On this week’s podcast, we’re sharing our conversation with Pamela B. Green and Jodie Foster following the premiere of Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.

Guy-Blaché was the very first female film director, who made her first film in 1896 at age 23 and went on to write, direct, or produce more than 1,000 movies. Be Natural had its New York premiere at last year’s New York Film Festival, and opens in select theaters this weekend.

At NYFF, executive producer Jodie Foster and director Pamela B. Green joined Lesli Klainberg, Executive Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, for a Q&A to discuss the pioneering filmmaker of early cinema and the more than 1000 films that bore her name, most of them lost.

Watch/listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post The Close-Up: Pamela B. Green and Jodie Foster Talk Alice Guy-Blaché appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Ester Krumbachová: Unknown Master of the Czechoslovak New Wave, a tribute to the multitalented, underrecognized artist and her cinematic impact, presented in collaboration with the Czech Center New York, May 24-29.

Though Ester Krumbachová was considered by director Věra Chytilová to be the boldest personality of the Czechoslovak New Wave, her contributions to the movement have been largely overlooked. A costume and set designer, scriptwriter, and director, the multi-hyphenate artist shared her puckishly surreal and trenchant, radical vision with such trailblazing New Wave directors as Chytilová, Karel Kachyňa, Jaromil Jireš, and Jan Němec, who married Krumbachová and considered her a muse. But shortly after making her directorial debut with the hilarious yet criminally underseen fantasy The Murder of Mr. Devil, she was blacklisted by the Czechoslovak Communist government. This series looks back on Krumbachová’s singular imprint on the Czechoslovak New Wave, recognizing her essential contributions and reexamining some of the movement’s most beloved, important works in a new light.

The retrospective will recognize Krumbachová’s work with New Wave icon Chytilová, whose landmark feminist films Daisies and Fruit of Paradise were co-written and featured costumes designed by Krumbachová. Other highlights of the series include Němec’s feature debut Diamonds of the Night, for which Krumbachová received her first screen credit as costume designer; the dark, lushly stylized Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, with Krumbachová serving as production designer and co-writing the screenplay with director Jireš; Vojtěch Jasný’s All My Compatriots, featuring costume design from Krumbachová; a 35mm archival print of Zbyněk Brynych’s gripping …and the Fifth Horseman Is Fear, which credits Krumbachová for costume design yet overlooks her script contributions; and her single directorial effort, the rarely screened surrealist anti-rom-com The Murder of Mr. Devil. The series also showcases three of her collaborations with Karel Kachyna, including the atmospheric thriller Coach to Vienna and the psychological epic Long Live the Republic, both featuring costume design by Krumbachová, as well as the paranoia soused The Ear, Krumbachová’s first foray into set design.

Organized by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson.

Tickets on sale May 3, and are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film Society members. See more and save with the 3+ film discount package.

Acknowledgments
Czech Center New York, Marie Dvorakova; Czech National Film Archive, Kateřina Fojtová & Eva Urbanová

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

Costume Design
All My Compatriots / Vsichni dobří rodáci
Vojtěch Jasný, Czechoslovakia, 1969, 120m
Czech with English subtitles
Communism brings change—and disillusionment—to a small Czech village in this subversive micro-epic. Set between 1945 and 1958, All My Compatriots follows varied residents of a Moravian farming community as they are coerced into collectivization, a process that pits neighbor against neighbor, those who join the party against those who resist. Krumbachová’s attractive costume design offers an ironic visual counterpoint to the narrative. Between the sun-dappled imagery and a feeling for small-town social rituals—from church services to boozy bacchanals—Vojtěch Jasný (who won Best Director at Cannes for this film) casts a jaundiced eye on the corrupt, anti-democratic soul of the Communist takeover.
Saturday, May 25, 2:30pm
Wednesday, May 29, 8:45pm

Screenplay, Costume Design
…and the Fifth Horseman Is Fear / …a pátý jezdec je Strach
Zbyněk Brynych, Czechoslovakia, 1965, 35mm, 100m
Czech with English subtitles
Though credited only as costume designer, Krumbachová also contributed to the script of this gripping parable of persecution and paranoia in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Cannily setting its tale of authoritarian repression in World War II–era Prague in order to draw parallels to life under Soviet rule, …and the Fifth Horseman Is Fear follows the Jewish Dr. Braun (Miroslav Macháček), who, forbidden from practicing medicine, risks his life to treat a wounded resistance fighter. So begins a harrowing, hallucinatory descent into the city’s underground as the doctor desperately attempts to procure morphine, a journey rendered by director Zbyněk Brynych as an expressionist nightmare that telegraphs the day-to-day dread of life in an occupied state.
Sunday, May 26, 6:30pm
Wednesday, May 29, 6:30pm

Costume Design
Coach to Vienna / Kočár do Vídně
Karel Kachyna, Czechoslovakia, 1966, 78m
Czech with English subtitles
Near the end of World War II, a pair of Austrian soldiers fleeing the Russian front force a steely Czech woman (Iva Janzurová) to accompany them through a mist-shrouded forest back to Vienna. Little do they know that the woman they are holding at gunpoint is the grieving widow of a husband killed by Nazis just that week and is hell-bent on vengeance, packing an ax hidden beneath her horse cart. Such is the setup for this atmospheric thriller—featuring costumes by Krumbachová—which begins as a tense revenge tale and gradually morphs into a harrowing human drama about the extremes to which war drives ordinary people.
Sunday, May 26, 2:00pm
Wednesday, May 29, 4:30pm

Screenplay, Costume Design
Daisies / Sedmikrásky
Věra Chytilová, Czechoslovakia, 1966, 35mm, 74m
Czech with English subtitles
“When everything is being spoiled… we’ll be spoiled too!” So proclaim two pixieish hell-raisers named Marie I and Marie II, whose radical nihilism leads them on a giddy, giggly, anything-goes pursuit of hedonistic pleasure, gustatory excess, and patriarchy-smashing destruction. Writ in a Dadaist flurry of psychedelic colors, mismatched film stocks, cutout collages, and cartoon sound effects, this experimental call to rebellion unfolds like a Laurel and Hardy romp filtered through co-writers Krumbachová (who also designed the costumes) and Věra Chytilová’s feminist and formalist sensibility of the ’60s avant-garde. Dedicated to “those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce,” the film was banned by authorities for, among other offenses, its unconscionable depiction of food wastage.
Friday, May 24, 9:00pm
Monday, May 27, 6:30pm (Introduction by Irena Kovarova)

Costume Design
Diamonds of the Night / Démanty noci
Jan Němec, Czechoslovakia, 1964, 66m
Czech with English subtitles
Krumbachová received her first screen credit for her work as costume designer on the senses-shattering feature debut of fellow Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Jan Němec. Told in a visceral rush of handheld tracking shots and hallucinations, Diamonds of the Night harrowingly portrays two teenage boys’ desperate fight for survival as they flee Nazi forces after escaping a train delivering them to a concentration camp. A miniature tour de force of overwhelming expressionistic power, this foundational work of the Czechoslovak New Wave evokes with terrifying vividness what it feels like to be powerless in the face of inhuman cruelty.
Saturday, May 25, 5:00pm
Tuesday, May 28, 6:30pm (Introduction by Irena Kovarova)

Set Design
The Ear / Ucho
Karel Kachyňa, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 94m
Czech with English subtitles
Already on edge in the wake of an ongoing communist purge, a government official, Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý), and his soused wife, Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová), return home from a political soiree to discover that their keys are missing, their electricity has been cut, and The Ear—the state surveillance system—may be listening in on their every word. So begins a long night’s journey into dread as the two of them bicker, booze, and crawl the walls with fear: could Ludvik be the next party member to disappear? Something like Cassavetes’ Faces meets The Conversation, The Ear viscerally evokes the tension and all-pervasive paranoia of life under a totalitarian regime, and features Krumbachová’s foray into set design.
Friday, May 24, 5:00pm
Sunday, May 26, 8:45pm

Screenplay, Costume Design
Fruit of Paradise / Ovoce stromu rajských jíme
Věra Chytilová, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 99m
Czech with English subtitles
Věra Chytilová’s follow-up to her avant-garde landmark Daisies is less heralded but may be even more audaciously abstract. Chytilová and Krumbachová’s script resets the story of Adam and Eve in a crumbling health spa where a married woman is menaced and fascinated by a mysterious stranger: a devilish charmer in a red velvet suit who may be a serial killer. Unfolding in a kaleidoscopic swirl of hallucinatory, highly processed imagery—including a stunning, primordial opening sequence of luscious, floral double exposures—and set to a thunderous, wall-to-wall symphonic score by Zdeněk Liška, Fruit of Paradise is a senses-scrambling odyssey rich in feminist and political symbolism.
Saturday, May 25, 8:30pm
Monday, May 27, 2:30pm

Costume Design
Long Live the Republic / At’ zije Republika
Karel Kachyna, Czechoslovakia, 1965, 134m
Czech with English subtitles
The injustices of war and the moral failings of humanity are seen through the eyes of a child in this visually splendorous Cinemascope rhapsody. A whirl of memories, fantasies, and impressions, Long Live the Republic takes place in the active imagination of 12-year-old Oldrich (Zdenek Lstiburek)—the smallest boy in his Moravian village who must rely on wits to outsmart the bullies who relentlessly tease him—as he witnesses the end of the German occupation and the beginning of the Soviet liberation. Featuring costumes by Krumbachová, this breathless psychological epic is a by turns lyrical, caustic, and anti-heroic vision of life during wartime.
Sunday, May 26, 3:45pm
Tuesday, May 28, 8:00pm (Introduction by Irena Kovarova)

Direction, Screenplay, Costume Design
The Murder of Mr. Devil / Vrazda ing. Certa
Ester Krumbachová, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 87m
Czech with English subtitles
Krumbachová’s sole directorial effort puts a surrealist, satanic spin on the battle-of-the-sexes farce as a hot-to-trot Miss Lonelyhearts (Jirina Bohdalová) looking for a man gets more than she bargained for when she begins wooing the boorish Mr. Devil (Vladimír Mensík), an insatiable glutton who turns out to be (literally) the boyfriend from hell. A groovy mélange of ’60s lounge muzak, eye-popping art direction, and sumptuous Czech cuisine, The Murder of Mr. Devil is a subversive anti-rom-com that coolly cuts male chauvinism down to size and luxuriates in female pleasure, desire, and liberation.
Friday, May 24, 7:00pm (Introduction by Marie Dvorakova)
Monday, May 27, 4:30pm (Introduction by Irena Kovarova)

Screenplay, Production Design
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders / Valerie a týden divu
Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 77m
Czech with English subtitles
Adapted by Krumbachová and director Jaromil Jireš from a novel by surrealist writer Vítězslav Nezval, this lushly stylized horror fantasia overflows with both dreamy bucolic beauty and macabre menace. In a gothic storybook universe, 13-year-old Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) tumbles through the looking glass into a phantasmagoric realm of vampires, black magic, and pagan sexuality where fanged grandmothers feast on children and incestuous fathers transform into weasels. A dark fairy-tale evocation of adolescent anxiety, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders takes its place alongside the Krumbachová-scripted Daisies as one of the major works of the Czechoslovak New Wave to center female subjectivity.
Saturday, May 25, 6:30pm
Monday, May 27, 8:30pm (Introduction by Irena Kovarova)

The post Ester Krumbachová: Unknown Master of the Czechoslovak New Wave Begins May 24 appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Claire Denis’s High Life was one of the most buzzed-about movies at last year’s New York Film Festival. Starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche, the film is set aboard a spacecraft piloted by death row prisoners on a decades-long suicide mission to enter and harness the power of a black hole.

