Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way.

A hint of spring descends as the yearly celebration of French film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center takes shape. This year's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema will open March 6 with Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way (Elle s'en va) with star Catherine Deneuve in person and will close March 16 with Bertrand Tavernier's The French Minister (Quai d'Orsay). In all, the 19th Rendez-Vous, presented by Film Society and Unifrance, will showcase 24 features making their North American, U.S. or New York premieres.

This year's lineup includes new work from established filmmakers like Tavernier, Agnès Jaoui, Francois Ozon, and Jacques Doillon; critics’ favorites Serge Bozon, Michel Gondry, and the Larrieu brothers; and polymath talents, actor-turned-directors Emmanuelle Bercot, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Nicole Garcia. Notable this year, nearly half the films screening in Rendez-Vous with French Cinema are from women directors.

The 19th Rendez-Vous will also feature a raft of up-and-coming French voices in cinema, figures that have been anointed by critics as France's "next New Wave." Ruben Alves, Sébastien Betbeder, Guillaume Brac, Thierry de Peretti, Katell Quillévéré, Axelle Ropert, Justine Triet, and Rebecca Zlotowski explore contemporary issues ranging from race relations to class warfare. Thierry de Perretti’s Les Apaches made a splash at Cannes last year with its depiction of blunt adolescent sexuality among young delinquents in Corsica, prompting comparisons with Larry Clark. Also acclaimed at Cannes, Rebecca Zlotowski’s Grand Central explores a forbidden romance between young lovers (played by Tahar Rahim and Léa Seydoux), against the ominous backdrop of a nuclear power plant.

Filmmakers and talent who will be in attendance at this year’s festival include Sébastien Betbeder (2 Autumns, 3 Winters), Catherine Deneuve (On My Way), Jacques Doillon (Love Battles), Michel Gondry (Mood Indigo), Francois Ozon (Young and Beautiful), Axelle Ropert (Miss And the Doctors), Bertrand Tavernier (The French Minister) and Justine Triet (The Age of Panic).

"We’re delighted to be welcoming back such a distinguished roster of established names to Rendez-Vous with French Cinema," said Dennis Lim, the Film Society’s Director of Programming. "But we’re no less thrilled to be introducing audiences to an exciting young generation of directors and actors. The films of this latest French New Wave are notable for their freewheeling energy and immediacy and for their willingness to tackle head-on the complexities and contradictions of 21st-century France. More than a third of the films in our selection are first or second features. It’s also worth noting—as the original French New Wave was very much a boys’ club—that nearly half were directed by women."

Added Isabelle Giordano, executive producer of Unifrance Films: "We are very pleased to have Ms. Catherine Deneuve, one of the greatest French ambassadors, for the opening night. Among new titles, I’d like to draw your attention to three special themes: the vitality, renewal and richness of French creativity through a focus on first and second feature films; the spotlight on one of the French film industry specificities: films directed by women, and finally the exploration of the different ways of French and American story telling."

Tickets go on sale to Film Society of Lincoln Center, IFC Center, and BAM Cinema Club members on February 7. General Public tickets will be available starting February 14. Tickets can be purchased at each venue's corresponding website and box office.

Bertrand Tavernier's The French Minister.

19th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema films and descriptions:

OPENING NIGHT
ON MY WAY (ELLE S'EN VA)
Emmanuelle Bercot, France, 2014, 113m
In French with English subtitles
Catherine Deneuve plays against type and delivers a performance unlike any other in her legendary career as Bettie, a former Breton beauty queen turned bistro owner, in Emmanuelle Bercot’s fourth feature. When her mother (Claude Gensac) tells her that her married lover has ditched her for a 25-year-old beautician’s assistant, Bettie takes to the road with no particular destination in mind and eventually winds up at a dive bar named Le Ranch, where an evening of drunken revelry sets the stage for much tomfoolery to come. Bettie’s resentful daughter Muriel (French pop musician Camille) then asks her mother to chauffeur her son Charly (Nemo Schiffman) to his grandfather’s, and the pair sets out on a trip that will ultimately lead Bettie to revisit her past even as she travels further away from it. Nominated for two 2014 César Awards: Catherine Deneuve (Best Actress) and Nemo Schiffman (Most Promising Actor). A Cohen Media Group release.
Thursday, March 6, 7:30pm – PARIS; Friday, March 7, 6:45pm – BAM; Saturday, March 8, 7:00pm - IFC
In Person: Catherine Deneuve   

CLOSING NIGHT
THE FRENCH MINISTER (QUAI D’ORSAY)
Bertrand Tavernier, France, 2013, 113m
In French with English subtitles
The veteran auteur Bertrand Tavernier returns to Rendez-Vous with a sly, energetic film about the daily grind of diplomacy. Arthur (Raphaël Personnaz), a graduate of all the right schools, is the new speechwriter for the Minister of Foreign Affairs (a hilarious Thierry Lhermitte). While he tries to navigate internal politics, the various strong personalities around him (such as a ruthless policy advisor played by Julie Gayet), and the stress of finding the Minister’s “voice,” Arthur must also write a speech for the Minister that will hopefully put them both in the history books. Based on co-screenwriter Antonin Baudry’s own graphic novels about his experience working in the Foreign Ministry under former Foreign (and Prime) Minister Dominique de Villepin, The French Minister takes us for a breathless ride through the halls of French government. Nominated for three 2014 César Awards: Julie Gayet (Best Supporting Actress), Niels Arestrup (Best Supporting Actor), and Antonin Baudry, Christophe Blain and Bertrand Tavernier (Best Adapted Screenplay). A Sundance Selects release.
Sunday, March 16, 3:40pm, 9:00pm - WRT
In Person: Bertrand Tavernier

2 AUTUMNS, 3 WINTERS (2 AUTOMNES 3 HIVERS)
Sébastien Betbeder, France, 2013, 90m
In French with English subtitles
Director Sébastien Betbeder follows his acclaimed debut, Nights With Theodore, with an endearing, inventive romantic comedy, steeped in offbeat charm and an offhand cinephilia. Sad-sack Arman (Vincent Macaigne) first meets Amélie (Maud Wyler) when he bumps into her while jogging; his attempts at connecting with her fail one after the other, until circumstances grant him the opportunity to rescue her from would-be muggers. Thus begins the story of a relationship by turns breezy and momentous. Alongside his longtime friend from art school, Benjamin (Bastien Bouillon), Arman navigates life with his newfound love. Directly addressing the camera and in monologues that comment on their respective situations, these winning characters describe the trajectory of old-fashioned relationships in this millennial age. A Film Movement release.
Saturday, March 8, 4:00pm – WRT; Sunday, March 9, 5:30pm - IFC
In Person: Sébastien Betbeder

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
AGE OF PANIC (LA BATAILLE DE SOLFÉRINO)
Justine Triet, France, 2013, 90m
In French with English subtitles
During a time of great political change, a frazzled young mother tries to keep it together on the home front. Laetitia (Laetitia Dosch), a cable news reporter off to cover the 2012 French presidential elections, leaves her daughters in the care of a hapless babysitter (Marc-Antoine Vaugeois) with strict instructions to keep them away from Vincent (Vincent Macaigne), her ex-husband and their father. But Vincent, determined to see his kids, disrupts the already chaotic household by enlisting a neighbor to negotiate a divorce agreement with Laetitia – while she’s out reporting amid election crowds in front of Socialist Party headquarters. In her enormously promising first feature, a very funny comedy of discomfort infused with documentary-style energy, director Justine Triet pits micro social problems against the macro body politic of France, all within the frame of one manic day in Paris. Nominated for Best First Film in the 2014 César Awards.
Friday, March 7, 6:30pm – WRT; Saturday, March 8, 3:00pm – BAM; Sunday, March 9, 7:30pm – IFC; Monday, March 10, 1:00pm - WRT
In Person: Justine Triet

LES APACHES
Thierry de Peretti, France, 2013, 82m
In French with English subtitles
On the island of Corsica, a tension constantly simmers between the wealthy tourists and the lower-class locals. Aziz and his friends aren’t considering any of this when they break into an empty seaside house, looking for some illicit fun and a pool to lounge beside. But when the owners arrive for their vacation, there are dire consequences for the teenagers, who prove exceedingly easy to track down. Unbeknownst to Aziz, his pals also stole a pair of hunting rifles during the break-in, and might not be as loyal to him as he is to them. An atmospheric thriller simmering with adolescent sexuality, Les Apaches explores aspects of French culture that the mainstream cinema often ignores. The title refers to the slang term used by Paris police for juvenile delinquents, and the film, whose young characters are of Arab and Moroccan descent, narrows in on the subject of racial tension with considerable intelligence and nuance.
Monday, March 10, 12:00pm – EBM; Tuesday, March 11, 6:30pm – WRT; Wednesday, March 12, 7:00pm - IFC
In Person: Thierry de Peretti

François Ozon's Young and Beautiful.

A CASTLE IN ITALY (UN CHÂTEAU EN ITALIE)
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France, 2013, 104m
In English, French and Italian with English subtitles
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s semi-autobiographical third feature — her first film since the acclaimed Actresses (2007) — is as restless as the character she plays in it. The actress-director-screenwriter (she co-wrote the film with Noémie Lvovsky and Agnès de Sacy) crafts a sad, whimsical and tender portrait of a family whose glory days are over, and who must confront some ugly facts about their present reality: financial troubles, a younger brother dying of AIDS, a sprawling estate they can no longer maintain. Louise (Bruni Tedeschi) herself is approaching her mid 40s, and wants desperately to have a child and find enduring love. This boldly self-revealing, possibly cathartic work draws both directly and obliquely from Bruni Tedeschi’s real life: Louis Garrel, her former partner, plays Nathan, her young French lover; Nathan's father in the film is a renowned filmmaker who directs his son, as does Garrel’s father, Philippe; and Valeria’s own mother, pianist Marisa Borini, simply plays herself. Marisa Borini is nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2014 César Awards.
Monday, March 10, 6:00pm – IFC; Thursday, March 13, 9:00pm – WRT; Sunday, March 16, 6:30pm - WRT

EASTERN BOYS
Robin Campillo, France, 2013, 128m
In English, French and Russian with English subtitles
Arriving from all over the Eastern Bloc, the men who loiter around the Gare du Nord train station in Paris are scraping by however they can, forming gangs for support and protection, ever fearful of being caught by the police and deported. When the middle-aged, bourgeois Daniel (Olivier Rabourdin) approaches a boyishly handsome Ukrainian who calls himself Marek for a date, he learns the young man is willing to do anything for some cash. What Daniel intends only as sex-for-hire begets a home invasion and then an unexpectedly profound relationship. The drastically different circumstances of the two men’s lives reveal hidden facets of the city they share. Presented in four parts, this absorbing, continually surprising film by Robin Campillo (director of Les Revenants and a frequent collaborator of Laurent Cantet’s) is centered around relationships that defy easy categorization, in which motivations and desires are poorly understood even by those to whom they belong.
Tuesday, March 11, 9:00pm – WRT; Wednesday, March 12, 1:00pm – WRT; Wednesday, March 12, 9:00pm - IFC

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
THE GILDED CAGE (LA CAGE DORÉE)
Ruben Alves, France/Portugal, 2013, 95m
In French and Portuguese with English subtitles
José (Joaquim de Alameida) and Maria (Rita Blanco), a middle-aged Portuguese couple, have been living in Paris for 30 years. He is a respected construction foreman and she is the concierge at the ritzy apartment building where they live in a cramped ground-floor flat. Their life has been a fulfilling one, with a grown daughter and a teenage son who have spent their lives in France. But when José inherits the family winery and the opportunity to finally return home becomes tantalizingly within reach, they begin to question the level of comfort they’ve achieved and whether it all has been worth the cost. Alves’s immensely likable semi-autobiographical comedy-drama features a sprawling cast of oddballs and mixes farcical situations with razor-sharp observations about class and generational differences and the difficulty of balancing family and work. Nominated for Best First Film at the 2014 César Awards.
Sunday, March 9, 9:30pm - WRT; Tuesday, March 11, 6:00pm – IFC; Saturday, March 15, 7:15pm - WRT

US PREMIERE
GOING AWAY (UN BEAU DIMANCHE)
Nicole Garcia, France, 2013, 95m
In French with English subtitles
Veteran director-actress Nicole Garcia’s refreshingly understated seventh feature follows the formation of an improbable bond between Baptiste (Pierre Rochefort), a commitment-averse substitute teacher, and Mathias (Mathias Brezot), a young student emotionally neglected by his separated parents. Filling in as a temporary surrogate father for Mathias, Baptiste soon finds himself entangled with Mathias’s hard-working, hard-partying mother, Sandra (Louise Bourgoin). When a couple of thugs show up to collect an outstanding debt, the chivalrous Baptiste takes it upon himself to resolve the conflict. Full of sharply and empathetically drawn characters (embodied by an excellent cast, including Dominique Sanda as Baptiste’s mother), Garcia’s intimate film also speaks profoundly about the responsibilities bound up in the connections people forge.
Friday, March 7, 6:00pm – IFC; Monday, March 10, 4:00pm – EBM; Saturday, March 15, 9:30pm - WRT

GRAND CENTRAL
Rebecca Zlotowski, France/Austria, 2013, 94m
In French with English subtitles
A nuclear power plant serves as the setting for a forbidden romance as volatile as the facility itself in the intense, brilliantly acted second feature from Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle Epine). Gary (A Prophet's Tahar Rahim) is a poor, unskilled laborer looking for easy money and a place to fit in. Karole (Léa Seydoux) is the fiancée of longtime plant employee Toni (Denis Ménochet), one of the many underpaid men and women who daily brave illness and possible death from radiation poisoning. Soon Gary and Karole fall rapturously in love, and their moonlit trysts in the bucolic surrounding countryside pose a growing threat to the staff's tight-knit bonds. Zlotowski focuses both on the everyday routines of the workers and on the swooning passions of the love triangle at the film’s heart, with electronica pulsating on the soundtrack as her characters gamble ever more perilously in work and love. Olivier Gourmet is nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2014 César Awards.
Friday, March 7, 9:00pm – WRT; Saturday, March 8, 4:45pm – IFC; Sunday, March 9, 4:30pm – BAM; Monday, March 10, 3:30pm - WRT
In Person: Rebecca Zlotowski

Ruben Alves' The Gilded Cage.

