IFC Films release.<\/p>\n

Film Society of Lincoln Center<\/strong>
\nThe 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.\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Shutterstock, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of the Film Society of Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n

Support for the New York Film Festival is generously provided by Official Partners HBO\u00ae and The New York Times, Benefactor Partners Dolby and illy caff\u00e8, Supporting Partners Warby Parker, MUBI, and Manhattan Portage, and Hospitality Partner Hudson Hotel. JCDecaux, Variety, Deadline Hollywood, WABC-7, WNET New York Public Media, and The Village Voice serve as Media Sponsors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gregg W. Morris   Thirty features include new films from Olivier Assayas, Bi Gan, Richard Billingham, Joel & Ethan Coen, Paul Dano, Claire Denis, Louis Garrel, Jean-Luc Godard, Ry\u00fbsuke Hamaguchi, Hong Sangsoo, Christophe Honor\u00e9, Barry Jenkins, Tamara Jenkins, Jia…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[872,496,306],"class_list":["post-10622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","tag-56th-new-york-film-festival","tag-film-at-lincoln-center","tag-new-york-film-festivals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10622"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10654,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622\/revisions\/10654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}