New York Film Festival 2020 - what's going to happen?

[Chris Knipp]

New expanded NYFF dates: September 17–October 11.

An interview with a Film at Licoln Center longtme member offers these odd streaming picks:

Streaming Picks
Member Spotlight: Stuart Fischer

What is the last film you watched and where was it streaming?
The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone., available on iTunes.

What is the best film you've watched so far and where was it streaming?
New Jack City, also on iTunes.

What's a film you love that you were able to revisit recently?
The Warriors (a masterpiece).

What is your fondest Film at Lincoln Center memory?
Sitting right behind François Truffaut at The Wild Child when he took a bow at the end and getting his autograph.

Why did you become a member of the organization?
I joined about 25 years ago. My first movie with FLC was Heat with Joe Dallesandro. NYFF is the most exciting event of the year, and after The Irishman and Parasite (NYFF57), it’s never been better.

Really, NEW JACK CITY? HEAT? Didn't anybody notice they asked him "Why?" and he answered "When?"?

[Chris Knipp]

LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen 2020)

New York Film Festival's unique hybrid pandemic Virtual/drive-in 2020 version's Opening Night Film is a 68 minute mostly dance party event from "Small Aze," a 5-pert anthology TV series for BBC for Steve McQueen and the NYFF's Opening Night Film. The most sexy and intense dance party ever staged and watched. Ugh! then Wow! Can't hate Steve McQueen any more after this.

[Chris Knipp]

MALMKROG (Cristi Puiu 2020)

Five Russian aristocrats in a splendid mansion in Transylvania in 1900 discuss philosophy and religion in stilted French from before lunch through dinner, 200 minutes of our time. He who spearheaded the Romanian New Wave with his THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU (2005) (reviewed at my first NYFF) has now made a sterile exercise. It's exquisitely crafted and acted with great discipline and stamina, but for what?

[Chris Knipp]

GUNDA (Victor Kossakovsky (2020)

From Norway, with additional footage from Spain and Britain. this is a wordless portrait in gorgeous black and white of a large sow who has just given birth to a brood of piglets; plus some fascinatingly tentative chickens; and some curious cattle. But mainly the sow and the piglets. I don't understand barnyard animals. But this becomes a striking festival art film about animals with a message Joaquin Phoenix, the world's most famous vegan, could get behind, since he's the executive producer. . After five films, this is my favorite so far.

[Chris Knipp]

THE CALMING 平静 (Song Fang 2020)

A Chinese woman documentary filmmaker (Qi Xi) has broken up with her boyfriend. This film follows her as she quietly copes, and perhaps learns to appreciate being alone, while visiting Japan, admiring the snow in Niigata, returning home, spending time with friends, and takes comfort in a beautiful aria from Handel. A poetic, meditational sophomore film by the director whose first one, Memories Look at Me, was reviewed on Filmleaf as part of the 2012 NYFF.

[Chris Knipp]

TIME (Garrett Bradley 2020)

A woman waits eighteen years for her husband to get out of prison. Striking amalgam of home footage and doc. This becomes a cry against institutional racism and mass incarceration couched in movingly intimate terms.

[Chris Knipp]

FAUNA (Nicolás Pereda 2020)

From the Currents series (not Main Slate), an avant-garde Mexican filmmaker. This 70-minuter feature plays with narrative, absurdity, acting, disguise, Narcos, and family interactions in a poor little mining town. Unique.