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
HIS WIFE (SON ÉPOUSE)
Michel Spinosa, France/India/Belgium, 2014, 108m
In English, French and Tamil with English subtitles
In Michel Spinosa’s emotional, superbly acted drama, a widower named Joseph (Yvan Attal) travels to India to meet Gracie (Janagi), a young Tamil newlywed who knew his late wife, Catherine (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and whose erratic behavior suggests that she may be possessed by the dead woman. Soon enough, Joseph’s journey to the small village near Pondicherry where Gracie lives unveils itself to be not only a form of tribute to Catherine but also a bid for forgiveness. Spinosa (who co-wrote Rendez-Vous 2013 selection Renoir) coaxes magnetic, complex performances from Attal and especially Janagi, who is a revelation as a woman under the influence – of grief and even more mysterious forces.
Friday, March 7, 10:15pm – IFC; Wednesday, March 12, 1:00pm – EBM; 6:30pm – WRT

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
IF YOU DON'T, I WILL (ARRÊTE OU JE CONTINUE)
Sophie Fillières, France, 2014, 102m
In French with English subtitles
Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos are Pierre and Pomme, a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapsing. As Pierre goes through the motions of his daily routine while hardly disguising his anger, a bewildered Pomme slowly absorbs all the signs of impending crisis, searching for ways to reconnect with her partner. “We don’t dance anymore, we grow old,” she complains, before pulling Pierre onto the dance floor at a party. But their attempts to rekindle the passion are inevitably, sometimes comically, thwarted. Can they redefine their relationship or will they end up going their separate ways? During one of their weekend hikes, Pomme reaches a breaking point and decides, quite literally, to get lost. With wry humor and great delicacy, director Sophie Fillières (Gentille) crafts an intimate portrait of a pivotal moment in a long-term relationship.
Friday, March 7, 3:45pm – WRT; Monday, March 10, 10:15pm – IFC; Saturday, March 15, 5:00pm - WRT

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
LOVE BATTLES (MES SÉANCES DE LUTTE)
Jacques Doillon, France, 2013, 99m
In French with English subtitles
“All my strength, all the force of my love… if I heaped it on you, I’d demolish you”: Jacques Doillon’s latest is a bruising investigation into the fault lines that both separate and connect eroticism and violence. James Thiérrée (an acrobat and performance artist, and also Charlie Chaplin’s grandson) and Sara Forestier play Lui and Elle (“Him and Her”), almost-lovers unable to get on the same page, psychosexually speaking. In regular meetings they strive to resolve the impasse (or perhaps, just to expend pent-up energy) through no-holds-barred wrestling matches. Their “battles” grow in frequency and force, testing the lovers’ bodies as much as their souls. Doillon’s camera captures the astonishing physicality of their lengthy struggles less as a voyeur than as a third, invisible combatant. And as the film intensifies, it evolves from a metaphoric exploration of the nature of human sexuality into something far more visceral and affecting. An Adopt Films release.
Sunday, March 9, 7:30pm – BAM; Monday, March 10, 6:30pm – WRT; Tuesday, March 11, 8:00pm - IFC
In Person: Jacques Doillon

US PREMIERE
LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME (L’AMOUR EST UN CRIME PARFAIT)
Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu, France/Switzerland, 2013, 110m
In French with English subtitles
It’s good to be Marc. Played by the reliably terrific Mathieu Amalric, he holds a prestigious teaching position at what must be the world’s most beautiful university and is desired by seemingly every comely coed in the Swiss Alps. But this idyllic existence goes awry the morning after, when his latest undergraduate conquest vanishes. Suddenly, it’s not so good to be Marc. A detective begins snooping around and asking questions. Marc’s supervisor, who has a thing for Marc’s sister (whose affections for Marc appear more than familial), informs him that his position may no longer be secure. A sexy student from a prominent family wishes to supplement her education with some extracurricular instruction. And then there’s the matter of the missing coed’s gorgeous stepmother… Everything comes together in this darkly funny thriller with an explosive finale from Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu.
Friday, March 7, 1:00pm – WRT; Sunday, March 9, 9:30pm – IFC; Monday, March 10, 9:15pm - WRT

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
THE MARCHERS (LA MARCHE)
Nabil Ben Yadir, France/Belgium, 2013, 120m
In French and Arabic with English subtitles
Nabil Ben Yadir’s rousing sophomore feature reconstructs a decisive event in the history of French racial politics: a Mitterrand-era demonstration in which nine people marched 930 miles for equality and against racism from Marseilles to Paris, where they were met by more than 100,000 supporters. Compelled to undertake their cross-country trek when Mohamed (Tewfik Jallab) and Hassan (Jamel Debbouze) are victimized by the police, the band of protesters—inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi—have their resolve tested, but are obliged to soldier on when a Maghrebi teenager is brutally murdered and as they encounter ever more prejudice en route. The Marchers is a monument to the courage of a handful of activists as well as an edifying account of how a small group can bring about enormous shifts in the national consciousness.
Saturday, March 8, 9:45pm – IFC; Sunday, March 9, 1:30pm – WRT; Friday, March 14, 3:30pm - EBM
In Person: Nabil Ben Yadir

Jacques Doillon's Love Battles.

MISS AND THE DOCTORS (TIREZ LA LANGUE, MADEMOISELLE)
Axelle Ropert, France, 2013,100m
In French with English subtitles
Sibling doctors Boris (filmmaker Cédric Kahn, in a revelatory performance) and Dimitri (Laurent Stocker) share a pediatric practice in a working-class Paris arrondissement. But their fraternal bonds and professional relationship are tested when they take on a young diabetic patient and both fall for the girl’s lovely mother (Louise Bourgoin), who tends bar at a local watering hole. The possibility of sharing a life with this woman and her daughter represents something quite different for each brother, and director Axelle Ropert (The Wolberg Family) places their burgeoning rivalry at the heart of this witty, passionate, beautifully observed drama. The cinematography by Céline Bozon (the sister of Tip Top director Serge) gives the urban setting, with its high-rise apartment blocks and Chinese restaurants, a sense of everyday magic, as does Benjamin Esdraffo’s lilting score.
Saturday, March 8, 1:00pm – WRT; Sunday, March 9, 1:00pm – IFC; Monday, March 10, 1:50pm - EBM
In Person: Axelle Ropert

MOOD INDIGO (L’ÉCUME DES JOURS)
Michel Gondry, France/Belgium, 2013, 95m
In English and French with English subtitles
Eminently inventive Michel Gondry finds an ideal counterpart in Boris Vian, whose novel Foam of the Daze provides the foundation for this manic, visionary love story. Romain Duris plays wealthy bachelor Colin, whose hobbies include developing his pianocktail (a cocktail-making piano) and devouring otherworldly dishes prepared by his trusty chef Nicolas (Omar Sy). When Colin learns that his best friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh), a fellow acolyte of the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, has a new American girlfriend, our lonely hero attends a friend’s party in hopes of falling in love himself. He soon meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou) and, before they know it, they’re dancing to Duke Ellington and plunging headfirst into a romance that Gondry rapturously depicts as only he can. Nominated for three 2014 César Awards: Étienne Charry (Best Original Music), Florence Fontaine (Best Costume) and Stéphane Rozenbaum (Best Production Design). A Drafthouse Films release. 
Sunday, March 9, 7:00pm - WRT; Monday, March 10, 8:00pm – IFC; Monday, March 10, 9:30pm - BAM
In Person: Michel Gondry

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
PLAYING DEAD (JE FAIS LE MORT)
Jean-Paul Salomé, France/Belgium, 2013, 104m
In French with English subtitles
In Jean-Paul Salomé’s seventh feature, the hilarious François Damiens plays Jean, a down-and-out and underemployed actor (not to mention a former César winner!) who, after years of playing tiny roles on canceled TV shows and starring in embarrassing commercials, takes a gig as a performer in a homicide reenactment “produced” by the police at a ski resort in the French Alps. Being an expert at unnecessarily complicating or otherwise ruining any situation in which he finds himself, Jean quickly gets in the way of the case’s chief investigator (Géraldine Nakache), sparking an antagonism-turned-romance as well as a suspenseful whodunit rich with twists, turns and amusing instances of Jean taking himself much too seriously. Filming the reenactment as though it were a movie shoot, Salomé slyly juxtaposes the worlds of forensics and filmmaking, and the result is a rare, uproarious murder mystery.
Saturday, March 8, 6:00pm – BAM; Saturday, March 8, 9:00pm – WRT; Sunday, March 9, 3:15pm – IFC; Friday, March 14, 1:00pm - EBM
In Person: Jean-Paul Salomé

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
SCHOOL OF BABEL (LA COUR DE BABEL)
Julie Bertuccelli, France, 2013, 89m
In French with English subtitles
At a secondary school in Paris’s 10th arrondissement there is a “reception class,” where students between the ages of 11 and 15 are taught their first lessons in French. Some of these immigrant children, newly arrived, know a few phrases in the language of their adopted country; others can’t speak a word. Their families have come from all across the globe, from Ireland, Senegal, Morocco, Brazil, and China, fleeing persecution or just looking for a fresh start. Shot over a year, this observational documentary by Julie Bertuccelli (Since Otar Left, The Tree) is a kind of non-fiction counterpart to Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or-winning The Class, staying within the confines of the school and recording the children’s candid, sometimes heated discussions and interactions between parents and teachers. The result is both illuminating and extremely touching, a multifaceted look at the French melting pot, its frustrations and its hopes for the future.
Saturday, March 8, 12:45pm – IFC; Sunday, March 16, 1:30pm - WRT

SUZANNE (2013)
Katell Quillévéré, France, 2013, 94m
In French with English subtitles
A coming-of-age story takes on epic proportions in Katell Quillévéré’s follow-up to her lauded debut, Love Like Poison. Suzanne (first played by Apollonia Luisetti and then by Sara Forestier) is a wild child who becomes a mother at 15 and takes up with a local bad boy not long after. Through it all, her widowed father (comic actor François Damiens, in a rare dramatic role) and older sister (Fanie Zanini and Adèle Haenel) try their best to keep the family together. Brilliantly acted, especially by Forestier, Damiens and Haenel, Quillévéré’s film, which compresses some 25 years into an hour and a half, proceeds at a furious pace, episodically and elliptically. What sounds melodramatic on paper is never less than urgent and compelling on screen: each decisive moment in this family saga lands with tremendous emotional force. Nominated for five 2014 César Awards: Sara Forestier (Best Actress), Adele Haenel (Best Supporting Actress), François Damiens (Best Supporting Actor), Paul Hamy (Most Promising Actor), and Katell Quillévéré and Mariette Désert (Best Original Screenplay).
Saturday, March 8, 2:30pm – IFC; Sunday, March 9, 4:30pm – WRT; Wednesday, March 12, 4:00pm - EBM
In Person: Katell Quillévéré

Serge Bozon's Tip Top.

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
TIP TOP
Serge Bozon, France/Luxembourg/Belgium, 2013, 106m
In French and Arabic with English subtitles
Co-written with Axelle Ropert (also featured in this year’s Rendez-Vous with Miss and the Doctors), Bozon’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2007’s La France is a one-of-a-kind screwball procedural adapted from a pulp novel by Welsh writer Bill James. Meticulous and eccentric internal-affairs investigator Esther (Isabelle Huppert) and her mousy new partner Sally (Sandrine Kiberlain), recently demoted due to a mysterious ethics violation, are summoned to look into the Villeneuve police department after the murder of an Algerian informant. As entanglements ensue with belligerent local detective Mendès (a very funny François Damiens), Bozon throws together seemingly mismatched elements with aplomb: exploring the women detectives’ sexual kinks even as he comments on racism and postcolonial tensions. In keeping with its director’s background in criticism, Tip Top is an exploration of policier tropes but also a bold, strange, often delightful film that looks, sounds and moves like nothing else in its genre(s). A Kino Lorber release.
Thursday, March 13, 9:30pm – IFC; Friday, March 14, 1:00pm, 9:00pm - WRT
In Person: Serge Bozon

TONNERRE
Guillaume Brac, France, 2013, 100m
In French with English subtitles
Struggling musician Maxime (Vincent Macaigne) moves back to the titular provincial town (which means thunder in French) to live with his father and work on some new songs. But soon he meets Mélodie (Solène Rigot), a beautiful journalist more than a decade his junior. As their fling progresses to full-on enthrallment in a matter of days, all Maxime’s interests become secondary to spending time with Mélodie. Just as suddenly as their relationship began, she texts him a farewell and cuts off all contact. The quaint pleasures and understated tone of the early scenes slowly morph into something resembling a thriller, and as Maxime's longing transforms into obsession, a palpable dread sets in. Director Guillaume Brac previously collaborated with Macaigne on the acclaimed medium-length film A World Without Women (2011). Tonnerre, Brac’s feature-length debut, is darker and more troubling, a complex and engrossing character study with a brilliantly modulated performance by Macaigne at its center.
Wednesday, March 12, 4:00pm – WRT; Thursday, March 13, 7:00pm – IFC; Friday, March 14, 6:30pm - WRT
In Person: Guillaume Brac

UNDER THE RAINBOW (AU BOUT DU CONTE)
Agnès Jaoui, 2013, France, 112 minutes
In French with English subtitles
Twenty-four-year-old Laura (Agathe Bonitzer) has faith that someday her Prince Charming will suddenly appear. But when such a man does turn up, so does another one — charming in a different way, but equally alluring. In a flash, all of Laura’s assumptions about life and the future become fairy dust. Under the Rainbow is a contemporary fairy tale with more than its share of twists, imbued with the sharp existentialist humor we have come to expect from the duo of Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri (The Taste of Others, Look at Me). Both once again collaborate on the script and co-star as Pierre and Marian, a comically neurotic middle-aged pair [they aren’t a romantic couple in the film] who, despite being a generation older than Laura, face a similar predicament: how to lead their lives in relation to their sometimes wild dreams and expectations.
Tuesday, March 11, 10:15pm – IFC; Wednesday, March 12, 9:00pm – WRT; Friday, March 14, 3:45pm - FSLC

YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL (JEUNE & JOLIE)
François Ozon, France, 2013, 95m
In French and German with English subtitles
“No one’s serious at 17,” wrote Arthur Rimbaud. For Isabelle (Géraldine Pailhas), the 17-year-old at the center of François Ozon’s Young & Beautiful, this sentiment may justify the choices she makes over the course of a pivotal year. Divided into four seasons, Isabelle’s foray into prostitution is motivated not by a need for money or control, but rather by an overwhelming desire for self-discovery. Ozon observes her journey without judgment, reflecting on the emotions and insecurities that saturate a young person’s entrance into adulthood. One year removed from In the House (Rendez-Vous ’13), Ozon again proves a master at coaxing strong performances from young actors; Marine Vacth, in her first leading role, is a revelation. Nominated for two 2014 César Awards: Géraldine Pailhas (Best Supporting Actress) and Marine Vacth (Most Promising Actress). A Sundance Selects release.
Friday, March 7, 8:00pm – IFC; Saturday, March 8, 6:30pm – WRT; Saturday, March 8, 9:00pm - BAM
In Person: François Ozon

Celebrated Brazilian director Eduardo Coutinho was tragically killed this weekend at his residence in Rio de Janeiro.