See High Life here at the Film Society starting this Friday (click here for tickets). Claire Denis and Robert Pattinson joined us for a press conference after the film’s premiere at NYFF. The conversation was moderated by Director of Programming Dennis Lim.

Watch/listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post The Close-Up: Claire Denis & Robert Pattinson Talk <i>High Life</i> at NYFF56 appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2019, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the launch of a new name—Film at Lincoln Center—as well as a slate of free summer programming and a renewed commitment to its mission.

For 50 years, the Film Society of Lincoln Center has been dedicated to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema and enriching film culture. It has exemplified a commitment to adventurous, stimulating programming and to helping foster the next generation of film artists, writers, and industry minds, through the curation of series, retrospectives, new releases, and festivals, including the prestigious New York Film Festival; the publication of Film Comment; the presentation of podcasts, talks, and special events; and the implementation of Artist Initiatives and Film in Education curriculum and screenings. The mission hasn’t changed, but the organization continues to expand to reflect the state of the art, the realities of the film industry, and the culture of New York City in and beyond our theaters.

Film at Lincoln Center is a bold new name reflecting the identity of this nonprofit organization: a destination for film at New York’s preeminent arts complex. The institution’s past as a film society is an essential part of FLC’s history, however it does not represent its evolution and growth; we are an open, inclusive home not only for cinephiles but also for budding movie lovers and beyond—anyone looking to discover something new. The Film at Lincoln Center logo was designed by Spagnola & Associates.

“There are so many ways that people can see films now, but we believe that the curation we bring—the careful consideration of what we present and how we present it—keeps us at the heart of the culture,” said FLC Executive Director Lesli Klainberg. “We are privileged to be part of Lincoln Center and the New York cultural landscape, and as we move into the future, we want to continue expanding our impact and reach ever-larger audiences. We’re excited to unveil our new name and branding, which give us the opportunity to look forward.”

Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary celebrations will reflect and build upon the organization’s legendary past and vibrant present, and look ahead to extend its commitment to the film community. The festivities kick off tonight with the 50th Anniversary Gala, the most important fundraising event of Film at Lincoln Center’s landmark year, featuring guest speakers Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zoe Kazan, Michael Moore, Dee Rees, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, and John Waters—each of whom have a special connection to the organization. Guests will arrive to see the lobby of Alice Tully Hall transformed with Film at Lincoln Center’s new name and branding before the ceremony, which will tell the story of the semi-centennial alongside a collection of interviews and archival footage, photographs, and film clips that reflect upon the organization’s role in New York City film culture. In honoring the past, the evening will celebrate a film community that is helping to shape the future of our art form.

We kick off the commemoration of our half-century milestone as a @LincolnCenter constituent tonight with our 50th Anniversary Gala and continue with Summer of Film at Lincoln Center, a season of free screenings, free talks, double bills & more: https://t.co/iFgPrnZ1nD #filmlinc pic.twitter.com/3pvWSSUTy3

— Film at Lincoln Center (@FilmLinc) April 29, 2019

The anniversary celebration continues with Summer of Film at Lincoln Center, a season of free screenings, free talks, double bills, and more. Highlights include a trio of series featuring special double features: the 50th Mixtape (June 27 – September 11), which presents two free films back-to-back every Thursday night, combining all-time and recent favorites of Film at Lincoln Center programming staff and featuring everyone from Agnès Varda to Barry Jenkins; This Is Cinema Now: 21st Century Debuts (July 19-31), a survey of the most important new filmmakers of the millennium, showcasing such thrilling new voices as Maren Ade (The Forest for the Trees), Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), and Jordan Peele (Get Out); and Make My Day: American Movies in the Age of Reagan (August 23 – September 2), spun off from the estimable critic J. Hoberman’s new book of the same title, which shines a political light on such beloved 80s titles as The Terminator, Back to the Future, and The King of Comedy. Full details and schedule for these programs to be announced in the coming weeks. As these selections illustrate, Film at Lincoln Center extends its commitment to introducing New York audiences to cinema’s most vital and innovative voices—past, present, and future.

Complete schedule of free double features at the 50th Mixtape (June 27-September 11)

June 27 – Cléo from 5 to 7 (6pm) and The Portrait of a Lady (9pm)
July 11 – Two English Girls (6pm) and Mulholland Dr. (8:45pm)
July 18 – Come Drink with Me (6pm) and The Assassin (8pm)
July 25 – The Leopard (6pm) and Happy as Lazzaro (9:30pm)
August 1 – Stalker (6pm) and High Life (9:15pm)
August 8 – School Daze (6pm) and Sorry to Bother You (8:30pm)
August 15 – Nocturama (6pm) and Burning (8:45pm)
August 22 – Demonlover (6pm) and Elle (8:45pm)
August 29 – Velvet Goldmine (6pm) and Her Smell (8:30pm)
September 5 – Three Times (6pm) and Moonlight (8:30pm)
September 11 – Audience Choice! (Voting to launch June 27.)

Celebrate with us! Share your favorite memories of film at Lincoln Center with the hashtag #filmlinc50.

The name change will not affect your membership benefits. Members and Patrons will be sent a detailed email later in the week (by May 3) regarding updates and additional information. If you have any questions in advance, please contact the Member Desk at members@filmlinc.org or the Patron Desk at patrons@filmlinc.org

As we turn 50, we’re taking a look back. When is the moment you first fell in love with the movies? 💜🎥 #filmlinc50 pic.twitter.com/g6FgGmy7tX

— Film at Lincoln Center (@FilmLinc) April 29, 2019

Thank you for sharing 50 years of cinematic memories with us. 💜 What was your favorite experience at Film at Lincoln Center? Pictures welcome! #filmlinc50 pic.twitter.com/zbRZ7qpue4

— Film at Lincoln Center (@FilmLinc) April 29, 2019

The post Welcome to Film at Lincoln Center appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On Monday, we celebrated a half-century of Film at Lincoln Center at our 50th Anniversary Gala, featuring special guests Darren Aronofsky, Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zoe Kazan, Michael Moore, Dee Rees, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, and more. See our talented presenters hit the red carpet in our photo gallery above!

If you were unable to attend the 50th Anniversary Gala, we invite you to join us this Saturday in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater for a look back at rare and iconic moments of cinema history. This event is taking place as part of Lincoln Center’s campus-wide block party, featuring live music, dance presentations, food trucks, tours, and more. Learn more here.

See more photo galleries from our 50th Anniversary Gala here.

Also, on this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center. To look back at the organization’s history, our Editorial Director Michael Koresky joined Executive Director Lesli Klainberg and Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez. After their conversation, you’ll hear from some of the organization’s key figures like Dennis Lim, Richard Peña, and others. And finally, you’ll hear highlights from our 50th anniversary gala featuring words from Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese.

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Photos: Celebrating 50 Years of Film at Lincoln Center! appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On Monday, we celebrated a half-century of Film at Lincoln Center at our 50th Anniversary Gala, featuring special guests Darren Aronofsky, Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zoe Kazan, Michael Moore, Dee Rees, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, and more. See our talented presenters on stage in our photo gallery above!

If you were unable to attend the 50th Anniversary Gala, we invite you to join us this Saturday in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater for a look back at rare and iconic moments of cinema history. This event is taking place as part of Lincoln Center’s campus-wide block party, featuring live music, dance presentations, food trucks, tours, and more. Learn more here.

See more photo galleries from our 50th Anniversary Gala here.

Also, on this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center. To look back at the organization’s history, our Editorial Director Michael Koresky joined Executive Director Lesli Klainberg and Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez. After their conversation, you’ll hear from some of the organization’s key figures like Dennis Lim, Richard Peña, and others. And finally, you’ll hear highlights from our 50th anniversary gala featuring words from Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese.

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Photos: On Stage at Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary Gala appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On Monday, we celebrated a half-century of Film at Lincoln Center at our 50th Anniversary Gala, featuring special guests Darren Aronofsky, Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zoe Kazan, Michael Moore, Dee Rees, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, and more. See our talented presenters back stage in our photo gallery above!

If you were unable to attend the 50th Anniversary Gala, we invite you to join us this Saturday in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater for a look back at rare and iconic moments of cinema history. This event is taking place as part of Lincoln Center’s campus-wide block party, featuring live music, dance presentations, food trucks, tours, and more. Learn more here.

See more photo galleries from our 50th Anniversary Gala here.

Also, on this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center. To look back at the organization’s history, our Editorial Director Michael Koresky joined Executive Director Lesli Klainberg and Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez. After their conversation, you’ll hear from some of the organization’s key figures like Dennis Lim, Richard Peña, and others. And finally, you’ll hear highlights from our 50th anniversary gala featuring words from Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese.

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Photos: Back Stage at Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary Gala appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center (formerly known as the Film Society of Lincoln Center).

To look back at the organization’s history, our Editorial Director Michael Koresky joined Executive Director Lesli Klainberg and Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez. After their conversation, you’ll hear from some of the organization’s key figures like Dennis Lim, Richard Peña, and others. And finally, you’ll hear highlights from our 50th anniversary gala featuring words from Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese.

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

See photo galleries from our 50th Anniversary Gala here.

The post Film at Lincoln Center Podcast: 50th Anniversary Episode appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On Monday, following our 50th Anniversary Gala ceremony, we held a special dinner reception to continue the celebration of Film at Lincoln Center’s half-century milestone. Guests included Tilda Swinton, Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar, Dee Rees, John Waters, Paul Schrader, Alex Ross Perry, and more. Take a look through the evening in the gallery above!

If you were unable to attend the 50th Anniversary Gala, we invite you to join us this Saturday in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater for a look back at rare and iconic moments of cinema history. This event is taking place as part of Lincoln Center’s campus-wide block party, featuring live music, dance presentations, food trucks, tours, and more. Learn more here.

