New York Film Festival 2018 (forum)

[Chris Knipp]

What do you think of the Latin American choices in the Main Slate? I am just making a list of 15 I will see if I can''t see all of them but have to wangle passes or buy tickets at the festival as I did last year. There will be an emphasis on German, Polish, and Asian, it looks like.

[Chris Knipp]

Special events section announced.

Details here: click.
Highlights include Orson Welles’s long-awaited The Other Side of the Wind and Morgan Neville’s companion doc They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead; Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with a live score; and an expanded Film Comment Presents

Plus Main Slate selection Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk will have its U.S. Premiere at the historic Apollo Theater

Rex Ingram’s World War I epic The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), the breakout film for iconic silent actor Rudolph Valentino, will screen on a beautiful 35mm print from Martin Scorsese’s collection, accompanied by the North American premiere of a new live score written and performed by a five-piece orchestra led by Matthew Nolan.

The sixth annual Film Comment Presents selections are Ali Abbasi’s genre-friendly fantasy-drama Border, which won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard award, and The Wild Pear Tree, an intimate portrait of a promising but adrift young literary graduate from Turkish Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, NYFF49). In previous years, Film Comment has championed films such as Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature, Terence Davies’s A Quiet Passion, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, and László Nemes’s Son of Saul. The magazine will also host three live events: a roundtable discussion with a trio of NYFF filmmakers about their experiences as movie lovers and creators, a dialogue on representation in cinema, and a critical wrap report of the festival’s highs and lows. All three will also be recorded for the weekly Film Comment Podcast.

Finally, the New York Film Festival is pleased to announce that the U.S. premiere of Main Slate selection If Beale Street Could Talk will take place at the world famous Apollo Theater, the first time that the festival will present a screening at the historic theater. The film was largely shot in New York City, including many Harlem locations. In celebration of the vibrant community and their support of the film, Annapurna, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Apollo Theater will work together to present a host of outreach programs. Local students as well as Harlem residents will be among the first audiences invited to see the James Baldwin adaptation, in the neighborhood that is home to its characters. The film will also screen on the Lincoln Center campus during the festival.

Writer-director Barry Jenkins said, “It's been an honor working with the estate to bring this piece of James Baldwin's legacy to the screen. From the birthplace of Baldwin to the streets and homes within which we made this film, the honor is doubly felt in the NYFF’s generous offer to widen its borders for our U.S. premiere: up on 125th Street, in the community Jimmy forever knew as HOME.”

[oscar jubis]

What do you think of the Latin American choices in the Main Slate?

I wouldn't have a clue. I find out about new films from you.
The last contemporary film I watched was Downsizing. I've liked all 7 features directed by Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, Nebraska) and this one no less than the others.
I watched my two favorite films of 2017 for the third time. I think I understand them quite well now. They are The Death of Louis XIV and Mudbound.
Zama and Foxtrot are the 2018 fiction releases that seem most memorable to me as I write these lines. The documentary The King also made a big impression on me.

[Chris Knipp]

I asked you about the Latin American selections because they leave me sort of cold even though maybe I should be excited about the Cuarón. So I was hoping you'd be excited about them. But it's only three, isn't it? Dominga Sotomayor, Mariano Llinás, and Alfonso Cuarón, the first two from Chile and Argentina, respectively. I haven't heard anything about them. Thought maybe you would have.

A lot of the titles you may know about from my Cannes coverage. It's from Cannes that I was expecting the FSLC to include Garrone's Dogman, which sounds so interesting. Latin American is under-represented. The top titles seem to be Asian (top rated in reports and awards at Cannes). Two French titles I see as sort of FSLC "pets," Christophe Honoré and (his pet) Louis Garrel, plus everybody's pet, Claire Denis; maybe Assayas should be my pet;I've loved some of his films and some not.

Downsizing isn't up to his other work at all, really pretty much a misttep. I did not like The King for all its ambition, but Zama and Foxtrot are very cool, I quite agree. I already commented on Death of Louis XIV and Mudbound, the latter I didn't review because I couldn't get through it.

[oscar jubis]

Because of my interests in cinema are broad, contemporary international commercial films have to compete with other things. For example, at the moment I am exploring films by Chicagoan Bill Morrison other than his masterpiece Decasia which I saw at a festival in which I met Morrison and had a chance to talk with him extensively. His filmography has been released on BR in the UK and I have a copy of this voluminous volume.
I have also been paying attention to the (experimental) editing in 2 Dziga Vertov films: 3 Songs for Lenin and Enthusiasm. I am also still shocked by the anti-religiosity in his films. There's a segment in Kino Pravda about a Muslim girl being "liberated" by the revolution from having to cover her head. Enthusiasm begins with the removal of Christian icons from a church.
Latin American is ALWAYS under-represented at US festivals because there is scapegoating of Latinos and immigrants in general throughout the US. Generally speaking, American film festivals and academic institutions are Eurocentric. Miami is the exception. Even in NY and LA I feel like a second class citizen, so I will stay put.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm sure you're right. But as I said the balance for the top films in this year's NYFF arguably tips more toward Asian than Euro. And Cuaron's ROMA is the Centerpiece film, and Zama was one of the big films at last year's NYFF, shown in Alice Tully Hall with a big crowd. Lincoln Center also does have a new Latin American film series, Neighboring Scenes. I haven't seen it. It's a try anyway. https://www.filmlinc.org/daily/neigh...erican-cinema/
Some advantage has been lost since Richard Peña isn't Program Director anymore and Dennis Lim is program director. People notice a shift in taste. Peña was pals with Almodóvar and the Q&As with them were always a lot of fun.

[oscar jubis]

This is very interesting thanks. I depend on your writing more than ever. You certainly know more about contemporary Latin American cinema than I do. I love Ixcanul and Zama, which you've seen and reviewed. The most exciting and unique movie I've discovered recently is Hellzapoppin' (1941)

[Chris Knipp]

You certainly know more about contemporary Latin American cinema than I do.

Hard to believe; but I appreciate the compliment. The Neighboring Sounds FSLC Latin series is new and will need some time to get up to the level of the amazing NYAFF, which I've covered for two years, but has been in existence (not always at Lincoln Center but there now) for seventeen. They had over 50 films and I had access to most of them though I couldn't watch that many! But Latin American doesn't have film industries as well funded as those of China, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea I'm guessing, so that is an issue too. I have never seen Helzapoppin'. I am trying to selectively review the oeuvre of Woody Allen now. So far I've watched Match Point, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Bananas. So entertaining and original.

I'm not accredited for the NYFF anymore, but I still am going and hope to see as many as I can of the Main Slate.