The 80 year-old filmmaker was murdered by his son who then reportedly attacked his mother before injuring himself, according to BBC. Both were taken to hospital. BBC quoted Brazilian media as saying Coutinho's son, Daniel (41) suffers from mental problems.

Eduardo Coutinho is considered one of the South American country's greatest documentarians, receiving accolades for films such as Edificio Master, Twenty Years Later, Babilonia 2000 and Playing. His career spanned over four decades, winning prestigious awards both at home and abroad. Subjects frequently gave candid insight into the daily lives of Brazilians.

Coutinho joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last year.

Richard Peña, Director Emeritus, New York Film Festival reflected on Coutinho's contribution to cinema to FilmLinc Daily Sunday evening.

"Eduardo Coutinho was beyond doubt the major Brazilian documentarist of his generation. Practically all of the Brazilian filmmakers of the '60s and '70s began in documentary, later graduating into feature films: only Coutinho remained in the field, progressively sharpening his technique as he used his cinema to burrow through the surface appearances of Brazilian reality to reveal the more complex, unfiltered truths about the country."

Continuing, Peña added: "For me, his masterpiece remains Cabra Marcada Para Morrer (Twenty Years Later), but indeed there are fewer contemporary filmographies that seem more like a single, sustained work than that of Eduardo Coutinho. His death is an enormous loss."

Also remembering Coutinho is Film Society's Michael Gibbons, who met the filmmaker on various occasions while living and working in Brazil over the last decade:

"I learned so much from Coutinho. He made such nuanced portraits of Brazilian society starting from the military dictatorship to present day, and his most recent films are just as rich and thought-provoking as his early work. Though I think all of us who worked in film in Brazil looked up to him, he would much rather talk over drinks at a bar than be put on a pedestal. He leaves behind a brilliant legacy and his death is truly shocking. I think his work will continue to make an impact for generations to come."

Alfonso Cuarón directs Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity.

Alfonso Cuarón will present his multiple Oscar-nominated film Gravity at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. "An Evening with Alfonso Cuarón" will include a 3D screening of the film, which stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, followed by a conversation moderated by Film Comment editor-in-chief Gavin Smith.

After the discussion, the evening will continue with a screening of his 2006 Oscar-nominated feature Children of Men, starring Julianne Moore, Clive Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave). The event will take place Thursday, February 13.

Alfonso Cuarón is a six-time Oscar-nominee, with his three most recent Oscar nods coming for his work as a director, producer and editor on the acclaimed Gravity, which he also co-wrote (with his son, Jonás Cuarón). He made his feature film directorial debut in 1991 with Sólo Con Tu Pareja (Love in the Time of Hysteria). The film was Mexico's biggest box office success in 1992 and won him an Ariel Award as co-writer. Sydney Pollack tapped his talent to direct Murder, Obliquely, an episode of the neo-noir Fallen Angels series on Showtime.

He then embarked on his American feature film debut with the 1995 adaptation of children's book A Little Princess, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography as well as Art Direction. It won the L.A. Film Critics New Generation Award. Cuarón followed that up with an adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (1998).

The filmmaker headed back to Mexico to direct the successful and controversial road comedy Y Tu Mamá También, introducing Mexican actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna to U.S. audiences. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay (written with his brother, Carlos Cuarón) and other nods. In 2003, he directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third film in the popular studio franchise based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling.

Cuarόn’s next project, Children of Men, which he co-wrote with Timothy Sexton, was one of the most talked about films of 2006, and was celebrated by critics and film fans for its compelling human drama of hope set against a dystopian reality that was, even then, being shaped by events of the early 21st century. The film brought two Oscar nominations to Cuarón, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. It also received a number of other awards and nominations, including an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography; two BAFTA Awards, for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design; and a Venice Film Festival Award for Best Cinematography.

"In this landmark year for Alfonso, we’re proud to welcome him to the Film Society for a closer look at his film Gravity, both an artistic and a technical breakthrough," said Dennis Lim, Film Society's Director of Programming. "We’ll also take this opportunity to re-visit his gripping Children of Men on the big screen and engage in an in-depth conversation about his rich and varied body of work.”

Clive Owen and Julianne Moore in Children of Men.

An Evening with Alfonso Cuarón will be held at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street on Thursday, February 13 beginning at 6:30pm. Single screening tickets for Gravity are $20 for Members and $25 for the General Public and $8 for everyone for Children of Men.

Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón, USA, 2013. 3D Digital projection, 91m.
Alfonso Cuarón’s riveting drama Gravity is a taut 90-minute emotional journey, captured with breathtaking and groundbreaking effects. Sandra Bullock, who holds the screen alone for much of the film, delivers a layered performance as a scientist on her first trip to space. The film’s much-discussed opening take sets the scene: what starts as routine spacewalk peppered with witty banter, courtesy of a veteran astronaut (played by George Clooney), quickly turns into turbulent, gut-wrenching ride. From there, Gravity becomes a story of isolation and survival set in the unforgiving realm of space. The film, which has struck a chord with critics and audiences, earned 10 Oscar-nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actress, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects). In addition, Cuáron was recently honored with the Best Director Award from the Directors Guild of America.
Thursday, February 13 at 6:30PM
Director Alfonso Cuarón in person!

Children of Men
Alfonso Cuarón, USA, 2006. Digital projection, 109m.
Adapted from a 1992 P.D. James novel of the same name, Children of Men is set in a dystopian Britain on the brink of bleak demise. The human race has been ravaged by a plague of sterility and the youngest person in the world has just died at the age of 18. As desperation sets in, a lone pregnant woman must be transported to safety to ensure the future of humanity. This science fiction political thriller, directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón, was one of the most acclaimed films of 2006 and is remembered for its stirring performances by Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and other, as well as its distinctive filmmaking technique. Children of Men received three Academy Award-nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.
Thursday, February 13 at 9:15PM
Director Alfonso Cuarón in person!

[Editor's Note: FilmLinc Daily first published this interview with Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq filmmaker Nancy Buirski in October during its World Premiere at the New York Film Festival. The film begins its theatrical run at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Film Society starting Wednesday. Screening and ticket information as well as planned post-screening Q&As can be found here.]

A giant in dance, Tanaquil Le Clercq transcended talent on the stage with her extraordinary movement. She mesmerized audiences and choreographers alike with her stage personality until it all came to an abrupt end much too quickly.

Known familiarly as "Tanny" by those who knew her, she became the muse of two of the greatest choreographers in dance, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She and Balanchine later married, while Robbins created his most famous version of Afternoon of a Faun for her. Adored, famous and widely considered the greatest dancer of her day, her life dedicated to the art of movement came to an abrupt end at the age of 27 when she was struck with polio and virtually paralyzed.

Director-producer Nancy Buirski brings Tanaquil Le Clercq's story to the screen in Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, which had its World Premiere at the New York Film Festival. With a montage of visuals, soundtrack and dance, the Peabody Award-winning filmmaker of The Loving Story (HBO) presents a candid portrait of an artist. Buirski spoke with FilmLinc Daily ahead of the film's premiere about her discovery of Tanny, taking the story to Martin Scorsese and how founding a documentary film festival has helped inform her filmmaking.

FilmLinc Daily: From your point of view, what are some of the extraordinary aspects of Tanny and what attracted you to this story?

Nancy Buirski: Before I even her story and the compelling nature of her - in some ways - tragic story, I was simply seduced by her as a dancer and a bouffant. She appeared so extraordinary to me the way she carried herself physically and emotionally. What came through in her dance was unlike anything I had seen in dance before, and I had followed dance over many years.

FD: For a layman of dance who can appreciate it as an art but maybe loses some of the nuances that perhaps she possessed, what was that extra star quality she had that was perhaps a rarity?

NB: I think it's the personality that comes through. She was quite seductive though many dancers do emote on stage, she communicates a story. Her face and her body are seductive, sensual and full of personality in my opinion, so you're not just watching her dance - you're watching her "be."

FD: Before embarking on this, you had seen a film that featured a segment on her. Was that a precursor to Afternoon Of a Faun?

NB: Yes, the film by Jerome Robbins called Something To Dance About. He was so captivated by her himself. There's a small chapter on her, maybe two or three scenes. There's a little bit of Faun in there and some other dances. I was literally off the seat. When watching it, I remember physically moving forward because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then I found out what happened to her and I thought, "oh my god," how is it that I didn't know this story? I started to just watch her dance and was captivated by the dance. They ended the segment explaining that she suffered from polio, and I thought, "well this is just an extraordinary story." I was already in love with her. It is a love because when you spend [several] years on a project, you have to love it. And I was taken with her.

FD: So going in what were some of the perimeters you set for yourself in telling her story?

NB: I knew it would be heavily archival. I made The Loving Story and when I did that, I had committed myself to doing it before I knew what was available and I could have been in big trouble. I was very fortunate to come across archival footage which became a part of the movie. So I decided I was going to search this out before going into it. I was very fortunate that [producer] Ric Burns decided to come on board early and help me to do that research. So that put me in the position with the dance footage. And actually before Ric Burns joined I met Barbara Horgan, who was Balanchine's assistant for many many years. Barbara got very excited by this. She told me that Tanny was a very private person. They were very good friends and had never really wanted anything done on her, which is probably why there hasn't been much done. But Barbara felt strongly that it was time and that she deserved it and had an important story to tell, so she told me that she was going to help me to do this.

So I'm indebted to Barbara for helping me move this forward. And then Ric of course. Once we had the footage, I started showing it to Martin Scorsese and he got very excited about the film too. And David Tedeschi, one of his editors, came on board to do a 12 minute trailer. And that's what interested American Masters. They were interested and that made it easier. I'm not saying it was easy after that, we still had to raise more money.

FD: Was Martin Scorsese familiar with her story?

NB: Not at all. He kind of fell in love with her the way I did. We were both fascinated with how someone adjusts to a situation like polio. We talked about the ability for someone to accept something like this, but not necessarily triumph over it, but to reconcile oneself to it and still have your life. That's what is so essential to me about Tanny's story. Tanny didn't change. Her personality didn't change.

FD: You had access to the letters that were read, which were surprising on a certain level because there was a level of acceptance of her polio. Of course writing a letter doesn't necessarily get entirely inside one's psyche, but the letters revealed in your film show not exactly a comfort, but that she's dealing with it...

NB: Yes, letters can be a little misleading. She was probably writing when she was in a bit of a better mood. There were letters that revealed a bit of her depression and she did remain depressed for many years, but she tried to come out of it for many years through her letters. I think the correspondence she had with Jerome Robbins and a few others she wrote to on a regular basis that don't appear in the film - just for cohesion purposes - were really critical to her well-being. So maybe you see a bit of a more upbeat side of her. But I think her personality comes out through these letters.

FD: How were you able to access the letters etc.?

NB: We had access through the Robbins Rights Trust and we also accessed a tremendous amount of footage and photographs through the New York City Ballet and the Jerome Robbins Foundation and the George Balanchine Trust. They opened up their archives for us.

FD: How would you describe the relationship between Balanchine and Tanny?

NB: You know, I think it's like any relationship. It's complex and there are many layers. One aspect of this story that interested me very much is the artist-muse relationship. And there's no question Balanchine fell in love with women because of how they inspired him to create dance. The interesting thing about the artist-muse relationship in dance is that the dancer also is the recipient of the relationship. In other artist-muse relationships that is not the case. The artist is the recipient and the muse is exploited, but here the dancer is complicit and recipient. So that's part of what this relationship was about and a lot of what Balanchine's other relationships were about. But I don't think it's a question of him exploiting Tanny because I think she got as much out of the relationship as he did.

I think some people might have a [negative] idea when they think an artist is exploiting his muse, but this wasn't the case. It was much more reciprocal and there are many women who get into these relationships who know what they're doing. And Tanny was a very smart woman and I think that comes through in the film.

FD: She's clearly very strong and determined. I was very happy to learn that she eventually started teaching.

NB: She's resilient. If she hadn't been depressed for a number of years, people would wonder why? If you think your entire life is going to be about the function of movement and suddenly you can't move anymore, then that has to be devastating. Tanny's whole life wasn't all about dance as it is for some dancers. She was very intellectual, spoke many languages and well read. She had relationships outside of the dance world. But still, her purpose was dance and yet she was able to summon the strength that I think were a function of those other aspects of her life that helped her get through this. She lived very much in the moment and many dancers do because they know that their careers are going to end. But in the case of Tanny, her career ended way too early.