See more photo galleries from our 50th Anniversary Gala here.

Also, on this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center. To look back at the organization’s history, our Editorial Director Michael Koresky joined Executive Director Lesli Klainberg and Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez. After their conversation, you’ll hear from some of the organization’s key figures like Dennis Lim, Richard Peña, and others. And finally, you’ll hear highlights from our 50th anniversary gala featuring words from Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Dee Rees, and Martin Scorsese.

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Photos: Tilda Swinton, Jim Jarmusch & More Celebrate at Our 50th Anniversary Dinner appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents 13 timely and provocative films, from June 13-20, 2019, that shine a bright light on bravery and resilience in challenging times, with incisive perspectives on human rights issues affecting people around the world. As racism and xenophobia continue to rise within the highest echelons of power, this year’s festival presents cinematic works that expose and humanize cases of legalized and legitimized oppression of the disenfranchised that demand the world’s attention.

Now celebrating its 30th year, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival truly reflects its ethos of celebrating diversity of content and perspective, providing a public cinematic forum for voices that are either silenced or marginalized in the media. Half of the films in this year’s edition are by filmmakers with roots in the region they are covering, half were directed or co-directed by women, and the majority of this year’s selection were directed by filmmakers of color.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center. All screenings will be followed by in-depth panels with filmmakers, film subjects, Human Rights Watch researchers and special guests.

Everything Must Fall

“People’s ability to show resilience and courage in the face of fear, oppression, and even violence is sometimes overshadowed by the regimes and prejudice they are fighting against,” said John Biaggi, Director of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. “This year’s film festival shines a light on people around the world who continue to resist both extreme political movements and individual cases of discrimination. They stand against world leaders stoking fear and hatred, and they stand against people in their own communities who balk at the notion of diversity. We should not only celebrate the voices of these brave individuals, but also recognize their courage and dignity.”

“Together we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Film at Lincoln Center and 30 years of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in 2019,” said Lesli Klainberg, Executive Director of FLC. “We’re so proud to continue partnering on this essential showcase of human rights films, which have been such an integral part of our organization’s history and mission, and give a platform to spread the word about these important issues.”

“IFC Center is honored to continue working with HRWFF to bring this important and inspiring group of films to New Yorkers,” said John Vanco, Senior Vice President and General Manager of IFC Center.

With intense focus on the rise of tyranny and oppression, often politically sanctioned, around the world, the HRWFF presents stories from the frontlines of human rights battles in Venezuela, China, the Philippines, Palestine, South Africa, the United States and elsewhere. Opening Night features Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche’s Advocate, which documents the challenges faced by Jewish Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel and her colleagues in their efforts to represent Palestinian clients — from non-violent demonstrators to armed militants — in an increasingly conservative Israel where the government, courts and media seem stacked against them. This year’s edition also features Eunice Lau’s Accept the Call, which charts the struggles of Muslim youth growing up in the U.S. where they confront racism, prejudice and FBI counterintelligence operations; James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s On the President’s Orders, a shocking and illuminating investigation with stunning access into the inner workings of President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal “war on drugs” in the Philippines; and Bassam Jarbawi’s Screwdriver (Mafak), shot entirely on location in the West Bank, which follows a young man returning home after 15 years in an Israeli prison that immerses viewers in a distinctly Palestinian story while tackling the universal trauma of reintegration after incarceration.

Born in Evin

Extending the festival’s broad span of global films made by filmmakers with roots in the regions they are focusing on, Rehad Desai’s Everything Must Fall challenges the presence of deep-seated discrimination in South Africa. The film is a detailed examination of student protests that coalesce into a national movement, calling for an end to exclusion in the higher education system. Tuki Jencquel’s Está Todo Bien is an incisive look at the current collapse of Venezuelan institutions, and how failing healthcare systems reflect the long-term challenges of a population fighting to survive.

With over half the films in 2019’s program directed or co-directed by women, this year’s festival highlights the female directorial voice. The program intimately explores the personal experiences of women filmmakers who confront human rights issues that affect women. Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s One Child Nation is a personal exploration of China’s One Child Policy, including forced sterilizations and abortions, and the collective trauma and generational impact it had on Chinese citizens. In the deeply moving Born in Evin, Maryam Zaree, born inside the infamous Evin prison in Iran, explores the lifelong effects of incarceration on a generation of former political prisoners and their children. Filmmaker Beryl Magoko embarks on a journey towards self-acceptance in In Search…, winner of the festival’s Nestor Almendros Award, in her work about the role of societally imposed shame in the practice of female genital mutilation. Other works by women filmmakers include Accept the Call, Advocate, No Box for Me and The Sweet Requiem.

The festival closes with Hans Pool’s explosive and riveting Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World, which follows the rise of the controversial “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat, dedicated to redefining breaking news by exploiting open-source investigation to expose the truth behind global news stories.

The festival continues its partnership with MUBI, a curated online cinema streaming the best films from around the globe. MUBI presents a new hand-picked film every day — whether its an acclaimed masterpiece, a cult classic or a festival-fresh gem. MUBI will be streaming select films from Human Rights Watch Film Festival during the New York 2019 event. Learn more at mubi.com.

Tickets for Film at Lincoln Center screenings go on sale May 17 on filmlinc.org. You may also visit the festival website at ff.hrw.org/new-york for the complete lineup and IFC Center screenings. FLC tickets are $15 General Public, $12 Seniors, Students and Persons with Disabilities, $10 FLC Members & HRW Subscribers. Become a member today! A 3+ film discount package is also available for FLC screenings.

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

Public screenings and special programs will take place at Film at Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and at the IFC Cente. The opening night film, Advocate, will screen at Film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater.

Opening Night Film and Reception*
Advocate
Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche, 2019, Documentary, 108 min., Arabic, Hebrew, fully subtitled in English
New York Premiere
The Jewish Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel and her Palestinian colleagues have been working for decades representing their clients in an increasingly conservative Israel. We meet Tsemel and the team as they prepare for their youngest defendant yet – Ahmad, a 13-year-old boy implicated in a knife attack on the streets of Jerusalem. Together, they must counter legal and public opposition and prepare Ahmad who, like other Palestinians charged with serious crimes, will face a difficult trial in a country in which the government, court system and the media are stacked against him. To many, Tsemel is a traitor who defends the indefensible. For others, she’s more than an attorney – she’s a true ally.
Thursday June 13, 7:00 p.m., Film at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
*Please note the post-screening reception is open to all ticket holders

Closing Night Film
Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World
Hans Pool, 2018, Documentary, 88 min., English, Dutch, German
New York Premiere
Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World follows the revolutionary rise of the “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat, dedicated to redefining breaking news by exploring the promise of open-source investigation. This highly skilled and controversial collective exposes the truth behind global news stories – from identifying the exact location of an Islamic State murder through analysis of a video distributed on YouTube to tracking the story behind the mysterious poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK – Bellingcat hunts down answers using social media, reconstruction techniques and audio analysis. From his home in the English countryside, de facto leader Eliot Higgins and his team of volunteer truth-seekers put newspapers, networks and governments to the test, shedding light on the fight for journalistic integrity in the era of fake news and alternative facts.
Thursday June 20, 7:00 pm, IFC Center

Accept the Call
Eunice Lau, 2019, Documentary, 83 min., English, Somali
World Premiere
Twenty-five years after Yusuf Abdurahman left Somalia as a refugee to begin his life anew in Minnesota, his worst fear is realized when his 19-year-old-son Zacharia is arrested in an FBI counterterrorism sting operation. Through the eyes of a father striving to understand why his young son would leave his American life behind to attempt to join a terrorist organization in a foreign country, Accept the Call explores racism and prejudice against immigrants, the rise of targeted recruitment by radicalized groups, and the struggles of Muslim youth growing up in the US today. This intimate film captures the story of this father and son attempting to mend their relationship after breaking each other’s hearts.
Saturday June 15, 6:00 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Sunday June 16, 5:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center

Born in Evin
Maryam Zaree, 2019, Documentary, 98 min., German, English, French, Farsi
U.S. Premiere
When she was 12 years old, the actress and filmmaker Maryam Zaree found out that she was one of a number of babies born inside Evin, Iran’s most notorious political prison. Zaree’s parents were imprisoned shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, a period in which tens of thousands of political dissidents were arrested and tortured. With Born in Evin, she confronts decades of silence in her family and embarks on an exploration into the circumstances of her birth. On this vulnerable, lyrical journey Zaree considers the impact of trauma on the bodies and souls of survivors and their children, leading her to question how her generation can relate to their own history while also respecting the people they love who prefer to heal in silence. Winner Best Film, Perspektive Deutsches Kino Programme, Berlinale 2019
Tuesday June 18, 8:45 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Wednesday June 19, 6:15 pm, Film at Lincoln Center

Está Todo Bien – It’s All Good
Tuki Jencquel, 2018, Documentary, 70 min., Spanish, fully subtitled in English
New York Premiere
Venezuela is a country rich in natural resources that, for decades, has prided itself on having one of the best public health systems in the entire region. Today, the near-total collapse of Venezuela’s health system is resulting in severe medicine shortages, a dramatic increase in infant mortality, the reappearance of once-eradicated diseases like diphtheria, and a mass exodus of doctors to hospitals overseas. In Está Todo Bien, Caracas-born Tuki Jencquel asks a pharmacist, trauma surgeon, activist and two patients to confront the same questions millions of Venezuelans are facing: protest or acquiesce, emigrate or remain, lose all hope or hang on to faith?
Wednesday June 19, 8:45 pm, IFC Center
Thursday June 20, 6:15 pm, Film at Lincoln Center

Everything Must Fall
Rehad Desai, 2018, Documentary, 85 min., English, Closed Captioning available
U.S. Premiere
When South Africa’s universities raised their fees, a wave of students took to the streets in opposition. Quickly gaining momentum and scope, the battle cry #FeesMustFall burst on to the political landscape and became a national conversation, bringing attention to the exclusion of poorer black South Africans from higher education, ultimately calling for the decolonization of the entire education system. Everything Must Fall features student leaders and their opposition as they unpack how a moment evolved into a mass movement. Demanding that governments be held accountable while also challenging deeper racial, gender, class and sexual identity discrimination, this group of inspiring young people demonstrate the power that comes from collective organizing that embraces intersectionality in order to create lasting change.
Monday June 17, 8:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Tuesday June 18, 8:45 pm, IFC Center