FD: I know it's hard to speculate on what would have happened had she not gotten polio…

NB: It's hard to say. I think she would have danced for a long time. She was getting incredible response to her dance so that would have likely empowered her to dance for a long time, but she had other interests. There were times when she was tired dancing. There's that one moment in the film where she has some time off and talks about how she "doesn't get to do this anymore…" She was multifaceted, but by the way Balanchine was too. That was another aspect about doing this film. All the characters are neither all good or all bad. You see a lot of humanity come out in this film. He's not just a man that exploited a dancer by any means, he took very good care of her and worked very hard to get her to walk again. He cultivated steps for his dancers. He taught them how to dance and move. So he took that skill in teaching her how to walk again. He tries to get her to walk. So in some ways the relationship didn't change - for awhile anyway…

FD: This is slightly off the subject, but you're a founder of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and you have that as a background. So I'm curious if that experience has informed your approach to documentary filmmaking?

NB: Oh very much so, very much so. What it did show me is that there are many different ways to make docs. But it also reminded me that too many people adhere to rules, so I think too many docs become formulaic as a result. First time filmmakers especially feel like they have to do it a certain way in order for it to be a documentary. They think the means in which they make it defines the documentary. And I think that's too bad because they lose some of themselves in an effort to make it - I don't want to say formulaic, maybe that's too strong of a word. But I think any kind of filmmaking has to come from deep inside you. You grapple with that.

I have to admit when I came across Tanny's story, the first thing I thought of was [Julian Schnabel's] The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I thought this is an opportunity to tell the story in a creative way. I didn't even think of documentary as much as the creative expression for this experience. How do we communicate the feeling of what she went through and not just what happened, and I realized there's a lot of ways in which to do it including through montage which we used quite a lot in this movie. So I approached it with pretty much knowing what I wanted to do. And again, it wasn't so much through documentary but communicating a feeling of what I initially thought of this as a tragic story, though I don't see it as tragic anymore. I see it as a story of hope.

FD: Obviously NYFF at Lincoln Center is a great setting to show this film…

NB: Oh, it's beyond my wildest dreams. I grew up with this festival…I started off as a painter and later photography and through Full Frame into film. I would come to this festival to see the greats of film. The first Martin Scorsese films I saw were at this festival. And I remember thinking, "There are different ways to make movies. So this is really a pinnacle I think."

Queen Margot. Image courtesy of the Kobal Collection.

Nine films will screen in celebration of post-New Wave, award-winning French filmmaker Patrice Chéreau. The series, "Patrice Chéreau: The Love That Dares" (February 28 - March 5), gives a curated taste of the works of Chéreau, whose filmmaking spanned over 30 years. The series will be a lead-in to Film Society's annual celebration of French film, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

[Related: Rendez-Vous Lineup Announced, ‘On My Way’ Starring Catherine Deneuve to Open]

Rarely seen early works by Chéreau that will screen in the series include his debut thriller The Flesh of the Orchid (1975), starring Charlotte Rampling as a fugitive keeping a step ahead of murderous gangsters, and The Wounded Man (1983), a volatile tale about a teenager obsessed with an older, violent man that pre-dates Alain Guiraudie’s similarly themed A Stranger By the Lake by three decades. The Academy Award-nominated Queen Margot (1994), a sweeping period drama that gave Isabelle Adjani one of her finest roles and won Chéreau the Jury Prize at Cannes and Virna Lisi a Cannes Best Actress Award, will screen in a restored director’s cut that had its premiere in the Cannes Classics section last year.

Other titles in the series include Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998), an emotionally wrenching group portrait of a late painter’s friends and family as they converge on his funeral, and Gabrielle (2005), a formally daring Joseph Conrad adaptation about the devastatingly emotional disintegration of a marriage starring Isabelle Huppert. Intimacy (2001), meanwhile, was Chéreau's first and only English-language film and sparked controversy upon its release for its depiction of obsessive lust and unsimulated sex scenes.

Beyond his filmmaking, Chéreau, who died last October at age 67, is also known for his work on stage, directing revisionist adaptations of Marivaux, Racine and Labiche. His visionary opera productions included the first complete three-act staging of Alan Berg’s Lulu, a shattering take on Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, and the legendary Bayreuth re-interpretation of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

"Patrice Chéreau’s passing was an enormous loss to the worlds of film, theater, and opera," said Dennis Lim, Film Society’s Director of Cinematheque Programming. "What unites the films in this series—and aligns them with his great works in other mediums—is his interest in the irrational side of human motivation and his fascination with the transforming effects of passion."

Patrice Chéreau: The Love That Dares runs February 28 - March 5. Tickets go on sale Thursday, February 6.

Intimacy. Image courtesy of the Kobal Collection.

Films, descriptions and schedule:

The Flesh of the Orchid (La chair de l’orchidée) (1975) 110 min
After nearly a decade of groundbreaking theater work, Chéreau made his film directing debut with this grim, visually stunning gangster movie-cum-fairy tale. A beautiful young woman (Charlotte Rampling), imprisoned by her aunt in a castle-like asylum, flees for the open road, only to wind up in the company of another fugitive: a horse-rearing outsider (Bruno Cremer) on the run from two murderous gangsters. Anchored by Rampling’s strong performance and magnificent, rain-drenched cinematography from the legendary Pierre Lhomme—plus a knockout cameo by Simone Signoret—The Flesh of the Orchid is an underseen genre gem, not to mention a testament to Chéreau’s enormous range: a year after directing this pulpy thriller, he premiered his now-legendary Bayrouth staging of the Ring Cycle.
March 1 at 7:00PM
March 4 at 9:00PM

Gabrielle (2005) 90 min
Chéreau’s bold, theatrically stylized adaptation of Conrad’s short story “The Return” begins as a lavish turn-of-the-century period piece, with a dinner party thrown by a wealthy bourgeois couple (Pascal Greggory and Isabelle Huppert) who appear to be a model of stability and propriety. When Huppert suddenly announces her intent to leave the marriage, Gabrielle takes an abrupt turn into more painful territory. The film becomes a wrenching confrontation during which layer after layer of psychological armor is dismantled and tossed aside; in the end, all that’s left is a man and a woman, with their two radically opposing visions of love and happiness. Chéreau, his actors, and his wonderful cinematographer Eric Gautier take their material to dizzying heights and terrifying depths, eventually arriving at a level of emotional grandeur worthy of Strindberg or Bergman.
March 2 at 3:20PM

Intimacy (2001) 119 min
Chéreau’s first and only English-language film, adapted from the work of author Hanif Kureishi, drew controversy on release for its explicit, unsimulated sex scenes. But Intimacy, a chamber piece about an isolated, divorced bartender (Mark Rylance) who longs to know more about the nameless woman (Kerry Fox) he meets every Wednesday for bouts of passionate yet emotionless sex, is less an exercise in épater la bourgeoisie shock therapy (like some of the New French Extremity films with which it’s since been lumped) than a sad, tender portrait of emotional and spiritual isolation. Chéreau documents the couple’s increasingly tense, tangled relationship with extreme precision, pushing his two leads to unforgettable performances in the process.
March 5 at 9:00PM

Judith Therpauve (1978) 125 min
The great Simone Signoret (famed for her roles in pre-New Wave masterpieces like Casque D’Or and Diabolique) stars as an aging veteran of the French resistance who agrees to help protect a struggling left-leaning newspaper from its powerful competitors in Chéreau’s tragic second feature. Miles away from the fantastical, fairy-tale-inflected territory of The Flesh of the Orchid, Judith Therpauve is an unsparing social realist fable both contemporary (regional, free-agent presses were dying out at the time in France) and timeless. In Chéreau’s words, it’s the story of “a lone woman who fights with dignity, amid confusion and uncertainty, for what she knows is a lost cause.”
March 2 at 8:30PM
March 5 at 6:30PM

Persecution (2009) 98 min
It was with Persecution, his final film that Chéreau arrived at his most whittled-down vision of self-inflicted loneliness. Daniel (Romain Duris), the disheveled, tormented young Parisian at the film’s center, is adored by his long-suffering lover Sonia (Charlotte Gainsbourg), clung to by his emotionally needy best friend, and stalked by an admirer (Jean-Hugues Anglade) who suddenly professes his love. From its jarring first shot—of Daniel slapping Sonia in public—to its wrenching, Antony-scored final moments, Chéreau’s film is a portrait of a man who persecutes everyone in his orbit—not least himself. “At the end,” Chéreau said in one interview at the time of the film’s release, “you must save him. You must love him.” Who else will?
February 28 at 9:20PM

Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train. Image courtesy of the Kobal Collection.

Queen Margot (La Reine Margot) (1994) 159 min
Chéreau’s highest-profile film was also his biggest departure: a lavish, blood-spattered, gold-spangled costume drama starring a trio of French superstars (Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, and Vincent Perez). In the heat of the 17th-century Wars of Religion, the ruthless French queen Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi) gives up her daughter Margot (Adjani) in marriage to the prominent Huguenot Henri of Navarre (Auteuil) as a peace offering —while secretly arranging for the mass slaughter of thousands of Protestants. Margot soon falls for a dashing Protestant soldier (Perez); bodice-ripping love scenes, court intrigue, poisonings and beheadings ensue. Chéreau captures it all with gleeful, operatic bravado, setting the movie at a pitch delirious enough to elevate it far beyond traditional period-piece territory. This is a “restored and enriched” version of the film, which debuted last year at Cannes in the festival’s Classics section, though the few changes made by Chereau have not altered its original running time. A Cohen Media Group Release.
March 2 at 5:20PM

Son Frère (2003) 95 min
Chéreau followed Intimacy with another stripped-down relationship drama about the shaky, sporadic connection between emotional and physical life. Here, the relationship is between two estranged brothers: one straight, the other gay; one healthy, the other incurably ill. With equal parts compassion and clear-eyed observation, Chéreau documents the pair’s extended string of hospital visits, surgical procedures, seaside retreats and moments of intimacy. A remarkably frank look at illness and death, Son Frère finds Chéreau returning to several of his recurring obsessions: the emotional distance between people, especially those—friends, siblings, lovers—who are allegedly closest to one another, the tension between romantic and familial commitments, and the limitations and frailties of the body.
March 1 at 9:20PM

Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le train) (1998) 122 min
The title of Chéreau’s devastating 1998 melodrama is adapted from filmmaker François Reichenbach, who insisted on being buried in a small town hundreds of miles from Paris. The film’s large, crisis-torn cast of characters are also taking the train to a funeral—that of the self-described “very minor late-20th-century master” painter Jean-Baptiste Emmerich (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The guests include Jean-Baptiste’s nephew (Charles Berling), trapped in a failing marriage; the painter’s ex-lover François (Pascal Greggory), who fears he’s about to lose his current lover; and a mysterious transgender woman (Vincent Pérez) with a surprising past. Once they arrive at the late man’s estate, their fragile peace quickly crumbles under the weight of old tensions and new revelations. With its panoramic scope and its sympathy for the plight of the excluded and abused—even when they’re pitted against one another—Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is one of Chéreau’s most empathetic and moving films.
March 4 at 6:30PM

The Wounded Man (L’homme blesse) (1983) 109 min
Chéreau came fully into his own with his third feature, the story of a young man (Jean-Hugues Anglade) who falls hard for an older male hustler after a chance encounter in a train-station bathroom. On one level, The Wounded Man is a pioneering work of queer cinema, evoking—like Alain Guiraudie’s recent Stranger By the Lake—a closed-off, marginal world in which gay love is closely associated with danger and threat. (The film was released on the cusp of the AIDS epidemic.) On another level, though, it’s simply a powerful reflection on the danger and ecstasy of succumbing to the pangs of first love—or, as Chéreau once put it, “the game of desire.”
March 2 at 1:00PM

IFC Films announced today that they have acquired North American distribution rights to Camp X-Ray, director Peter Sattler's debut film that premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Starring Kristen Stewart as a member of the military overseeing detainees in a Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Camp X-Ray has been the subject of much buzz since it premiered on January 17th. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney had a very positive reaction to the new work. "In essence a two-hander," Rooney described, "[the film] balances a powerfully internalized performance from Kristen Stewart, delivering perhaps her best screen work to date as an inexperienced military guard, against an equally compelling characterization from Peyman Moaadi as the long-term detainee who pierces her shell. Its psychological complexity and rich emotional rewards should ensure this expertly crafted if overlong film a significant audience."

On the powerful performances given by the film's two leads, President of IFC Films Jonathan Sehring raved "Maadi proves once again that he is a force to be reckoned with, and Stewart undoubtedly gives the best and most moving performance of her already remarkable career."

Although a release date has yet to be set, expect a theatrical roll out later in the year, accompanied by a pre-theatrical On Demand run (IFC Films has had much success with this distribution model in the past).

Taking place annually in the small town of Columbia, Missouri, the True/False Film Festival, a nonfiction haven for film enthusiasts founded in 2003, announced the lineup for its 2014 festival this week. The festival will run from February 27th through March 2nd.

Along with a slew of secret screenings and shorts programs, Jodorowsky's Dune, a film which documents the celebrated Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempts to adapt the famous Frank Herbert novel, will screen and hold much interest for cinephiles, as will Richard Linklater's Sundance crowdpleaser (and, one could say, inspired by documentary elements) Boyhood. 

Selections from The 51st New York Film Festival will be making their presence known as well. Co-presented by NYFF's Motion Portraits and Views from the Avant-Garde sections, Manakamana played to enthusiastic Lincoln Center audiences last year, and the film will continue its successful festival run at True/False. The festival will also present the latest documentary from comedy duo Penn and Teller, Tim's Vermeer, which screened in NYFF51's Applied Science section last October. Also featured in last year's NYFF51: Applied Science section, Particle Fever, from director Mark Levinson, was chosen as a True/False 2014 selection. 

Also with links to FSLC, Actress, the latest film from director Robert Greene (Fake It So Real), will have it's World Premiere at the festival. The film, starring Brandy Burre of HBO's The Wire, will screen here at the Film Society this Spring in our "Art of the Real" series.

For a complete list of this year's True/False Film Festival selections, feel free to click on the festival's official website or scroll down below.

20,000 Days on Earth
Actress
Approaching the Elephant
Big Men
Boyhood
Bronx Obama
Cairo Drive
Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
Concerning Violence
Demonstration
Dusty Stacks of Mom
E-Team
Forest of the Dancing Spirits
The Green Prince
Happy Valley
Jodorowsky's Dune
The Joycean Society
Killing Time
Kingdom, If I Can (shorts)
Kith & Kin (shorts)
Life After Death
Manakamana
Miraculous Tales
My Kid Could Paint That
The Notorious Mr. Bout
The Overnighters
Particle Fever
Private Violence
Rich Hill
Sacro GRA
Secret Screening Amber
Secret Screening Burgundy
Secret Screening Cyan
Secret Screening Orchid
Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
Stop Over (L'Escale)
A Thousand Suns (Mille Soleils)
Tim's Vermeer
Ukraine is Not a Brothel
Uncertain (work-in-progress)
The Unknown Known
Vanishing Point (shorts)

Raya Martin and Mark Peranson's La Última Película.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced this afternoon that "Art of the Real," up until now a monthly endeavour, will transform into an annual two-week series in April celebrating the best in nonfiction cinema. The first edition of the relaunched series will take place April 11 - 26.

“Despite its growing popularity, the documentary as we have come to know it, especially in the United States, too often emphasizes content over form, information over aesthetics," noted Dennis Lim, Film Society's Director of Programming. "We think of 'Art of the Real' as a necessary showcase for some of the most daring and unclassifiable work in contemporary film as well as a call for the documentary to be re-considered as art.”

Although the entire list of films selected for next Spring's series have yet to be announced, some notable titles can now be confirmed. The Opening Night film will be La Última Pelicula from directors Raya Martin and Mark Peranson. The film, a selection of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, was praised by Next Projection as "an interesting and amusing observation of the state of today’s cinema as an expressive medium." Starring New York-based filmmaker Alex Ross Perry (The Color Wheel), the film follows Perry traveling to Mexico to search for potential shooting locations for his latest work; Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie has been cited by many as a direct influence. 

The Closing Night film will be the Brandy Burre (HBO's The Wire) starrer Actress from director Robert Greene (Fake It So Real). Greene, also New York-based, described the film to Indiewire as "a nonfiction/melodrama hybrid," following Burre as she attempts to re-start her career in the performing arts. Both Greene and Burre will attend the screening on April 26. The film was also just announced as a selection in this year's True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, where it will be having its World Premiere.

Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Sweetgrass

The new and improved "Art of the Real" series will consciously be celebrating documentary works both new and old. Presented in collaboration with the 2014 Whitney Biennial, Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab (Manakamana, Sweetgrass) will receive retrospective screenings of their work, as will the efforts of filmmakers who inspired them, including Jean Rouch and Jana Ševčíková. Thom Anderson, of Los Angeles Plays Itself fame, will be on hand to present restorations of two of his earlier efforts, Red Hollywood and Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer.

There will be many, many more in-person appearances. Celebrated avant-garde filmmaker James Benning will arrive at "Art of the Real" in April with World Premieres of several new digital works. Avant-garde pioneer Carolee Schneeman, whose life is currently being celebrated in the new documentary Breaking the Frame, will be on hand to commemorate filmmaker Derek Jarman on the 20th anniversary of his death with a screening of his film Blue. If that's not enough, The Flamethrowers author Rachel Kushner will introduce a screening of Anna, the 1975 very hard to find documentary from filmmakers Antonio Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli.

Other filmmakers whose work will be featured in "Art of the Real" will include Eric Baudelaire, Alain Cavalier, Raymond Depardon, Mati Diop, Harun Farocki, Jane Gillooly, Philipp Hartmann, Narimane Mari, Jesse McLean, Corneliu Porumboiu, Davi Pretto, Paulo Rocha, Tan Pin Pin, and John Torres.

"Art of the Real" is co-curated by Lim and independent curator Rachael Rakes. Stay tuned to FilmLinc.com for the full list of films, schedule, and more info.

Tony Revolori, Wes Anderson and Bill Murray at The Grand Budapest Hotel premiere in Berlin. Photo: AFP.

After a swirl of anticipation leading up to its debut, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel finally made its World Premiere, opening up the Berlin International Film Festival Thursday night in the German capital. The setting was perhaps appropriate. Though the city is hundreds of miles from the movie's namesake, Budapest, the formerly walled Berlin straddles East and West -- filmmakers, actors and language come from the West, while the setting is a fairytale-esque rendition of Eastern Europe.

Stars of The Grand Budapest Hotel, of course, joined in on the opening, which was the film's first official public showing (there had been some speculation that it would screen as a "sneak" at the Sundance Film Festival last month). Ralph Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe and Tony Revolori were on hand pre-premiere for a group chat about the film at the Berlinale's nucleus in Potsdamerplatz.

"We went to Budapest along the way thinking that it might be a place where we could film," said Wes Anderson Thursday. "We needed a spa town, not a big city like Budapest...I always thought that our Budapest is just as connected to the Budapest in The Shop Around the Corner....I kinda think our movie is an Eastern Europe filtered through movies."

The Grand Budapest Hotel centers on the adventures Gustave H, a flamboyant concierge at an equally flamboyant hotel between the wars. Zero Moustafa is the new lobby boy and quickly becomes his protégé. They become entangled in the battle for an enormous family fortune, the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, a love affair and a continent buckling under the winds of yet another war.

"It was a fantastic role and I responded really to Wes and his spirit…," said Ralph Fiennes who plays the concierge M. Gustave. "He's written the film, he hears it very particularly and there are certain rhythms and details....To be part of that, along with a fantastic cast, as an acting experience, it was fantastic... Wes loves all his actors and encourages them to explore, after many, many takes, his texts, and you feel exhausted, happily exhausted....It was a no brainer, a great part, a great director and a great script."

Tilda Swinton, who has had her share of Berlinales, recalled the first time she attended the festival in the mid '80s. At that time, the Berlin International Film Festival was situated firmly in West Berlin. The wall was still in place and the final phase of the Cold War was breathing its final breath.

"The Berlinale is such a precious place for me. I came here first with the first film I ever made, which was a film by Derek Jarman called Caravaggio," she said here. "It was not just the first film I ever made but the first film festival I ever went to....It's like my cinematic battery charger, the Berlinale...I'm thrilled to be here. It's filled with friends for me."

Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman

Fest jurors met the press just hours before Thursday's gala.  Producer/writer and former Focus Features chief James Schamus is helming this year's jury, which includes Greta Gerwig, Christoph Waltz, Michel Gondry, Barbara Broccoli, Trine Dyrholm, Mitra Farahani and Tony Leung. It will be their charge to award this year's Main Slate competition, including Berlin's Golden Bear (last year won by Romanian filmmaker Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose).

The conversation soon turned to last weekend's tragic news about Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, according to Indiewire, which attended the press conference. "That news was pretty tough on all of us in the business," said Schamus. "And Philip Seymour Hoffman will be here. There's going to be a screening and I know a lot of his friends are going to be joining together to remember him." 

The Berlinale will screen Bennett Miller's Capote, which won Hoffman an Oscar. The screening will take place Tuesday, February 11.

Added Schamus: " It's places like Berlin where you have the opportunity -- in a sense -- to remember and to mourn and to celebrate. I think that the festival is doing it's best to make sure that he'll be here."

[Erik Luers contributed to this article.]

Lars von Trier wears his "Persona Non Grata" T-shirt at Nymphomaniac photo call in Berlin.

Sticking to his pledge not to do anymore press after the fallout from his headline grabbing diatribe in Cannes three years ago, Lars von Trier nevertheless managed a dramatic moment here in Berlin where his latest, Nymphomaniac Part I is premiering. The flamboyant Danish director sported a T-shirt that read: "Persona Non Grata Official Selection," which also not so subtly had the Cannes Palme d'Or logo across his chest.

The move by Cannes to declare him "Personal Non Grata" clearly still has resonance with the filmmaker. At the 2011 edition of the Festival, von Trier appeared to stumble over his words at a press conference for his film Melancholia and not so delicately joked he had an "understanding" of Hitler. He quickly tried to correct himself, but the damage was done. The press seized on the comment and his verbal stumble made headlines around the world. The festival then issued a declaration that von Trier was "Persona Non Grata" though that actually fell rather hollow. Von Trier wasn't "banned" from the festival other than had the film won the Palme d'Or that year, he wouldn't have been present to pick it up -- it didn't.

Nevertheless, the aftermath kept von Trier away from today's press conference, which instead features Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin and Shia LaBeouf.

Though von Trier remained backstage for the Nymphomaniac press conference, dramatics nevertheless flared, courtesy of Shia LaBeouf. A journalist from Colombia inquired about the film's plentiful depiction of sex (the film centers on a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac played by Charlotte Gainsbourg who is not in Berlin). Actress Stacy Martin gave a straightforward answer, noting that the sex scenes were part of the film. "I knew that going in and I trusted Lars von Trier."

LaBeouf paused before moving the microphone closer to him, and then staged what appeared to be a pre-planned twist of dramatics/pseudo performance art, giving a metaphoric response and then standing up and walking out of the room.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown out into the sea," he said, "Thank you very much."

LaBeouf lifted the quote from a French soccer player, playing off his recent plagiarism mini-controversy.

After his departure, the discussion continued sans spectacle. All the actors were effusively pro-von Trier, giving him kudos for his vision in making the film.

"You kind of want to do anything for him," said Christian Slater. "He's a generous and very real person. He has a very sensitive soul and for an actor that is a gift." Skarsgård, who plays a gentleman who rescues the adult Joe, recounting her story of nymphomania to him, while convalescing in bed, said that he and Charlotte Gainsbourg's character were two sides of von Trier's personality. "I was the nerd side of Lars," said Skarsgård, adding that Gainsbourg's "Joe" was the complex and "more interesting" side of von Trier.

Nymphomaniac runs the gamut emotionally, depicitng a playful, sometimes funny and often dark side of sexuality. Audiences may be polarized in their reactions, but it will likely spark ample discussion about sexuality and the depiction of sex on screen. "That's what Lars von Trier does, he creates a conversation and debate," said Martin, who plays the young "Joe" in Part I of the two part film. The first part will be out this spring in the U.S. "This is about our sexuality and you can't ignore it… I just jumped on the train, but the story itself didn't make me nervous."

Nymphomaniac producer Louise Vesth had what might have been the most pointed revelation of the conversation had LaBeouf kept his antics at bay. She said that von Trier has long "been able to do what he wants to do," though this movie proved more challenging than past productions.

"Sex is more difficult than violence," she said. "I don't know why, but it is. He's been able to do what he wants and hopefully that will continue."

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in Stephen Frears's Philomena.

Ask and you shall receive: Film Society of Lincoln Center’s popular Free Talks, which began last summer in our Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center Amphitheater, will relaunch starting tomorrow! The lineup will include current Academy Award nominees, legendary performers, and more.

To kick off the program, director Stephen Frears (The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons) and Academy Award nominee Steve Coogan will be on hand Tuesday, February 11 at 7:00pm to discuss Philomena, their award-winning film starring Judi Dench. Coogan serves as both the film’s co-star and co-screenwriter.  Currently nominated for four Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actress, Original Score and Adapted Screenplay), Philomena has been the subject of much praise and buzz over the past few months, and Frears and Coogan will no doubt discuss the film’s much-discussed political implications and important message.

Up next will be film and theater legend Elaine Stritch, joining us on February 18 to discuss the new documentary made about her career, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (being released by IFC Films on February 21). At 89 years young, this Tony and three-time Emmy award-winning actress (30 Rock, Law & Order, Elaine Stritch at Liberty) always provides spirited conversation and worthwhile stories about her career and life in the business. Don’t miss this very rare opportunity to be hear Stritch reflect on her work.

Matthew McConaughey, recent winner of a Golden Globe and SAG award for his lead performance in the six-time Oscar-nominated Dallas Buyers Club, will join us on February 21 to discuss his latest work. McConaughey has enjoyed a bit of a career resurgence as of late, working with some of the country’s top filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike), William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street), Jeff Nichols (Mud) and Richard Linklater (Bernie). McConaughey is sure to bring both charm and gravitas.

Elijah Wood in Eugenio Mira's Grand Piano

A hit at last year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, Grand Piano star Elijah Wood will sit down in the Amphitheater on February 26 to discuss his latest thriller. An avid fan of the horror genre, Wood starred in the 2013 remake of Maniac and the recent Sundance premiere Cooties. Grand Piano, directed by Eugenio Mira, features Wood as a celebrated pianist set to give the performance of his career before receiving fatal threats from an anomomoyous onlooker in the audience (played by John Cusack). The film is currently playing On Demand.

Our Free Talks will also feature conversations about diverse industry topics. On February 27, brand and content creators Steve Coulson (Campfire), Behnam Karbassi (No Mimes Media), and Jennifer Warren (Brand Cinema) will join us for "The Art of Advertising," a panel discussion on brand management, awareness and creativity. March 31 will bring "Laugh Track: The Evolution of the Sitcom," an event featuring a screening of two noteworthy sitcom episodes about death—The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s "Chuckle Bites The Dust" and Sex and the City’s "My Motherboard, My Self"—followed by a discussion about the history of the form led by television critic Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker) and author Saul Austerlitz (Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community).

Complimentary tickets to our Free Talks will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis at the Film Center Amphitheater box office starting one hour prior to each event. One ticket per person.