In Search…
Beryl Magoko, 2018, Documentary, 90 min., German, English, Kikuria, Swahili, fully subtitled in English
U.S. Premiere
Director Beryl Magoko is embarking on a personal journey to courageously face her past, to accept and love herself and her own body. When Magokolearns of an opportunity for reconstructive surgery for the female genital mutilation she and her friends underwent as young girls, she has a growing community of women to consult, but ultimately, the decision is hers. Hosting frank and raw discussions with women — from friends and family in her rural birthplace in Kenya to new friends in cities around Europe — together they uncover the beauty of collective strength and insight, examine the importance of female pleasure and shed the societally imposed shame around women’s bodies. Winner of the 2019 Human Rights Watch Film Festival Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.
Sunday June 16, 3:00 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Monday June 17, 6:30 pm, IFC Center

No Box for Me. An Intersex Story (Ni d’Ève ni d’Adam. Une histoire intersexe)
Floriane Devigne, 2018, Documentary, 58 min., French, fully subtitled in English
U.S. Premiere
Deborah, 25, and M, 27, are living in bodies that Western medicine — and often society — deems taboo. Like an estimated 1.7 percent of people, they were born with variations in their sex characteristics that were different from classical understandings of male or female. For M, growing up intersex has also meant grappling with the fact that she underwent medically unnecessary surgeries to “normalize” her body as a very young child. But when M finds Deborah online, she is introduced to new voices, language, and representations that allow her to expand her understanding of who she is beyond medical terms. This beautifully crafted, poetic documentary joins brave young people as they seek to reappropriate their bodies and explore their identities, revealing both the limits of binary visions of sex and gender, and the irreversible physical and psychological impact of non-consensual surgeries on intersex infants.
Wednesday June 19, 6:30 pm, IFC Center
Thursday June 20, 8:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Both screenings will have an extended Q&A

On the President’s Orders
James Jones and Olivier Sarbil, 2019, Documentary, 72 min., English, Tagalog, fully subtitled in English
U.S. Premiere
In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a “war on drugs” in the Philippines, setting off a wave of violence and murder targeting thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. With unprecedented, intimate access both to police officials implicated in the killings and the families destroyed as the result of Duterte’s deadly campaign, On the President’s Orders is a shocking and revelatory investigation into the extrajudicial murders that continue to this day. Entering a murky world of crime, drugs and politics, the filmmakers have managed to capture the clear trajectory of what depths those who wield excessive power can reach, when attacking those who have the very least. 
Saturday June 15, 8:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Monday June 17, 6:15 pm, Film at Lincoln Center 

One Child Nation
Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, 2019, Documentary, 85 min., English, Mandarin
From Academy Award-nominated documentarian Nanfu Wang, Hooligan Sparrow (HRWFF, 2017) and Jialing Zhang, One Child Nation explores China’s One Child Policy, which made it illegal in most circumstances for couples to have more than one child. Nanfu digs fearlessly into her own life, using her experience as a new mother and first-hand accounts of her family members, along with archival propaganda material and testimony from victims and law-enforcers alike, composing a revelatory record of China’s drastic approach to population-control. The severe law that led to forced sterilizations and abortions, abandoned newborns, and government abductions may have ended in 2015, but the process of dealing with the impact of its enforcement is only just beginning. US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2019;  Grand Jury Award, Full Frame 2019
Friday June 14, 9:00 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Saturday June 15, 3:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center

Screwdriver (Mafak)
Bassam Jarbawi, 2018, Drama, 108 min., Arabic, Hebrew, fully subtitled in English
New York Premiere
Young Ziad is the star of the Al-Amari Refugee Camp basketball team in the outskirts of Ramallah, Palestine. When his best friend is shot and killed in crossfire, his teammates seek revenge, with results that will affect Ziad for the rest of his life. Shot entirely on location in the West Bank with a largely Palestinian crew, award-winning director Bassam Jarbawi’s debut feature follows Ziad as he returns home after 15 years in an Israeli prison. Hailed as a hero, with high expectations to settle back quickly into work and love, he is lost in a world he barely recognizes. Effectively capturing this unsettling inability to distinguish reality from hallucination and the haunting of memory, Screwdriver immerses us in a distinctly Palestinian story while addressing the universal trauma of reintegration after incarceration.
Sunday June 16, 8:00 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Monday June 17, 8:45 pm, IFC Center

The Sweet Requiem (Kyoyang Ngarmo)
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, 2018, Drama, 91 min., Tibetan, fully subtitled in English
New York Premiere
At age eight, Dolkar and her father fled their home in Tibet, escaping Chinese armed forces in an arduous journey across the Himalayas. Now 26, she lives in a Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi, India, where an unexpected encounter with a man from her past reveals long-suppressed memories, propelling Dolkar on an obsessive search for the truth. With stunning cinematography and skillfully subdued tension, The Sweet Requiem, from the filmmaking team behind Dreaming Lhasa (HRWFF, 2006) and The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom (HRWFF, 2010), is an unforgettable reflection on an ongoing but too often forgotten refugee crisis.
Tuesday June 18, 6:15 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Following the 6/18 discussion, please join us for a reception celebrating HRWFF’s 30^th Anniversary. Open to all ticket holders.
Wednesday June 19, 8:45 pm, Film at Lincoln Center

When We Walk
Jason DaSilva, 2019, Documentary, 78 min., English, Closed Captioning available
New York Premiere
New Yorker Jason DaSilva is facing the life-changing decision of whether to relocate to Austin, Texas, to be closer to his young son who has moved in with his mother following their recent divorce. Facing a rapidly progressing form of multiple sclerosis and experiencing a swift decline in his motor skills, DaSilva soon learns that the harsh restrictions of the U.S. Medicaid system would prevent him from accessing the services he needs to live life as fully as possible and from being the dad he wants to be for his young son. Left with this heartbreaking choice, When We Walk, the follow-up to DaSilva’s Emmy Award-winning film When I Walk, reflects on Jason’s own childhood and relationship with his father, making his fight to keep his son resonate even more powerfully.
Friday June 14, 6:30 pm, Film at Lincoln Center
Tuesday June 18, 6:30 pm, IFC Center

The post Lineup Announced for the 30th Anniversary Human Rights Watch Film Festival appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

The citywide New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) reaches backward into time and forward into the unknown for its 26th edition to center audiences in the present, with cutting-edge films from throughout the ages, films that regale with resplendent tales of all things African. Under the theme “Beyond Borders: Storytelling Across Time,” this year the event launches at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek in May, heads to Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) from May 30 through June 4, and closes at Maysles Cinema. The popular festival includes 68 films of multiple genres from 31 countries across the diaspora, and is presented by FLC and African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF).

“These films help us to celebrate our vibrant cultures, as well as confront the issues that affect our societies, said AFF Executive Director and NYAFF Founder Mahen Bonetti. “The stories challenge us to continue thinking about ways to improve our situation and build for the future and that is the magic and power of the cinema.”

Opening Night at Film at Lincoln Center at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 30 is the U.S. premiere of Frances-Anne Solomon’s triumphant feature HERO: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross. The film, which won the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival People’s Choice Award in the narrative feature category, tells the story of Cross, the Royal Air Force’s most decorated West Indian of World War II, and his and his fellow West Indians’ lasting impact on world history, including several liberation struggles across Africa. The film was selected as part of NYAFF’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first Pan-African Congress, organized in Paris by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Gibbs Hunt in February 1919, when delegates from Africa and the diaspora convened to champion Africa’s self-determination. Tickets for the film and Opening Night post-screening reception are available online at africanfilmny.org for $100. Regular festival prices apply for screening-only tickets, which can be purchased at filmlinc.org.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the tragic Rwandan genocide of 1994, when between 800,000 and one million lives were lost, at 5:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 1 is the Centerpiece film, Rwandan director Joël Karekezi’s gripping drama The Mercy of the Jungle. One of a crop of films about the aftermath of the tragedy by Rwandan directors, it follows Rwandan soldiers hunting rebels separated from their unit as they fight to survive while lost in the war-torn countryside. Preceding The Mercy of the Jungle will be the short The Letter Carrier, a haunting, folkloric fairy tale told through original a capella song. The directorial debut of actor-directors Jesse L. Martin and Rick Cosnett imagines a black family from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and the lengths they will go to save themselves from slavery.

In its look back, NYAFF also tips its hat to FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), the historic festival in Burkina Faso now celebrating its 50th anniversary, with classic works from African trailblazers who continue to influence generations of filmmakers. Among the selections are the first FESPACO Best Film winner (Oumarou Ganda’s Le Wazzou Polygame in 1972), most recent awardee (Karekezi’s gripping drama The Mercy of the Jungle), and several in between, including Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s Fatwa (bronze at FESPACO in 2019, first prize at Carthage Film Festival in 2018), Ola Balogun’s Black Goddess (1978), and Souleymane Cissé’s Baara (1980), all seminal works that define themes explored in contemporary African cinema. The final film screening at Film at Lincoln Center, on June 4, is the sweeping epic Sarraounia by Med Hondo, who passed away on March 2.

The festival also highlights some of today’s most buzzed-about directors of the diaspora, including South African comedian-actor-director Kagiso Lediga (Wizard / Matwetwe), the first African director to be tapped for a Netflix Original Series (Catching Feelings, starring Pearl Thusi); Julius Amedume, whose thriller Rattlesnakes featuring Jimmy Jean-Louis won the Panafrican Film Festival Audience Award for Narrative Feature), and Cameroonian director Rosine Mbakam, whose Chez Jolie Coiffure captures the powerful real-life story of an undocumented hair-salon manager who escaped to Belgium from quasi-slavery in Lebanon.

A digital art exhibition, From Ouaga to NYC: Capturing the Pan-African Spirit, will run from 1 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 31, to Monday, June 3, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4. For four decades, director Mohammed Challouf and cultural advocate Kojo Ade captured African and African diaspora cultural celebrations on the continent and in the diaspora respectively. Charting personal memories across landscapes of African history and heritage, the two photographic essays explore issues of cultural identity shaping an African diaspora consciousness and solidarity within an international vocabulary of contemporary media art practice.

Finally, acclaimed Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno will deliver a free master class on entertainment and education within the context of African cinema on June 1. The event will feature a discussion on how filmmakers and stakeholders today can trigger change through the transformative power of cinema.

Tickets go on sale May 10 and are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film at Lincoln Center members. See more and save with a 3+ film discount package.

The 26th NYAFF kicks off at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAMcinématek) Thursday, May 23, and runs through Monday, May 27, as a part of BAM’s popular dance and music festival DanceAfrica. It then heads to FLC and closes with screenings at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem from Thursday, June 6, through Sunday, June 9.

The programs of AFF are made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Bradley Family Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Domenico Paulon Foundation, L’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (International Organization of La Francophonie), NYC & Company, French Cultural Services, Manhattan Portage, City Bakery, Black Hawk Imports, Essentia Water, South African Consulate General, National Film and Video Foundation, Consulate General of Sweden in New York, Hudson Hotel, and Royal Air Maroc.

HERO

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

All screenings take place at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)
unless otherwise noted.