STEPHEN FREARS AND STEVE COOGAN
Philomena
Banished to a convent and forced to give up her baby, an Irish Catholic woman, Philomena Lee sets out in search of her son in this true story about one woman’s battle with the church establishment, namely a group of nuns who forced her to put her child up for adoption. Judi Dench stars as the title character and Coogan, who produced and co-wrote the film, co-stars as an inquisitive journalist in this film that has earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Judi Dench), Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope), and Original Score (Alexandre Desplat). British filmmaker Stephen Frears, well known as director of The Queen (2006), High Fidelity (2000), The Grifters (1990) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Prick Up Your Ears (1987) was introduced to American audiences with his 1985 film, My Beautiful Laundrette, starring a young Daniel Day Lewis.
Tuesday, February 11: 7:00PM

ELAINE STRITCH
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
At 89 years young, the legendary Elaine Stritch is now back in Michigan near where she was born. After decades as the most famous resident of Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel and a fixture on Broadway and in famed cabarets, Stritch decided to leave her singing and acting career behind after more than seventy years appearing on stages worldwide. Her performance of The Ladies Who Lunch in Stephen Sondheim’s Company is a definitive musical moment (and it was captured on screen in a Pennebaker documentary). In Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Chiemi Karasawa captures the humor and intensity of this iconic American artist as she hits the road with her show for one last time. The new documentary, a hit at film festivals last year, opens in theaters later this month.
Tuesday, February 18: 6:30PM

Matthew McConaughey in Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyer's Club

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY
Dallas Buyers Club
Popular Texas actor Matthew McConaughey has appeared in nearly 50 films since debuting in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused over 20 years ago. But it’s his work in the past few years that has established this performer as one of the most distinctive actors working right now; he has made his mark on several notable American movies, from Mud and Killer Joe to The Wolf of Wall Street and Magic Mike. McConaughey is an Oscar nominee for his performance as real-life AIDS activist Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. An imperfect man fighting for survival during an uncertain time in America, Ron’s self-interest is galvanized into something much more. Dallas Buyers Club is nominated for 6 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor (McConaughey).
Friday, February 21: 5:30PM

ELIJAH WOOD
Grand Piano
Now in his early 30s, Elijah Wood is one of few actors to have already appeared in a role that will live on well beyond his time as an actor. As Frodo in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Wood made his mark and secured a loyal legion of fans. Yet, over a career already approaching 100 on screen credits, Elijah Wood has shown interest in a range of characters. In Grand Piano, Wood stars as a super talented pianist who has given up public performances due to stage fright. In this thriller, he returns to the stage after an absence only to learn that he’s in the sights of a sniper and one wrong note could kill him. The film opens in theaters next month.
Wednesday, February 26: 6:30PM

THE ART OF ADVERTISING
No longer content to be passive consumers of entertainment, the “New Audience” wants to be active participants in their media. This group doesn’t want to be told about a product via traditional advertising – the 30-second TV spot (who watches live TV!). This has led to a resurgence in “Branded Entertainment,” content supported by long form narrative and crafted to appeal to an audience that actively searches it out to engages with it. To build a branded experience that actively engages an audience takes heart and soul…and story. Navigating between compelling story and promoting a brand’s message is itself an art.  Join Steve Coulson (Campfire), Behnam Karbassi (No Mimes Media), and Jennifer Warren (Brand Cinema) in a lively discussion of the art and craft of making experiences that appeal to modern consumers.
Thursday, February 27: 7:30PM

LAUGH TRACK: THE EVOLUTION OF THE SITCOM
The sitcom is defined by its episodes.  Each one is a self-enclosed world, a brief overturning of the established order of the show’s universe before returning, unblemished, to the precise spot from which it began.  And great shows are often defined by their truly outstanding episodes—individual installments like The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” or Sex and the City’s “My Motherboard, My Self.”  This event offers two classic sitcom episodes about death—one almost wholly farcical, the other disarmingly emotional. Saul Austerlitz, author of Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community, and New Yorker television critic Emily Nussbaum will lead a discussion after the screening about the sitcom’s past and present, and take questions from the audience.
Monday, March 31: 6:30PM

One of Hollywood's early child stars has died. Shirley Temple passed away at the age of 85, according to her family, as reported by BBC.  She was at her home in Woodside, California when she died from natural causes Monday night.

Temple began her film acting career in 1932 at the tender age of three. She shot to international fame in Bright Eyes, a feature that exploited her natural talents. In 1935 she received a special Juvenile Academy Award for her "outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer to motion pictures during 1934." Other hits followed such as Curly Top and Heidi. She reached her crescendo through the mid to late '30s and her image was capitalized through licensed merchandise such as dolls, dishes and clothing. As she aged, her box office prowess waned and she left the film industry while still only in her teens and retired completely from films in 1950, still only 22. In 1934, Temple left her footprints and handprints in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and received a star on the Hollywod Walk of Fame in 1960.

Still, Temple made television appearances in the '50s and '60s, including a sitcom pilot that was never released. She served on the boards of corporations and groups such as the Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods and the National Wildlife Federation. She made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Congress in 1967, and was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and to Czechoslovakia in 1989. She received honors including a salute at the Kennedy Center and a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. The American Film Institute ranks her as 18th in its list of the greatest female American screen legends of all time.

Shirley Temple was born on April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, CA. She gave birth to daughter Linda Susan from her first marriage to John Agar, which ended in divorce in 1950. She later wed Alden Black and had another daughter, Lori in 1954. Black died in 2005 also at home in Woodside from bone marrow disease.

"She was surrounded by her family and caregivers," a family statement said, according to BBC. "We salute her for a life of remarkable achievements as an actor, as a diplomat, and... our beloved mother, grandmother [and] great-grandmother."

Catherine Deneuve, director Pierre Salvadori and actor Gustave de Kervern in Berlin for Dans La Cour. Photo by Brian Brooks

Catherine Deneuve has maintained a brisk pace in making films. More recently she has starred in On My Way, which will open the upcoming Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series as well as in Pierre Salvadori's Dans La Cour (The Courtyard), which is screening here at the Berlin International Film Festival. She also has the upcoming Three Hearts and L'home sue l'on aimait trop on the docket.

[Related: Rendez-Vous Lineup Announced, ‘On My Way’ Starring Catherine Deneuve to Open]

"When I make a film and it's chosen by the Berlinale, I'm always honored and delighted," Deneuve said Tuesday evening in the German capital.

Dans La Cour is set in a lower middle class tenement in Paris. At its nucleus is a courtyard and its parade of quirky inhabitants who reveal their fears and desires. A recent hire as the new maintenance man at the building, Antoine (Gustave de Kervern) meets the residence. Among them are a drug-dealing bicycle thief who fills the courtyard with his bikes and his neighbor with is an obsessive-compulsive disorder who insists on cleanliness.

Mathilde (Deneuve), meanwhile, lives with her husband on the top floor. She is a recent retiree and trying to figure out her daily routine. The two connect, with Antoine finding a soul mate in the insecure woman. Unknown to the tenants, Antoine's life is also in flux. He is an accomplished musician who abruptly left the stage mid-performance.

"Pierre's movie is seen through a working class neighborhood," noted Deneuve. "I live in the 16th arrondissement in Paris and I can't imagine this kind of interaction happening there. There's love and hatred with pronounced emotions. The Courtyard [as depicted in this film] creates an intimacy whether you like it or not."

Emotion is at the heart of the story which mostly unfolds within the the apartment. "What's important for me is to not look at their circumstances, but to focus on their emotion," said filmmaker Pierre Salvadori at the festival. "Gustave has given up his music and Mathilde is wrapped up in life and suddenly has to overcome [a challenge]. She has to figure out how to come back to the world."

The building's inhabitants are a micro-society of perhaps unfulfilled dreams or people who encountered a roadblock to their destiny. "It's a bit like a fairytale in a way," said Salvadori. "It's someone who withdraws from the world and comes back again."

Cillian Murphy, Jennifer Connelly and filmmaker Claudia Llosa in Berlin for Aloft. Photo by Brian Brooks.

Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa made her mark on the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009, winning the event's top prize—the Golden Bear—for her second film The Milk of Sorrows (La Teta Asustada). The film even went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. She returned with a short film in 2012 and is now back with her latest feature, Aloft, starring Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy and Mélanie Laurent.

The Arctic provides a stark if dramatic backdrop to Aloft, an emotionally-charged feature that unfolds amidst a series of revealing flashbacks.

"As soon as I read the script, I knew I wanted to be involved," said Connelly in Berlin. "I thought the characters were wonderfully complicated and flawed and I just fell in love with Claudia (Llosa)."

Connelly plays Nana, a young woman trying to provide for her sons Ivan and Gully by working on a farm. The younger Gully's mental health is deteriorating. Murphy plays Ivan as an adult, a man who hasn't seen his mother since she left him during childhood. He is in a troubled marriage and finds solace caring for his falcons. His past surfaces after a woman who says she is a television journalist (Laurent) comes to his farm looking to track down his mother. She is apparently a follower of a cultish leader (William Shimell). Ivan decides to join the search and they embark on a journey through the frigid landscape.

Connelly in Aloft.

"If something is that moving on the page, there's a likelihood it will translate to the screen," said Cillian Murphy, echoing Connelly's sentiment. If there was a consistent thread throughout the conversation with Aloft's cast, it is that Llosa charmed them early on, soliciting an outpouring of emotion and devotion to the story. "I cried every time I read the script," added Laurent.

Audiences well beyond Berlin will get their chance to see for themselves. The film received a shot of good news in the lead-up to its premiere in competition here in the German capital. It secured distribution Stateside via Sony Pictures Classics. It is Llosa's first English-language feature.

"I think our responsibility is to raise questions, not provide all the answers," said Llosa. "We live in a time where we don't trust anymore or understand the process of channeling emotions and forgiveness."

As Ivan and his companion Jannia continue their journey, flirtation and sexual tension mounts. The Arctic setting provides moments of levity, but drama ensues when they eventually find Nana.

"I compare writing to sculpting from a rock—the material itself tells you were to go," said Llosa. "There's a point where these characters are not really characters anymore, they're people. I wanted their personalities to come through. It's important for humans to channel their emotions."

Richard Linklater speaking in Berlin about his latest film, Boyhood.

By its nature, a movie as unique as Boyhood comes along rarely at best. Thankfully for audiences, it's a blistering gem of a rarity. Beginning in 2002, Richard Linklater, along with actors Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and even his young daughter, Lorelie Linklater, boarded a project unlike any other. The working title for the film, which would be shot over a dozen years, was Boyhood or, sometimes, The 12 Year Project. Filmmaker, celebrity cast and kids grow, mature and tell an extraordinarly story of the most usual of circumstances—a family making their way in small town America in the 2000s. And at its center is a delightful and precocious boy, Mason, played by "newcomer" Ellar Coltrane.

The film opens on Mason's father (Ethan Hawke) arriving to pick up his two elementary school children for a weekend visit. Now separated from their mother (Patricia Arquette), he takes Mason and Samantha (Lorelie Linklater) for time to reconnect. He is back in Texas after a long stint in Alaska. He becomes a present figure in their lives, though they continue to live with their mother, who embarks on a promising new relationship. She remarries and brother and sister have two new siblings via their step-father, who on the surface seems like a good guy. Things go a bit south with the relationship, but as the drama subtly unfolds, the years go by.

Tricks of cinema can effectively convey age and the passing of time, but Linklater didn't need to rely on miracles of makeup or cinematography. Linklater shot Boyhood (on 35mm film) with the same crew of main actors, typically re-starting production once every year or so. The remarkable change is apparent as the viewer witnesses Mason and Samantha literally growing up over the course of the 164-minute film, from elementary school through high school. And, all the while, the parents also mature.

The risks of taking on a film with these unusual parameters are obvious. What would have happened if someone decided they didn't want to participate? Or worse, what if something catastrophic had happened that would have made it impossible to reconcile with a story being created incrementally? Thankfully, a bit of luck also served this remarkable film well.

Boyhood had a Special Presentation at last month's Sundance Film Festival before its formal premiere in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival. Though it's a story of what Linklater described in Berlin as a "normal family, not an extraordinary family" in mostly rural Texas, the film appears to translate cross-culturally. Linklater and the cast met with journalists and the typically polite applause at most Berlin press events was  roars and sustained clapping.

Boyhood star Patricia Arquette in Berlin this week.

Here some highlights from the conversation:

Richard Linklater goes back to the beginning of the project and shares how he set out to shoot a movie over 12 years...
It was July, 2002. That is almost 4,200 days ago. [We thought], "What the hell are we getting ourselves into?" I had the architecture of the whole piece in mind. But then every year we had this gestation period to think about each segment. We didn't film every year—sometimes it was 18 months, sometimes it was nine months—but basically once a year.

…and his intent:
I wanted to show a normal family, not an extraordinarily family. I didn't want to show the big obvious moments we think of when growing up like the first kiss. I had faith that it would all add up in a cumulative effect more than the events themselves—though not that they weren't important.

The kids grow up on camera, but how closely related are their personalities to their characters?
I didn't tell the actors too much about what to do with their lives. Ellar would call me sometimes if he was thinking about cutting his hair or getting an earring or something. So we were aware of it. There is a moment where he had to get his hair cut in the movie, but he was aware of that ahead of time.

Did any cast members see parts of the movie over the years?
Nobody ever saw footage until recently.

Linklater talks about casting and how the idea evolved...
I've worked with Ethan Hawke [many times] and we talked about it when I was in New York and he agreed to do it immediately. He got this weird look on his face and he immediately jumped in. Also, I had met Patricia once in the '90s. I knew she had been a mom rather young in her life. I called her up and I said, "What do you plan on doing 12 years from now?" She was brave and fearless.

...and calling the film Boyhood and casting Ellar Coltrane. And what would have happened had Coltrane grown up as a jock?
It's a story about this family, but it's seen through his point of view. Sometimes it was called the 12 Year Project. Ellar's parents were very supportive and they're both artists. He was this ethereal, thoughtful kid, and he grew up into this very cool, thoughtful guy. Things could have gone in another direction. He could have very easily turned into this 250-pound wrestler and then the movie would have gone in that direction a little bit. Ellar felt like the son I never had.

Ellar Coltrane talks about being grateful to have not seen footage from the movie over the years:
It was good that I hadn't watched it or been allowed to watch any of it growing up because I might have become very self-conscious about it. It was a lot to deal with, watching it just two months ago. It was very cathartic and emotional and I can't imagine what it would have been like seeing it when I was 10 years old—to see that much of myself—but it's beautiful.

A very young Ellar Coltrane in an opening scene from Linklater's Boyhood.

Linklater's daughter Lorelie gives her take on the experience:
I'd say it was a really, really strange experience to watch that. Honestly, it was quite painful at times. I mean, who wants to watch their awkward stages? It was hard. I was crying for a little while there... One year I asked [my dad] if my character could die…

Linklater's response?
I said no, that would be too dramatic for the movie—it's not that kind of movie... This is unique, I don't think actors have ever been in this kind of a position. Two young people growing up on camera in a narrative.

Added Patricia Arquette:
Richard said, "You can't get any facial reconstruction during this…" [Laughs] But that is part of what the movie is about. Life goes fast.

Producer Cathleen Sutherland shares what were the biggest risks undertaking a project shot over a decade:
The biggest risk for this was Jonathan Sehring at IFC Films agreeing to give us the money for it. We had a very small production budget, but the second risk was signing a contract that we were going to make this happen for $200K (a year). With a project like this, you say a few prayers that things will run smoothly.

Richard Linklater added:
This was certainly a leap of faith and a certain amount of optimism for the future that we'd all be here 12 years from now. It's against the law to contract someone to do something over 7 years—especially a child.

Ellar Coltrane was an adolescent when he realized he loved the movie he was making:
There was a point around 12 or 13 when I fell in love with the project—especially the artistic process and how lucky I was to be a part of it and be a part of this family that raised me a week out of the year.

Linklater on the decision to end the story where it does and whether they could pick up the story into young adulthood:
You could continue, but the story is this point of childhood from first through 12th grade. I look back at my childhood and it's like the prison sentence I had in my mind of growing up. I suppose you could pick up from here and continue into young adulthood, but we haven't talked about that. We're still recovering from this.

Patricia Arquette on her character being a struggling [mostly] single mom and remembering her own childhood:
I do think the middle class shoulder the political choices of leaders. When I was a kid, bouncing checks was something we worried about... The hardest part for me was when [this project] was winding down. I didn't want to give it to the world. That was the part I was wrestling with…

The 64th Berlin International Film Festival climaxed tonight with the event's awards. Asian entry Black Coal, Thin Ice won the Berlinale's top Golden Bear for Best Feature Film award. Diao Yinan's Mandarin language film is the third feature by the Chinese director.

[Related: Richard Linklater and Cast Have Their Say on ‘Boyhood’]

"It's really hard to believe that this dream has come true -- a dream that I've had for such a long time and that didn't come true for such a long time," director Diao Yinan said accepting the prize for his detective thriller. "It's wonderful." Black Coal star Liao Fan won the Best Actor prize for his role in the  film.

The Best Actress prize went to Haru Kuroki for her role in The Little House by Yoji Yamada.

In other prizes selected by the jury, lead by for screenwriter and former Focus Features head James Schamus, Richard Linklater won the Best Director award for his film Boyhood, while Berlinale opener The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson was awarded the Silver Bear, the fest's runner-up award.

Prizes of the International Jury: 


Golden Bear for Best Film (awarded to the film’s producer): Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) by Diao Yinan

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson

Silver Bear for Best Director: Richard Linklater for Boyhood

Silver Bear for Best Actress: Haru Kuroki in Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House) by Yoji Yamada

Silver Bear for Best Actor:  Liao Fan in Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) by Diao Yinan

Silver Bear for Best Script: Dietrich Brüggemann, Anna Brüggemann for Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross) by Dietrich Brüggemann

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution (in the categories camera, editing, music score costume or set design): Zeng Jian for the camera in Tui Na (Blind Massage) by Lou Ye

Best First Feature Award - Güeros by Alonso Ruizpalacios

Prizes of the International Short Film Jury

Golden Bear for Best Short Film: Tant qu'il nous reste des fusils à pompe (As long as shotguns remain) 
by Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

Silver Bear Jury Prize (Short Film): Laborat by Guillaume Cailleau

Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards: Taprobana by Gabriel Abrantes

DAAD Short Film Prize: Person to Person Person by Dustin Guy Defa

Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize (for a feature film that opens new perspectives): Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley) by Alain Resnais

Teddy Awards (for gay films):

Best First Feature: Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (The Way He Looks) by Daniel Ribeiro
Best Documentary: Der Kreis (The Circle) by Stefan Haupt

Best Short Film: Mondial 2010 (Mondial 2010) by Roy Dib

Teddy Jury Award: Pierrot Lunaire  by Bruce LaBruce

A scene from Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity.

British director Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave, a haunting American drama, won best picture tonight and actor Chiwetel Ejiofor was awarded the best actor award in London as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts presented awards for the best movies of 2013.

Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, an outer space adventure, won six prizes and was named best British film of the year at the ceremony. It had received the most nominations this year -- a total of 11 nods -- putting the film ahead of McQueen's Slave and David O. Russell's American Hustle which were nominated in ten categories. Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips, which opened the 51st New York Film Festival back in September, received nine nominations.

Each of those films received big awards tonight, just two weeks before Oscar night in Hollywood will bring awards season to a close.

Gravity was honored for its directing (Alfonso Cuarón), music, cinematography, sound and visual effects, while Hustle won awards for supporting actress (Jennifer Lawrence), screenplay, as well as make-up and hair. Captain Phillips co-star Barkhad Abdi, a newcomer, won the best supporting actor honor tonight.

Cate Blanchett, an honoree at this year's New York Film Festival, won the best actress prize for her latest, Blue Jasmine.

Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing, a double nominee at the BAFTAs tonight, won the award for best documentary film early on in the ceremony. A provocative look at Indonesian genocide, The Act of Killing screened at last year's New Directors/New Films Series. 

Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty, from Italy, won the award for best foreign film.

The Winners

BEST FILM
12 Years A Slave, Anthony Katagas, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón, David Heyman, Jonás Cuarón

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
Kieran Evans, (Director/Writer) Kelly + Victor

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima

DOCUMENTARY
The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer

ANIMATED FILM
Frozen, Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

DIRECTOR
Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
American Hustle, Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Philomena, Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope

LEADING ACTOR
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

LEADING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

ORIGINAL MUSIC
Gravity, Steven Price

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Gravity, Emmanuel Lubezki

EDITING
Rush, Dan Hanley, Mike Hill

PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Great Gatsby, Catherine Martin, Beverley Dunn

COSTUME DESIGN
The Great Gatsby, Catherine Martin

MAKE UP & HAIR
American Hustle, Evelyne Noraz, Lori McCoy-Bell, Kathrine Gordon

SOUND
Gravity, Glenn Freemantle, Skip Lievsay, Christopher Benstead, Niv Adiri, Chris Munro

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
Gravity, Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk, Neil Corbould, Nikki Penny

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
Sleeping With The Fishes, James Walker, Sarah Woolner, Yousif Al-Khalifa

BRITISH SHORT FILM
Room 8, James W. Griffiths, Sophie Venner

THE EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
Will Poulter

OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA
Peter Greenaway

FELLOWSHIP WINNER
Dame Helen Mirren

Rob Reiner will receive the 41st Charlie Chaplin Award in April at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Rob Reiner will be this year's recipient of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual Charlie Chaplin Award. The Bronx-born actor, director, producer and activist will be honored at the 41st annual Chaplin Award Gala at Lincoln Center on Monday, April 28.

Reiner has directed classic work spanning comedy and drama including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me and When Harry Met Sally. He became known nationwide as the pain in Archie Bunker's side in the role of Michael "Meathead" Stivic in the landmark television series All In the Family. Notable guests will join in celebrating Reiner, who became known for his successful Hollywood films beginning in the 1980s. The event will include movie and interview clips, culminating in the presentation of The Charlie Chaplin Award.

"The Board is very excited to have Rob Reiner as the next recipient of The Chaplin Award," said Ann Tenenbaum, The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Board Chairman. "He has brought some of the most enduring and entertaining films of recent history to the screen, from iconic cult-classic comedies to powerful dramas that together illustrate an amazing range and body of work. As a director, writer, actor, and producer, we welcome him to the list of other master multi-hyphenates who have been prior recipients of the Chaplin Award Tribute."

Born in the Bronx in 1947, Reiner is the son of television comedy legend Carl Reiner (Your Show of Shows, The Dick Van Dyke Show) and actress Estelle Reiner. After spending time on the sets of his father’s shows and with their writers, he went on to become a writer, himself, for shows like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour before achieving fame as an actor, winning two Emmys for All in the Family.


Rob Reiner on the set of The Princess Bride.

In 1984, Reiner made his feature film directorial debut with This Is Spinal Tap, a mock rockumentary that quickly achieved cult status. The next year, he followed with The Sure Thing (1985), starring John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. In 1986 and 1987, Reiner earned further acclaim with Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. Stand By Me, an adaptation of a Stephen King story, earned Reiner his first Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America nominations for Best Director. The Princess Bride, meanwhile, became “an instant classic” and was feted two years ago with a 25th anniversary reunion screening at the 50th New York Film Festival.

In 1989, Reiner made the hit romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, for which he earned his second Golden Globe and DGA nominations for Best Director. His second Stephen King adaptation was Misery (1990), starring Kathy Bates and James Caan, for which Bates won an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1992 he helmed the courtroom drama A Few Good Men (1992), starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore. The film earned Reiner his third Golden Globe and DGA nominations, as well as his first Academy Award-nomination for Best Picture.


Additional directorial highlights include The American President (1995), starring Michael Douglas; Ghosts Of the Mississippi (1996), starring Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg; Rumor Has It… (2005), starring Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner; and The Bucket List (2007), starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

More recently, Reiner directed Flipped (2010), based on Wendelin Van Draanen’s celebrated novel; The Magic of Belle Isle (2012), which re-teamed Reiner with Morgan Freeman as well as the upcoming And So It Goes, his second outing with Michael Douglas. Reiner made a return to the big screen in front of the camera last year with his performance as Max Belfort in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-nominated The Wolf Of Wall Street, playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as his hot-headed father.

Rob Reiner on the set of When Harry Met Sally...

Beyond his work in film, Reiner has also made a significant contribution to the public discourse, supporting political causes and candidates, and was instrumental in establishing the California Children & Families Commission, which he chaired for seven years. Recently, he and his wife Michele joined with the American Foundation for Equal Rights to bring the landmark federal court challenge to California’s Proposition 8, the ban on marriage for gay and lesbian couples.  

The Film Society’s annual Gala began in 1972, honoring Charlie Chaplin who returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been re-named for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry’s most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Catherine Deneuve, and, last year, Barbra Streisand.

For more information about the event, including ticketing, click here.

Bernardo Bertolucci's Me And You

The 14th edition of Film Comment Selects, the annual festival curated by the editors of Film Comment magazine, is underway here at the Film Society. Surveying the very best upcoming, underseen, and forgotten gems on the festival and repertory circuit, this year’s series has received much praise for its eclectic lineup and wide-ranging selections. As critics from publications far and wide have been giving the series some serious attention, we thought we’d dive right in and take a look at some of the ink being spilled.

“One of the great joys of attending any film festival,” reminisces Robert Levin of AM New York, “is the experience of discovering a movie for the first time, to sit down without any preconceptions and to emerge with your mind expanded and your perspective shifted. There's a flip side to that, of course. Entrusting your moviegoing experience to a team of festival programmers leaves you exposed to their whims and desires. There's a serious measure of trust involved, and the credentials of the curators matter. Fortunately, those credentials don't get much better than the editors of Film Comment, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's venerable publication.”

Last week, film critic A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote on the series as a whole. “This is a festival that disguises its ambition in the matter-of-fact modesty of its title and presents winter-weary New York audiences with a grab bag full of oddities and treasures,” Scott remarked. “It’s up to you to decide which is which… Or you can sort through the selections a different way: into movies you might have missed, movies you might want to see before everyone else does, and movies you know almost nothing about. The last category is always my favorite, and includes most of the titles under discussion here.”

Mohammad Shirvani's Fat Shaker

"Guilt and betrayal are common themes of the program this year," notes Craig Hubert of Blouin ARTINFO. "Christian Petzold’s Wolfsburg involves a hit-and-run as well, though this time handled with precision and grace. Also screening is a 35mm print of David Jones’s adaptation of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, starring Jeremy Irons and Ben Kingsley. Recently produced on Broadway starring real married couple Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig, the narrative involves various levels of infidelity that go back a number of years. The structure of the narrative—told in reverse, essentially—unfolds as if you’re traveling back in time down the rabbit hole of your own memories.”

Writing for the Village Voice, David Fear says "for the past 14 years, the Film Comment Selects series has been a godsend for obsessives. Its show-don't-just-tell modus operandi offers the chance to sample some of the more obscure and obtuse offerings the 50-year-old publication champions. Yes, you may now be able to find virtually any film you want floating around the vast cosmos of cyberspace, but curation remains an undervalued necessity. Combine that with exhibition, and we have cinephilia synergy in action."

Film-Forward's Christopher Bourne notes that "this series specializes in finding bizarre, unclassifiable films from around the world, and Mohammad Shirvani’s Fat Shaker is definitely one of the strangest. Consider it Iran’s answer to David Lynch. A definitely Lynchian reordering of narrative elements occurs in this story of three people who may or may not be related, shifting from “reality,” dreams, and fantasy, to the point where they’re well-nigh indistinguishable."

Marvin Kren's Blood Glacier

Getting a taste of the genre features being screened, R. Emmet Sweeney went to the source itself, Film Comment, to analyze some of the bloodier efforts., such as Blood Glacier from Australia. “In East Antarctica, a river of red, iron-oxide infused water flows out of Taylor Glacier. Known as 'Blood Falls,' it was discovered in 1911, but toiled in big screen obscurity until it was made into the subject of an Austrian horror movie in 2013. Blood Glacier is a resourceful riff on John Carpenter’s The Thing and Larry Fessenden’s Last Winter: a group of scientists at a remote arctic outpost are under attack from mutant insects that were born out of microorganisms brewing in the retreating, globally warmed ice. A briskly entertaining, old-fashioned monster movie, it wrings plenty out of its clapboard set, rubber effects, and omnipresent red LED eyes."

On our Closing Night film, Me and You from director Bernardo Bertolucci, Matt Prigge of Metro noted “Its findings are modest but deeply felt, and best of all, it slips in David Bowie’s 'Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola,' his Italian-language version of 'Space Oddity' that utterly changes the subject matter from space to heartbreak."

Not to be outdone, Slant Magazine is reviewing many of the films screening in Film Comment Selects as the festival progresses.

Jim Jarmusch will be the subject of a comprehensive retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center: "Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch" (April 2 - 10). The eight-day event includes all 11 of his features and a selection of short films and music videos, leading up to the theatrical release of his latest, Only Lovers Left Alive (NYFF51) on April 11. Jarmusch will be in person at select screenings (see schedule below).