Opening Night
HERO: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross
Frances-Anne Solomon, Trinidad and Tobago/Canada, 2018, 110m
In 1941, a young man from Trinidad named Ulric Cross leaves his island home to seek his fortune. He emerges from World War II as the RAF’s most decorated West Indian. Cross’s long life spanned key moments of the 20th century, including independence in Africa and the Caribbean. Shot in Ghana, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad and Tobago, the film is not just about his life but also the transformative times in which he lived, and tells the untold story of those Caribbean professionals who helped to liberate Africa from colonialism.
Thursday, May 30, 6:30pm
Sunday, June 2, 4:15pm

Centerpiece
The Mercy of the Jungle
Joel Karekezi, Belgium/France, 2018, 91m
French and Swahili with English subtitles
At the outbreak of the Second Congo War, Rwandan soldiers Sergeant Xavier and Private Faustin are sent to hunt down Hutu rebels in the vast jungles of eastern Congo. Xavier is a stoic veteran of the ethnic wars that have plagued his country for years; Faustin is an eager young recruit who joined the army to avenge the death of his father and brothers. Under the relentless command of Major Kayitare, they march 80 kilometers a day in pursuit of the murderers of nearly one million Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide four years earlier. When they are accidentally left behind in the jungle, with only each other to rely on, they embark on an odyssey through the most violent forest on earth, faced with the depths of their own war-torn souls.

Preceded by:
The Letter Carrier
Jesse L. Martin & Rick Cosnett, Canada, 2016, 18m
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of 1860, a mother protects her family from slavery, while the myth of a man known as The Letter Carrier, who, as the legend goes, roams the mountains looking for children to sell as slaves, looms over them.
Saturday, June 1, 6:00pm (with Q&A)
Monday, June 3, 3:30pm (with Q&A)

Baara
Souleymane Cissé, Mali, 1980, 93m
Bambara with English subtitles
In the great Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé’s political drama, a young factory manager encounters a man walking along a road who tells him his family members work as servants in the manager’s household. The man then offers him a job, and as he watches out for his welfare, begins to see how the company mistreats its workers. As dire problems surface at the factory, the manager is then challenged to choose between his ethics and the pressure from others to protect his own interests.
Monday, June 3, 6:00pm (with Q&A)

Bigger Than Africa
Toyin Ibrahim Adekeye, Nigeria/USA, 2018, 90m
When the slave boats carrying African people docked in America, Brazil, Cuba, and the Caribbean, hundreds of cultures, traditions, and religions landed with them. Today, only one remains prominent in the new world: the culture of the Yorubas. This documentary, shot in six different countries (including Brazil, the United States, Republic of Benin, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago), and featuring interviews from around the world, follows the journey of these Africans from West Africa to their final destinations.
Sunday, June 2, 9:15pm (with Q&A)

Black Goddess / A Deusa Negra
Ola Balogun, Nigeria/Brazil, 1978, 95m
Portuguese with English subtitles
Black Goddess is a classic Nigerian-Brazilian film from director Ola Balogun that journeys into the past and present of Africa. Balogun’s tale is a love story that spans three centuries, set in both the 18th century and the 1970s, when the movie was made. Structured in the form of mystical journey, the film unfolds under the aegis of the Yoruba divinity Yemoja.
Tuesday, June 4, 6:00pm (with Q&A)

Chez Jolie Coiffure
Rosine Mbakam, Belgium/Cameroon, 2018, 71m
French and Pidgin with English subtitles
Recruited by a Lebanese maid agency, Sabine leaves Cameroon and embarks for Lebanon. After many years of servitude, she escapes to Belgium, but her arrival there is complicated by the fact that she enters illegally, by way of Greece and Syria. She settles in Matonge, the African quarter, where she becomes the manager of the beauty salon Chez Jolie Coiffure. Here, patrons, many of them undocumented immigrants, are not only be made to feel beautiful but can also escape the daily difficulties and harsh realities of their lives.

Preceded by:
Little Girl
Tafadzwa Chiriga, Zimbabwe/USA/Nigeria, 2018, 6m
In this visually beautiful coming-of-age story, ancestral spirits emerge from the depths of a forest to guide a young African-American woman into a deeper relationship with her past, introducing her to a rich legacy of the African women who came before her. Little Girl is about finding a deeper understanding of the self, infused with questions of identity, religion, and cultural history.
Sunday, June 2, 12:30pm (with Q&A)

Bigger Than Africa

Chosen / Le Futur dans le rétro
Jean-Marie Téno, Cameroon/Ghana/France, 2018, 89m
French and English with English subtitles
In 1964, following the death of her mother, 14-year-old Nana Banyina Horne becomes a mother figure to eight younger siblings. Years later, after living and teaching in America, Nana is chosen to be Queen Mother back in Ghana. As the film follows her on her journey home, we meet her sisters, family, and other members of the community, and we slowly perceive the both loving and suffocating ties and responsibilities that pull her back. On Nana’s journey, motherhood and sisterhood converge and collide, losses resurface, and cycles repeat, bringing to the fore questions of place and belonging, and the burdens of responsibility and sacrifice.
Saturday, June 1, 1:00pm (with Q&A)

Fatwa
Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud, Tunisia, 2018, 102m
Arabic with English subtitles
Brahim Nadhour is a Tunisian living in France who returns to his home country to bury his son, Marouane, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. While there, Brahim finds out that Marouane was active in a radical Islamist group. Brahim then decides to carry out his own investigation to discover why Marouane was radicalized and who indoctrinated him.
Sunday, June 2, 6:45pm (with Q&A)
Tuesday, June 4, 3:30pm

Oga Bolaji
Kayode Kasum, Nigeria, 2018, 91m
Pidgin and Yoruba with English subtitles
Oga Bolaji centers on the simple, happy-go-lucky life of a retired, 40-year-old musician (played by Gold Ikponmosa) whose life changes forever when he crosses paths with a 7-year-old girl. Oga Bolaji showcases the resilience and ingenuity of the Nigerian spirit, of striving, hoping, and dreaming despite life’s pain and limitations.
Saturday, June 1, 9:00pm (with Q&A)
Monday, June 3, 1:00pm (with Introduction)

Rattlesnakes
Julius Amedume, USA/UK, 2019, 86m
Writer-director Julius Amedume’s Rattlesnakes, is a psychological neo-noir thriller based on Graham Farrow’s acclaimed stage play. The story follows an intense day in the life of family man and yoga instructor Robert McQueen (Jimmy Jean-Louis), who is ambushed by three masked strangers accusing him of sleeping with their wives. He pleads his innocence, though what he does reveal will change all of their lives forever. But will it be enough to save his?
Monday, June 3, 8:30pm (with Q&A)

Sarraounia
Med Hondo, Burkina Faso/Mauritania/France, 1986, 120m
Dioula, French, and Fula with English subtitles
Based on historical accounts of Queen Sarraounia, who led the Azans into battle against the French colonialists at the turn of the century, Med Hondo’s sweeping epic rivals any that American cinema has produced. A brilliant strategist and forceful leader, the queen commands respect from the men she guides into battle and deep loyalty for her people. Hondo contrasts the strong alliances that emerge among African communities with the self-seeking and purposelessness of the Europeans and provides much-needed African historical perspective. Sarraounia is both an engrossing tale of a remarkable woman’s bravery and a captivating study of revolution against enslavement and the struggle for peace and freedom.
Tuesday, June 4, 8:30pm (with introduction)

Le Wazzou Polygame
Oumarou Ganda, Niger, 1971, 50m
Djema with English subtitles
El Hadji, an Islamic faithful, returns from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca, and falls in love with his daughter’s friend Santou, who is already engaged to be married. However, El Hadji already has two wives, and his second wife, Gaika, cannot stand the idea of another younger woman entering her house. Oumarou Ganda’s film depicts the rift between tradition and modernity during the period of Nigerien emancipation, and it serves as an homage to the age of African independence that gave way to the classic era of Francophone African cinema, which depicted the social struggles that come with emancipation discourse. Le Wazzou Polygame won the top prize at the 1972 FESPACO awards (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), and was cited for cultivating a theme of liberation and humanization in African cinema.

Preceded by:
Mambéty
Papa Madièye Mbaye, Senegal, 2002, 28m
Wolof with English subtitles
Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty, one of the greatest figures in all of African film, died in 1998. In this behind-the-scenes documentary, shot during the making of his final work, The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun / La petite vendeuse de soleil, Mambéty speaks with his technicians, prepares the actors, talks with his young star, and, in voiceover, shares his thoughts on cinema and life.
Friday, May 31, 6:30pm

Wizard / Matwetwe
Kagiso Lediga, South Africa, 2018, 84m
Sotho-Tswana with English subtitles
It’s New Year’s Eve in Atteridgeville, and Lefa is on the cusp of major change. Accepted into university to study botany, he’s about to leave the ghetto township that has been his home—if only his deadbeat father will come through with his school fees. The easy life is on the horizon, but he and his best friend, an albino would-be gangster, Paapi, need to first find a way to navigate the difficult life at home.
Friday, May 31, 8:45pm
Tuesday, June 4, 1:30pm

The Mercy of the Jungle

Shorts Program (TRT: 107m)
Featuring Showtime by Shawn Antoine II, Suicide by Sunlight by Nikyatu, No Traveler Returns by Ellie Foumbi, Sign Up by Abeer Yehia, Wrong Con by Charles Obiemere, and Hello, Rain by C.J. “Fiery” Obasi
Saturday, June 1, 3:30pm

Showtime
Shawn Antoine II, USA, 2018, 15m
Darius and Hakeem dance on New York City trains to earn honest money and escape the crime-riddled streets of Harlem. When Darius is offered an opportunity to audition for Juilliard’s traveling dance team, Hakeem grows jealous. When Hakeem begins to sell drugs with the neighborhood goon TJ and succumb to the crime in Harlem, Darius is faced with the decision to pursue his life-changing opportunity or help keep Hakeem out of trouble.

Suicide by Sunlight
Nikyatu, USA, 2019, 17m
Valentina, a day-walking black vampire protected from the sun by her melanin, finds it difficult to suppress her bloodlust when a new woman is introduced to her estranged twin daughters.

No Traveler Returns
Ellie Foumbi, Ivory Coast/USA, 2019, 12m
French with English subtitles
A young African immigrant’s struggle to adjust to life in America pushes him toward an existential crisis.

Sign Up
Abeer Yehia, Egypt, 2019, 15m
Arabic with English subtitles
Detainees in an Egyptian jail cell receive a new prisoner, Ahmed, who happens to be well-known on social media. Their interaction brings out their different backgrounds and perspectives, and as their relationship further develops, we learn the reasons behind their imprisonment. Together, they come up with an unusual solution to confront their new reality.