Written as well as directed by Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive stars Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton and Mia Wasikowska in a "vampire romantic drama" that screened in Cannes and at the 51st New York Film Festival. It centers on Adam (Hiddleston), a reclusive vampire musician who is centuries old and is having trouble adjusting to the modern world. Adam survives on blood bank donations from an unscrupulous doctor where he lives in Detroit. His wife (Swinton), meanwhile, lives in Tangiers and senses Adam's depression. She heads to Detroit to be with him, but her younger sister shows up and disrupts their idyllic reunion. Then things continue to slide as they return to Tangiers.

Only Lovers Left Alive was the fifth of Jarmusch's features to play at NYFF following Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Jarmusch’s indie 80’s classic that established his signature style as well as his Louisiana-set comedy and Down By Law (1986), starring John Lurie, Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni. Also an NYFF debut, Mystery Train (1989), meanwhile, is his portrait of misfits and foreigners adrift in the land of Elvis and Night On Earth (1991) explores cross-cultural communication by way of five taxicab vignettes set in L.A., New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. All four will screen as part of the upcoming retrospective.

"Over the course of his single-minded yet constantly surprising career, Jim Jarmusch has become a beloved, forever-cool icon of independent cinema," said Dennis Lim, the Film Society’s Director of Programming. "We’re proud to present a complete survey of his work timed to the release of Only Lovers Left Alive. Jim’s latest film is one of his very best, and like so many of his others, a celebration of love, art, friendship, and the things that make life worth living."

Tickets to Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch go on sale Thursday, March 13.

Films, descriptions and schedule:

Broken Flowers (2005) 106 min
Jarmusch’s first full-length collaboration with Bill Murray (after the latter’s memorable turn in Coffee And Cigarettes) was this tender, melancholic road movie. After receiving an unsigned letter informing him that he’s the father of a 19-year-old son, Murray’s aging, lethargic lothario Don Johnson sets out on a tour through America to visit a set of five old flames. At that point, Broken Flowers becomes a showcase for a who’s-who of remarkable actresses: Sharon Stone as a widowed race-car-driver’s wife, Six Feet Under’s Frances Conroy as a flower-child-turned-realtor living in a squeaky-clean prefab, Jessica Lange as a pet psychiatrist guarded by her chilly assistant (Chloë Sevigny), and Tilda Swinton as a bitter, beaten-down biker’s girlfriend. An American Odyssey with a mysteriously absent Telemachus and a set of unwilling Penelopes, Broken Flowers builds to a deeply affecting climax.
Screening with:
Int. Trailer. Night. (2002) 10 min
Sunday, April 6 at 6:00PM
Wednesday, April 9 at 1:15PM

Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise.

Coffee And Cigarettes (2003) 95 min
Jarmusch’s films all depend to some extent on the appeal of watching ineffably cool people doing very little, but none more than this patchwork quilt of coffee-fueled conversations, hangout sessions and chance encounters. Iggy Pop and Tom Waits make hilariously stilted small talk in a roadside diner. Alfred Molina reveals to an aloof, weirded-out Steve Coogan that the two of them are cousins. The Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA and RZA, nonchalantly drinking from a gilded teapot in yet another diner, find themselves waited on by Bill Murray and taken aback by some of his odder habits (he lights his cigarettes with a blowtorch). One episode, starring the White Stripes, is aptly titled “Jack Shows Meg his Tesla Coil.” Other segments (there are 11 in total) feature Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi, Alex Descas, Roberto Benigni and Isaach De Bankolé. Together, they constitute one of Jarmusch’s funniest and most delightful movies, at once a celebration and deconstruction of its performers’ various public personas.
Screening with:
The Garage Tapes (1992) 12 min
Thursday, April 10 at 1:15PM
Thursday, April 10 at 9:00PM

Dead Man (1995) 121 min
Jarmusch’s career took a decisive turn with what has come to be recognized as his masterpiece: a hypnotic, parable-like revisionist Western about the spiritual rebirth of a dying 19th-century accountant (Johnny Depp) named William Blake (no relation—or is there?). Guiding Blake through a treacherous landscape of U.S. Marshals, cannibalistic bounty hunters, shady missionaries and cross-dressing fur traders is Nobody (Gary Farmer), a Plains Indian who becomes, over the course of the film, one of the most fully realized Native American characters in recent cinema. (Jarmusch peppered the film with in-jokes and untranslated bits of dialogue aimed squarely at Native American viewers.) For all its metaphysical trappings, Dead Man doubles as a barbed reflection on America’s treatment of its indigenous people and a radical twist on the traditional myth of the American West.
Screening with:
Neil Young – Dead Man Score (1995) 5 min
Saturday, April 5 at 9:00PM
Sunday, April 6 at 1:15PM
Wednesday, April 9 at 6:30PM (Q&A with Jim Jarmusch)
Thursday, April 10 at 3:45PM

Down By Law (1986) 107 min
Jarmusch re-teamed with John Lurie after the breakthrough success of Stranger Than Paradise for this pitch-perfect Louisiana-set comic odyssey, shot in stunning black-and-white by Robby Müller. Three rebellious deadbeats—a prickly, gravel-voiced radio DJ (Tom Waits), a laconic, idealistic would-be pimp (Lurie) and a gregarious Italian expat armed with a handbook of English idioms (Roberto Benigni)—form an unlikely alliance when they land in the same New Orleans jail cell. Aside from featuring two of Jarmusch’s finest musical set-pieces—a daybreak crawl through the streets of New Orleans to the strains of Waits’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon,” and a knockout last-act dance set to Irma Thomas’s “It’s Raining”—Down By Law is an endlessly quotable character-driven comedy, a peerless study of male friendship, and a love letter to the bayous and back alleys of Louisiana. Benigni’s character delivers the film’s motto, which could be the refrain of Jarmusch’s entire body of work: “It’s a sad and beautiful world.”
Screening with:
Tom Waits – It’s Alright with Me (1990) 5 min
Wednesday, April 2 at 1:30PM
Wednesday, April 9 at 9:30PM (Intro by Jim Jarmusch)


Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) 116 min  
“Even if one’s head were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to do one more action with certainty.” Jarmusch’s first narrative feature after Dead Man was another revisionist genre film: a mashup of the mob movie and samurai film with one foot placed in ’60s hit man chic (Melville’s Le Samourai and Suzuki’s Branded To Kill are two key reference points) and the other in ’90s hip-hop culture (the soundtrack is by RZA, of Wu-Tang fame). Forest Whitaker plays an impassive master killer who goes by Ghost Dog, lives on a roof in an unnamed city, quotes generously from samurai manuals and communicates exclusively by carrier pigeon. He’s another of Jarmusch’s iconic loners, a cross-cultural ambassador defined by his artistic taste and surrounded by an aura of self-assured cool—not to mention the key bridge between the hapless urban wanderers of the director’s earlier works and the imperturbable Zen heroes of Only Lovers Left Alive and The Limits of Control.
Screening with:
Big Audio Dynamite – Sightsee M.C. (1987) 5 min
Friday, April 4 at 1:30PM
Friday, April 4 at 9:15PM
Thursday, April 10 at 6:30PM

The Limits of Control (2009) 116 min
In Dead Man, Jarmusch rebuilt the Western from the inside out; 14 years later, he did the same for the espionage thriller. The Limits of Control, gorgeously shot by Wong Kar-wai’s DP of choice Christopher Doyle, is a spy film gutted of action, a mystery that takes place almost entirely in the time between plot points, a James Bond movie whose Bond hails from the Ivory Coast rather than Scotland. (He’s played by Isaach De Bankolé, who, incidentally, appeared in Casino Royale—as a terrorist.) “The Lone Man” at the film’s center drifts through a lineup of picturesque Spanish settings and a series of ritualized one-on-one meetings, each involving paired espressos, swallowed messages and Eastern-inflected philosophizing. He’s a man on a mission, but we get the sense that the goal, which involves a corporate compound run by a world-weary Bill Murray, is less important than the steps along the way. With its museum digressions, deadly guitar strings, and bouts of restroom-stall tai chi, The Limits of Control is, as the title suggests, an intoxicating vision of art making and consumption at their freest.
Screening with:
The Raconteurs – Steady as She Goes (2006) 4 min
Sunday, April 6 at 8:30PM
Wednesday, April 9 at 3:45PM

Mystery Train (1989) 110 min
Mystery Train, like Down By Law, is a small group portrait of misfits and foreigners adrift in the American South. Here the setting has shifted to Memphis, the cast has widened and the mood has slightly darkened. A young, rock-n’-roll-obsessed Japanese couple (Masatoshi Nagase and Yûki Kudô) make a trans-Pacific pilgrimage to the home of (for her) Elvis and (for him) Carl Perkins. An Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi), lost in the city, hears a disquieting story about the ghost of the King. And a down-and-out Brit (Joe Strummer), mourning the loss of his girlfriend and job, moves from boozing to violence to a kind of tragicomic redemption over the course of one long night. With its sensitivity to the plight of strangers in strange new American lands, its attention to the cultural memory of places, and its sense of the way taste can both bring people together and keep them apart, Mystery Train might be Jarmusch’s signature movie. With Steve Buscemi and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
Screening with:
Joe Strummer – When Pigs Fly Score (1993) 30 min
Thursday, April 3 at 3:30PM
Saturday, April 5 at 6:00PM

Night On Earth (1991) 128 min
Each of Jarmusch’s films leading up to Night On Earth had dealt to some degree with urban disconnect and the possibility of cross-cultural communication—a tendency that climaxed with this set of five taxicab vignettes set in L.A., New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. Tonally, Night On Earth veers from broad comedy—Roberto Benigni telling increasingly outré yarns from his sexual history—to more sober territory. The last story, following a bereaved Helsinki cab driver and his three drunken passengers, is at once deeply sad and laced with some very black Scandinavian humor. Along the way, we encounter a handful of Jarmusch’s most indelible characters: Béatrice Dalle’s blind Parisian and her stone-faced Ivoirien driver (Isaach De Bankolé); Armin Mueller-Stahl’s German clown-turned-cabbie, still learning how to drive an automatic; Winona Ryder’s chain-smoking aspiring mechanic and the casting agent who tries to court her into showbiz (Gena Rowlands). One of Jarmusch’s warmest films, Night On Earth is still the director’s fullest attempt at making a cinema free of national borders.
Screening with:
Tom Waits – I Don’t Wanna Grow Up (1992) 3 min
Wednesday, April 2 at 4:00PM
Friday, April 4 at 6:30PM


Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) 123 min
Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston make a dashing and very literal first couple—centuries-old lovers Eve and Adam—in Jim Jarmusch’s wry, tender take on the vampire genre. When we first meet the pair, he’s making rock music in Detroit while she’s hanging out with an equally ageless Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt) in Tangiers. (Long-distance spells aren’t such a big deal when you’ve been together throughout hundreds of years.) Between sips of untainted hospital-donated blood, they struggle with depression and an ever-changing world, reflect on their favorite humans (Buster Keaton, Albert Einstein, Jack White) and watch time go by, each finding stability in the other. Only Lovers Left Alive is Jarmusch at his most personal and emotionally direct: a fond, wistful portrait of (extremely) long-term coupledom and a tribute, alternately funny and melancholic, to the works of art and the acts of love that might make life worth living forever.
Showtimes TBD. Check filmlinc.com for details.

Permanent Vacation (1980) 75 min
After studying poetry at Columbia under Kenneth Koch and a transformative period in Paris soaking in the offerings of the Cinémathèque Française, Jarmusch enrolled in film school at NYU. In his senior year, he made what would become his debut feature: 75 minutes of frayed downtown cool. Aloysious Parker (Chris Parker) is the prototype for many of Jarmusch’s subsequent loner heroes: he loafs aimlessly around his scuzzy apartment and crumbling New York streets reading French poetry, flirting with cute girls at Nicholas Ray screenings, stealing cars and obsessing over his half-punk, half-dandy image. For all its youthful self-seriousness (or maybe in part because of it), Permanent Vacation is a touching vision of what it was like to be head over heels with art, love and oneself in late-1970s New York.
Screening with:
Talking Heads – The Lady Don’t Mind (1986) 4 min
Wednesday, April 2 at 9:00PM
Sunday, April 6 at 4:00PM

Stranger Than Paradise (1984) 89 min
Jarmusch established himself as a major new talent with this low-budget, black-and-white portrait of three directionless young people: a detached, world-weary New York hipster (John Lurie), his fedora’d best friend (Richard Edson), and his 16-year-old Hungarian cousin (Eszter Balint), who's just landed in the States with an arsenal of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins tapes. Jarmusch was just four years out of film school, but much of his signature style was already on full display: his spot-on sense of place, his poker-faced brand of comedy, his sympathy with foreigners at once deeply attuned to and culturally cut off from their surroundings, his meticulous soundtrack choices, his love for chapter divisions and other rigid structuring elements (each scene is a single take followed by a cut to black), and his willingness to wear his influences on his sleeve (Ozu and Antonioni loom especially large here). With its careful mix of irony and pathos, Stranger Than Paradise is one of the watershed American indie films of the 1980s.
Screening with:
Talking Heads – The Lady Don’t Mind (1986) 4 min
Wednesday, April 2 at 7:00PM
Thursday, April 3 at 1:30PM

Year Of the Horse (1997) 106 min
A year after Neil Young provided the searing, largely improvised solo guitar soundtrack for Dead Man, Jarmusch made his only documentary to date: a scrapbook of interviews, archival clips and concert footage of Young’s band Crazy Horse shot over the course of their 1996 world tour. The performances, which Jarmusch often lets play out in full, lie squarely at the heart of the film, but the surrounding interviews give a surprising, candid account of the band’s 30-year history. There’s always been a tension between Crazy Horse’s status as a full-fledged rock group and its frequent billing as Young’s backing band—a tension that Jarmusch leaves suggestively open. At the time, the band’s fuzzed-out, feverish guitar squalls were being touted as an ancestor to the then-booming grunge movement, and Year Of the Horse, which Jarmusch shot on a mixture of super-8, 16mm and video, has—to lift the title from one of Crazy Horse’s previous live records—a similar brand of ragged glory.
Screening with:
Neil Young – Big Time (1996) 7 min
Thursday, April 3 at 9:00PM
Friday, April 4 at 4:00PM