Wrong Con
Charles Obiemere, Nigeria, 2018, 18m
English and Pidgin with English subtitles
Two down-on-their-luck con men desperately need to make a few bucks. They decide to pose as pastors in order to waylay a desperate wealthy man with a sick daughter. The job is supposed to be easy, but things take a turn when he locks con men inside the room with the demon-possessed girl, refusing to let them out until they have healed her.

Hello, Rain
C.J. “Fiery” Obasi, Nigeria, 2018, 30m
English and Pidgin with French and Spanish subtitles
In this adaptation of an Afro-futuristic short story by Hugo Award–winning author Nnedi Okorafor, three scientist witches create magical wigs that grant them untold supernatural powers. As with everything, power corrupts, and the leader, Rain, must stop them before they destroy the nation.

Suicide by Sunlight

Paulin Soumanou Vieyra Shorts Program (TRT: 64m)
Born in Porto-Novo, Benin, and raised in Senegal, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (1925-1987) was a filmmaker and a historian, and one of the most important figures in all of African cinema. The founder of the “Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes” in 1969, Vieyra was a mentor to the great figures of the seventh art, such as Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty, and Ababacar Samb-Makharam. The following program features three of his greatest documentary shorts, including Afrique sur Seine, one of the first released Francophone African films; Lamb, about traditional wrestling in Senegal; and his film about Sembène, L’Envers du Décor.
Sunday, June 2, 2:30pm (with Q&A)

Afrique sur Seine
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and Mamadou Sarr, Senegal, 1955, 21m
French with English subtitles
In this short documentary, Vieyra and his collaborator Mamadou Sarr explore the lives of Africans living in Paris, poetically evoking the ambiguities and questions about identity that plague students educated in colonialist spaces, removed from their comfort zone. In voiceover, the film wonders if Africa is only in Africa or also on the banks of the Seine?

Lamb
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Senegal, 1963, 18m
Wolof and French with English subtitles
This documentary captures the sport of traditional wrestling, called “lamb” in Wolof, popular in Senegal. Vieyra presents the rigorous rules of the sport and training practices by the sea. Lamb was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, a first for a film from sub-Saharan Africa.

L’Envers du Décor
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Senegal, 1981, 25m
French with English subtitles
Vieyra captures Ousmane Sembène, one of the greatest African filmmakers, during the filming of Ceddo, which would be censored under the Senghor regime and until 1983 by the Senegalese authorities.

L’Envers du Décor

Public Screening Schedule for 2019 New York African Film Festival

Directors and/or guest speakers will be present for Q&As at screenings indicated by an asterisk*. ALL FILMS IN NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGES WILL BE SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH.

Screening Venue:
Film at Lincoln Center:
Walter Reade Theater (WRT), 165 West 65th Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (EBM) 144 West 65th Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam

Thursday, May 30 (Walter Reade Theater)
6:30pm *OPENING: HERO: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross (110m)

Friday, May 31 (EBM)

6:30pm *Le Wazzou Polygame (50m) + Mambéty (28m)
8:45pm *Wizard / Matwetwe (84m)

Saturday, June 1 (EBM)

1:00pm *Chosen (89m)
3:30pm *Shorts Program (Showtime, Suicide by Sunlight, No Traveler Returns, Sign Up, Wrong Con, Hello, Rain) (TRT: 107m)
6:00pm *CENTERPIECE: The Mercy of the Jungle (91m) + The Letter Carrier (18m)
9:00pm *Oga Bolaji (91m)

Sunday, June 2 (EBM)

12:30pm *Chez Jolie Coiffure (71m) + Little Girl (6m)
2:30pm *Paulin Soumanou Vieyra Shorts Program (Afrique sur Seine, Lamb, L’Envers du Décor) (TRT: 64m)
4:15pm *HERO: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life and Times of Mr. Ulric Cross (110m)
6:45pm *Fatwa (102m)
9:15pm *Bigger Than Africa (90m)

Monday, June 3 (EBM)
1:00pm Oga Bolaji (91m)
3:30pm The Mercy of the Jungle (91m) + The Letter Carrier (18m)
6:00pm *Baara (93m)
8:30pm *Rattlesnakes (86m)

Tuesday, June 4 (EBM)
1:30pm Wizard / Matwetwe (84m)
3:30pm Fatwa (102m)
6:00pm *Black Goddess (95m)
8:30pm *Sarraounia (120m)

The post Lineup Announced for the 2019 New York African Film Festival appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

On this week’s podcast, we’re sharing the Q&A from last week’s opening night screening of Knock Down the House, Rachel Lears’s remarkable documentary following four female politicians as they challenged local Democratic incumbents in the 2018 midterm elections. Featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Paula Jean Swearengin and Amy Vilela, Knock Down the House is an emotional portrait of the changing profile of America’s political hopefuls. 

The film is now playing daily here at Film at Lincoln Center through Thursday. Click here for showtimes and tickets. Director Rachel Lears and editor Robin Blotnick joined Karen James from The BBC for a Q&A after last week’s premiere screening. 

Listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick Talk <i>Knock Down the House</i> on Film at Lincoln Center Podcast appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà announce the complete lineup for the 19th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, June 6-12.

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is the leading screening series to offer North American audiences a diverse and extensive lineup of contemporary Italian films. This year’s edition again strikes a balance between emerging talents and esteemed veterans, commercial and independent fare, outrageous comedies, gripping dramas, and captivating documentaries, with in-person appearances by many of the filmmakers.

The Opening Night film is Claudio Giovannesi’s Piranhas, adapted from the novel by Gomorrah writer Roberto Saviano. The fourth film by Giovannesi and winner of the Berlinale Silver Bear Best Script Award, Piranhas follows a group of cocksure young men enraptured by the local Camorra who find themselves gradually descending into the violent, paranoid world of the Napoli mafia. Highlights of the lineup include Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro, a satirical reimagining of the fall of Silvio Berlusconi with The Great Beauty’s Toni Servillo as the disgraced and debaucherous prime minister; Mario Martone’s stirring period drama Capri-Revolution, which centers on a young goatherd who finds herself drawn to a commune of politically radical artists and intellectuals in pre-WWI Capri; Gianni Zanasi’s Lucia’s Grace, starring Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro, I Am Love) as a conflicted land surveyor who learns that her new building project threatens the environmental safety of the city; actor Valerio Mastandrea’s directorial feature debut Laughing, a powerfully cathartic exploration of grief punctuated by disarming humor and flashes of poetic realism; and the evocative romance Ricordi?, Valerio Mieli’s earthy meditation on love following an unnamed couple wrestling with the passage of time and the tidal forces of memory.

Piranhas

Documentaries feature strongly in the Open Roads lineup, including the North American premiere of Agostino Ferrente’s lyrical and moving Selfie, a chronicle of adolescent friendship in the gang-ravaged Traiano region of Naples largely filmed on smartphones by the 16-year-old subjects; The Disappearance of My Mother, an intimate, inquisitive portrait of cinematographer-turned-director Beniamino Barrese’s mother, the renowned model, activist, and feminist educator Benedetta Barzini; Normal, a sweeping work of anthropology from Adele Tulli that reckons with instilled and reinforced gender identities in modern Italian society; and Sono Gassman! Vittorio re della commedia, Fabrizio Corallo’s engaging survey of the life, work, and legacy of the Italian screen icon Vittorio Gassman.

This year’s edition of Open Roads will also showcase a number of breakout performances, including  Ciro D’Emilio’s coming-of-age soccer drama If Life Gives You Lemons, which features a compelling lead performance by Giampiero De Concilio; Federico Bondi’s FIPRESCI-winning sophomore narrative feature Dafne, anchored by Carolina Raspanti’s performance as a young woman with Down’s syndrome grappling with the death of her mother; and writer-director Laura Luchetti’s Twin Flower, starring nonprofessional actors Anastasiya Bogach and Kallil Kone as a pair of teenage runaways who forge a relationship haunted by their respective pasts. Additional standouts of the lineup include Euphoria, Valeria Golino’s quietly wrenching portrait of two brothers forced to reckon with their long-unspoken resentments when one falls ill; Edoardo De Angelis’s The Vice of Hope, a stirring survival saga about a desperate woman fighting to escape from her family’s criminal enterprise; and Magical Nights, Paolo Virzi’s murder mystery–cum–film industry satire studded with winking references to Italian-cinema legends.

Open Roads will also feature a special repertory screening of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1962 directorial debut La Commare Secca, a savvy, formally audacious murder mystery adapted from a short story by Pier Paolo Pasolini that marks a fitting introduction to the Italian master, who passed away in November at the age of 77.

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema is co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Organized by Florence Almozini and Dan Sullivan, Film at Lincoln Center; and by Carla Cattani, Griselda Guerrasio, and Monique Catalino, Istituto Luce Cinecittà.

Tickets for Open Roads: New Italian Cinema go on sale May 17, with Film at Lincoln Center members receiving an early access period beginning May 15. Tickets are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film at Lincoln Center members. See more and save with the 3+ film discount package or Open Roads All-Access Pass. 

Acknowledgments

Antonio Monda, Italian Cultural Institute New York and Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò.

Loro

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

All films screen digitally at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.) unless otherwise noted.

Opening Night
Piranhas / La paranza dei bambini
Claudio Giovannesi, Italy, 2019, 112m
Italian with English subtitles
Claudio Giovannesi (Fiore) returns to Open Roads with this singular coming-of-age story that won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival. Newcomer Francesco Di Napoli stars as 15-year-old Nicola, who leads a pack of cocksure hellions captivated by the lifestyle of the local Camorra as they descend into the violent, paranoid world of Naples’s dominant crime group. Based on the novel by Roberto Saviano, who co-wrote the screenplay and mined similar territory in his devastating Gomorrah, Piranhas is a haunting reflection on doomed adolescence. A Music Box Films release.
Thursday, June 6, 6:00pm (Q&A with Claudio Giovannesi)
Wednesday, June 12, 9:15pm

Capri-Revolution
Mario Martone, France/Italy, 2018, 122m
English and Italian, Neapolitan, French, German, and Russian with English subtitles
The stirring period drama from veteran director Mario Martone centers on Lucia (Marianna Fontana), a young goatherd living on Capri in 1914, when Europe is on the precipice of World War I. Also on the island is a commune of free-spirited, politically radical Northern European artists and intellectuals who have retreated to the lush Mediterranean idyll to put their fledgling ideologies into practice. Chafing at the traditions of her native community, Lucia finds herself drawn to the commune and its idealistic leader—but soon she must reckon with the vast tides of cultural and political change.
Sunday, June 9, 6:00pm (Q&A with Mario Martone and screenwriter Ippolita Di Majo)

La Commare Secca
Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, 1962, 35mm, 88m
Italian with English subtitles
Bernardo Bertolucci made an auspicious filmmaking debut at 21 with this savvy, meticulous murder mystery adapted from a short story by Pier Paolo Pasolini. When the corpse of a prostitute is discovered near a public park, the police attempt to reconstruct the story of the woman’s death from the recollections of standersby brought in for questioning, presented in flashback sequences. This formally audacious meditation on memory, contingency, and the elusive implications of “realism” marks a fitting introduction to the Italian master, who passed away in November at the age of 77. 35mm print courtesy of Istituto Luce Cinecitta
Tuesday, June 11, 6:00pm

Dafne
Federico Bondi, Italy, 2019, 94m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Dafne (Carolina Raspanti), a young woman with Down syndrome, leads a quiet family life that is upended by the sudden death of her mother. Both Dafne and her father, Luigi (Antonio Piovanelli), struggle to support each other as they differently process this loss: Luigi withdraws into depression, while Dafne gravitates toward greater responsibility at work and at home. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize in this year’s Berlin Film Festival Panorama, Federico Bondi’s understated sophomore feature gently reorients their mourning into a tender story of perseverance, awash in rich everyday detail and anchored by a magnetic breakout performance by Raspanti.
Friday, June 7, 3:30pm (Q&A with Federico Bondi)

The Disappearance of My Mother / Storia di B. – La scomparsa di mia madre
Beniamino Barrese, Italy, 2019, 94m
English and Italian with English subtitles
In his directorial debut, cinematographer Beniamino Barrese weaves together new and archival footage spanning decades and continents to craft an intimate, vignette-like documentary portrait of his mother, the renowned Italian model, activist, and feminist educator Benedetta Barzini. Taking this formidable woman as its protagonist, the film adopts an inquisitive stance, delving into her personal and professional history and probing her present-day reality with a son’s affectionate persistence, and ultimately opens up into an exploration of such vast and timeless themes as beauty, womanhood, aging, and image-making, while simultaneously engaging in deeply personal contemplation of the relationship between a mother and her son, and between an artist and his subject. A Kino Lorber release in association with Breaker.
Monday, June 10, 6:00pm (Q&A with Beniamino Barrese and Benedetta Barzini)

Capri-Revolution

Euphoria / Euforia
Valeria Golino, Italy, 2018, 120m
Italian with English subtitles
Acclaimed leading men Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea play Matteo and Ettore, two adult brothers living drastically different lives, in actor-director Valeria Golino’s quietly wrenching new drama. When Ettore, a public-school teacher and father of modest means, is diagnosed with an illness, he goes to stay with cosmopolitan Matteo in his sprawling Roman bachelor pad, and Matteo takes charge of overseeing his brother’s medical care. Between appointments with doctors and visits from Ettore’s wife (Isabella Ferrari) and his mistress (Jasmine Trinca), the brothers reckon with long-unresolved tensions and unspoken resentments, and face the implications of Ettore’s failing health, against the thrumming backdrop of the sunny Roman cityscape. Premiered in the 2018 Cannes Un Certain Regard.
Saturday, June 8, 6:00pm (Q&A with Valerio Mastandrea)
Wednesday, June 12, 2:00pm

If Life Gives You Lemons / Un giorno all’improvviso
Ciro D’Emilio, Italy, 2018, 88m
Italian with English subtitles
Abandoned by his father and left alone to care for his mentally ill mother, 17-year-old high-school dropout Antonio (Giampiero De Concilio) has had to grow up fast, navigating the complexities of the adult world while trying to hold onto what’s left of a normal teenage life. When he’s scouted by a professional soccer team, it seems like the break he’s been waiting for—but a series of calamitous personal crises threaten to derail his dreams. Anchored by a compelling lead performance from its up-and-coming star, this achingly naturalistic coming-of-age drama vividly evokes the world of a young man striving to succeed in the face of overwhelming odds.
Saturday, June 8, 3:30pm (Q&A with Ciro D’Emilio)

Laughing / Ride
Valerio Mastandrea, Italy, 2018, 90m
Italian with English subtitles
North American premiere
After a young man dies in a controversial workplace accident, those who loved him grapple with what it means to go on living: his widow, seemingly unable to cry, questions why she feels so numb; his son sublimates the trauma by rigorously preparing for the media frenzy that will accompany the funeral; his father, haunted by his inability to prevent the tragedy, wrestles with survivor’s guilt. Punctuated by disarming humor and flashes of poetic realism, the feature debut from acclaimed actor Valerio Mastandrea is a powerfully cathartic exploration of the myriad ways we grieve, cope, and find hope in the face of loss.
Saturday, June 8, 1:00pm (Q&A with Valerio Mastandrea and Chiara Martegiani)

Loro
Paolo Sorrentino, Italy/France, 2018, 150m
Italian with English subtitles
The Oscar-winning director of The Great Beauty returns with a satirical reimagining of the fall of Silvio Berlusconi (Toni Servillo). Loro offers ample sex and drugs as it follows Sergio Morra (Riccardo Scamarcio), a power-hungry talent scout who installs himself in a villa next door to Berlusconi with a troupe of young escorts. But the debauchery stands in pointed contrast to the prime minister’s slow decline. Despite Morra’s determination to coax his neighbor to one of his ragers, Berlusconi is dealing with a quieter range of chamber dramas: a long-suffering wife who doesn’t believe in his limp vows of fidelity, a son with whom he’s trying to bond, and a mounting sense of helplessness and apathy as he feels power slipping through his fingers. Somewhere at the intersection of Fellini and Scarface, Sorrentino locates the weakening pulse of a political era. An IFC Films release.
Saturday, June 8, 9:00pm
Tuesday, June 11, 8:00pm

Lucia’s Grace / Troppa Grazia
Gianni Zanasi, Italy/Greece/Spain, 2018, 110m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro, I Am Love) stars as a land surveyor and single mother whose compassion is tested when she learns that her new building project threatens the environmental safety of the city. While she is torn between her decision to speak up or keep her job, a mysterious woman enters Lucia’s already chaotic life and proposes she build a church on the site. Lucia’s Grace, which was the Closing Night selection of the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, is a pleasantly original comedy about faith and acceptance in the modern world, and a showcase of Rohrwacher’s emotional range and flair for physical comedy.
Monday, June 10, 3:30pm
Wednesday, June 12, 7:00pm

Magical Nights / Notti magiche
Paolo Virzì, Italy, 2018, 125m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The latest from maestro Paolo Virzì (Human Capital) is a sparkling murder mystery and film industry satire set in the early 1990s, the tail end of Italian cinema’s golden age, when neorealism and commedia all’italiana gave way to a culture of excess, greed, and artistic stagnation. When a famous film producer is found dead in the Tiber River, suspicion falls on three young screenwriters who, when they are hauled in for questioning, recount their wild adventures navigating Rome’s declining film industry. Studded with winking references to Italian cinema legends, Magical Nights is Virzì’s loving yet irreverent glance back to the not-so-good old days.
Sunday, June 9, 12:45pm
Wednesday, June 12, 4:30pm

The Disappearance of My Mother

Normal
Adele Tulli, Italy, 2019, 67m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Atmospheric vignettes in such striking settings as a doctor’s office, a toy factory, and a dirt bike rally build off of one another in Adele Tulli’s stylized documentary, which reckons with the ever-changing norms around gender identity. Through a diverse cross-section of Italian society—including tween pop idols, stage parents, socialites, gamers, and soon-to-be-newlyweds—Tulli finds a humanistic pathos, whether it be in the solitary gaze of a young child, or in the mass groupthink of an exercise class. A standout from the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section, Normal is a sweeping work of anthropology that looks at the ways that conventional gender expression is instilled and reinforced.
Monday, June 10, 8:30pm (Q&A with Adele Tulli)

Ricordi?
Valerio Mieli, Italy/France, 2018, 106m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Nine years after his debut feature, Ten Winters, played in Open Roads, Valerio Mieli returns with an evocative romance about an unnamed, archetypal couple (Luca Marinelli and Isabella Ragonese) wrestling with the passage of time. When they move into the house where Marinelli’s character spent his childhood summers, the past resurfaces in sensory bursts and exerts a profound hold on him; meanwhile, she struggles to overcome his anxieties about the inevitability of change. Ricordi? is an earthy meditation on love that’s pushed and pulled by the tidal waves of memory.
Friday, June 7, 8:30pm (Q&A with Valerio Mieli)

Selfie
Agostino Ferrente, France/Italy, 2019, 78m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Several years after an unarmed teenager was shot by police in the Traiano region of Naples, filmmaker Agostino Ferrente traveled to the gang-ravaged neighborhood to make a documentary about the lives of its young people—for whom the prospect of being swept up in Camorra activity perpetually looms. The film’s central subjects are Alessandro and Pietro, 16-year-old best friends whom Ferrente recruited to film themselves using smartphones in “selfie” mode as they go about their daily lives. The result is at once lyrical and raw, a deceptively offhand, richly moving chronicle of adolescent friendship in a social microcosm shaped by economic precarity, conflicting moralities, and the improbable persistence of hope.
Sunday, June 9, 9:00pm (Q&A with Agostino Ferrente)
Tuesday, June 11, 4:15pm

Sono Gassman! Vittorio re della commedia
Fabrizio Corallo, Italy, 2018, 94m
Italian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
This brisk, engaging documentary surveys the life, work, and legacy of Vittorio Gassman, the Italian screen icon who began his illustrious career as a serious dramatic stage actor before going on to subvert that image in classic works of commedia all’italiana by Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Dino Risi (Il Sorpasso), and Ettore Scola (We All Loved Each Other So Much). Through a wealth of interviews, film clips, and archival footage, Sono Gassman! reveals how Gassman’s comedic screen persona cannily reflected and critiqued mid-20th-century Italian society, while shedding light on the complex inner life of the man himself.
Sunday, June 9, 3:30pm (Q&A with Fabrizio Corallo)

Twin Flower / Fiore Gemello
Laura Luchetti, Italy, 2018, 96m
Italian and French with English subtitles
In writer-director Laura Luchetti’s strikingly photographed second feature, two teenage runaways forge a relationship haunted by their respective pasts. Anna (Anastasiya Bogach) is eluding a human trafficker for whom her father worked, and Basim (Kallil Kone) is a refugee from the Ivory Coast in search of gainful employment. Together they embark on a dangerous trip across the tough but breathtaking terrain of Sardinia in the hopes of overcoming their personal demons. The remarkable chemistry between Bogach and Kone—both nonprofessional actors—carries Luchetti’s powerful film about coming of age in the throes of the refugee crisis. Received Honorable Mention for the Prize of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) at TIFF 2018.
Friday, June 7, 6:00pm (Q&A with Laura Luchetti)

The Vice of Hope / Il vizio della speranza
Edoardo De Angelis, Italy, 2018, 96m
Italian with English subtitles
A compassionate woman desperately fights to escape the criminal life she was born into in this breathless tale of resilience and inner strength. Maria (Pina Turco) assists her aunt in the family business of trafficking pregnant women through the shadowy, black market baby underground. When she helps one of the women escape, Maria—now pregnant herself—is plunged deeper into the underworld than she is prepared to go. Capturing the grey, rubble-strewn bleakness of its lawless port town setting in immersive, tension-building tracking shots, this stirring survival saga finds unexpected grace in a seemingly hopeless world. Winner of Best Actress (Pina Turco) and Best Director at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2018.
Thursday, June 6, 9:00pm (Q&A with Edoardo de Angelis)

Twin Flower

The post Lineup Announced for Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2019 appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Hot on the heels of its 50th Anniversary Gala, Film at Lincoln Center is gearing up for the 57th New York Film Festival. This year’s festival will run from Friday, September 27 – Sunday, October 13.

As always, this major annual film event—a centerpiece of New York culture since 1963—will introduce the most essential new cinematic works from around the world to U.S. audiences in its Main Slate. NYFF will also continue to feature a variety of titles in different sections and sidebars, including Spotlight on Documentary, newly rejuvenated classics in Restorations and Revivals, a diverse selection of international and locally made Shorts, the ever-expanding experimental showcase Projections, and the immersive storytelling experiences of the cutting-edge Convergence. Additionally, there will be an exciting lineup of special events, free filmmaker talks and panel discussions, and the latest editions of our annual Artist and Critic Academies.

“There are so many promising films emerging this year, fiction and documentary, some of which we’ve already seen and invited and some of which we’re looking forward to seeing,” said NYFF Director Kent Jones. “As always, there are some remarkable restorations. And two special anniversaries—the 50th of our organization and the 100th of the ASC, otherwise known as the American Cinematographers’ Union, which we’ll be celebrating with this year’s retrospective. Most of all, we’ll be proudly reaffirming our commitment to the art of cinema, and that’s always a cause for celebration.”

“After a successful 50th Anniversary Gala and launch of our new name and logo, work is already well underway for Film at Lincoln Center’s 57th New York Film Festival and we’re keeping the momentum going,” said FLC Executive Director Lesli Klainberg. “As Film at Lincoln Center, we feel more excited than ever to continue the festival’s mission of bringing cutting-edge cinema from around the world to New York audiences.”

Please save the following key dates for the 57th New York Film Festival:

IMPORTANT DATES

June 28: Press & Industry accreditation applications open
August 6: Main Slate announcement
August 16: Press & Industry accreditation applications close
September 8: Tickets on sale
September 16: Press & Industry screenings begin
Friday, September 27: Opening Night
Friday, October 4: Centerpiece
Friday, October 11: Closing Night

57th New York Film Festival SELECTION COMMITTEE

Main Slate
Kent Jones, Director of the New York Film Festival
Kent Jones is an internationally recognized filmmaker, writer, and programmer. He was the co-writer of Martin Scorsese’s survey of Italian cinema, My Voyage to Italy; the writer and director of the 2007 film Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows; and the co-writer and director with Scorsese of the Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award–winning 2010 film A Letter to Elia. His most recent documentary was Hitchcock/Truffaut, which premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and was broadcast on HBO.

He recently made his fiction debut with the critically acclaimed Diane starring Mary Kay Place, which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, and Best Film. Diane was recently released by IFC Films. Jones was selected by Variety as one of 2019’s 10 Directors to Watch.

He is the author of several books of criticism, including a 2007 collection, Physical Evidence, published by Wesleyan University Press.

From 1998 to 2008, Jones served as Associate Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center, and he joined the selection committee of the New York Film Festival in 2002. In November of 2012, he was appointed Director of the New York Film Festival.

Dennis Lim, FLC Director of Programming
Dennis Lim has been the Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center since 2013. The film editor of The Village Voice from 2000 to 2006, he has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Artforum, Film Comment, and Cinema Scope, among other publications. He has taught film studies at Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and arts criticism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the editor of The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits (Wiley, 2006) and the author of David Lynch: The Man from Another Place (New Harvest, 2015), which has been translated into three languages.

Florence Almozini, FLC Associate Director of Programming
Florence Almozini is currently the Associate Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center, serving on the committee for the NYFF, and programming such festivals as New Directors/New Films and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, as well as booking new releases. She has organized many retrospectives including Walerian Borowczyk, Jiri Trnka, Luchino Visconti, and The Female Gaze, an international survey of female cinematographers. She previously was the Program Director at BAMcinématek where she curated many retrospectives, often as New York Premieres, including Arnaud Desplechin, João Pedro Rodrigues, Nicolas Winding Refn, Bong Joon-ho, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Andrzej Zulawski. In 2009, she created the venue’s first-ever film festival, BAMcinemaFest, in which she also served as Festival Director. She has been bestowed upon the title Chevalier de L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2013.

Spotlight on Documentary
Kent Jones, Director of the New York Film Festival
Dennis Lim, FLC Director of Programming
Florence Almozini, FLC Associate Director of Programming

Retrospective
Kent Jones, Director of the New York Film Festival
Dan Sullivan, FLC Assistant Programmer

Revivals
Kent Jones, Director of the New York Film Festival
Dennis Lim, FLC Director of Programming
Florence Almozini, FLC Associate Director of Programming
Dan Sullivan, FLC Assistant Programmer

Projections
Dennis Lim, FLC Director of Programming
Aily Nash, Programmer at Large

Convergence
Matthew Bolish, FLC Director of Operations

Shorts
Tyler Wilson, FLC Assistant Programmer
Laura Kern, Managing Editor, Film Comment
Madeline Whittle, FLC Programming Assistant

Programming Coordinator
Sofia Tate

The post The 57th New York Film Festival Set for September 27-October 13 appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Celebrating its sixth year, the Art of the Real festival offered a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. This edition featured yet another vibrant slate of brilliant new works by internationally acclaimed filmmakers and impressive, award-winning debuts from around the world, plus a retrospective of Japanese experimental filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto’s nonfiction work and a tribute to the late Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab.

A selection of filmmakers joined Film at Lincoln Center to present their new work, including Sarah J. Christman (Swarm Season), Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (Acid Forest), Lei Lei (Breathless Animals), Tamer Hassan and Armand Yervant Tufenkian (Accession), Kavich Neang (Last Night I Saw You Smiling), and more. Check out the photo gallery above and Frank Beauvais’s Opening Night Q&A for Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream below.

The post Photos: Art of the Real 2019 appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

“One of the last of the great filmmakers of the 60s . . . An absolutely individual artist.” – Martin Scorsese

Following highly successful retrospectives of Luchino Visconti (2018), Marcello Mastroianni (2017), and Anna Magnani (2016), Film at Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecittà collaborate once again, to co-present Ermanno Olmi, a near-complete retrospective of the Italian master’s feature films, with most screening on 35mm prints, June 14-26.

A key Italian filmmaker of his generation, Ermanno Olmi had a career that spanned more than six decades. Updating the stylistic hallmarks of Italian neorealism to craft fiction films full of light and dignity, Olmi time and again captured the experience of work and family and expressed the churn of history with humor and grace. Known for his commitment to working with nonprofessional actors and to capturing the specific textures of the locations in which he filmed, The director, who started out as a self-taught documentarian, drew inspiration from his Catholic faith and from the social and cultural preoccupations of his native Lombardy region—personified by peasants in rural farming communities or by white-collar workers in the provincial capital of Milan. But Olmi, who passed away last year at age 86, was also always concerned with the political and economic systems underlying the social and physical environments in which his characters lived and dreamed.

The first New York City retrospective of his work in over a decade, this series pays homage to Olmi’s singular and sophisticated voice in Italian cinema, whose influence can be seen today in the work of such major directors as Alice Rohrwacher and Pietro Marcello. A diverse range of Olmi’s impressive oeuvre will be showcased, with highlights including his first narrative feature, Time Stood Still; the moving bildungsroman Il Posto, a sharp critique of corporate enterprises; his Palme d’Or–winning masterpiece The Tree of Wooden Clogs; the deeply humanist The Legend of the Holy Drinker; his audacious One Hundred Nails; and Olmi’s final narrative film, Greenery Will Bloom Again. The retrospective will also include the World Premiere of a 4K digital restoration of the visually sumptuous The Profession of Arms, often considered his most religious film.

Tickets for Ermanno Olmi go on sale May 17, with Film at Lincoln Center members receiving an early access period beginning May 15. Tickets are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film at Lincoln Center members. See more and save with the 3+ film discount package or Ermanno Olmi All-Access Pass.

Organized by Florence Almozini and Dan Sullivan of Film at Lincoln Center, and by Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Co-produced by Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Rome. Presented in association with the Ministry of Culture of Italy.

FILMS AND DESCRIPTIONS
All screenings held at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street) unless otherwise noted.

The Cardboard Village / Il villaggio di cartone
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2011, 87m
Italian with English subtitles
At the age of 80, Olmi directed his penultimate fiction film, a striking parable about the defense of faith in a world posed to deny it. An old church is scheduled for demolition: the paintings have been taken off the walls, the sacred objects put away, and a giant, mechanical arm starts to take down the life-size crucifix that hangs over the altar. Yet despite seeing the destruction of a place in which he has devoted so much of his life, the old priest (Michael Lonsdale, in a beautiful performance) feels a certain joy, for stripped of all its decorations, the building has returned to its true nature as a meeting place for humanity and the Divine, where the poor and the desperate can find a haven. As so often in his work, Olmi starts with a philosophical or spiritual themes and then fashions a story that gives these themes a powerful, contemporary relevance.
Friday, June 21, 8:45pm
Wednesday, June 26, 2:00pm

The Circumstance / La circostanza
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1973, 35mm, 97m
Italian with English subtitles
The modernist tendencies that Olmi flirted with throughout the 1960s and ’70s reached their most intense and abstract heights in this fractured family portrait. Told in an elliptical maze of flashbacks and jagged edits, The Circumstance charts the unraveling of a well-heeled Milanese family over the course of a fateful summer when, after witnessing a near-fatal motorcycle accident, the mother becomes obsessed with the young victim. Applying his keenly observant eye for social details to an upper-middle-class milieu, Olmi crafts a trenchant and empathetic look at the search for meaning amid the empty alienation bourgeois existence. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Monday, June 17, 4:00pm
Wednesday, June 19, 8:30pm

The Fiancés / I Fidanzati
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1963, 35mm, 77m
Italian with English subtitles
Olmi achieved early acclaim with his third feature, which Kent Jones called “by far his most beautiful foray into modernist territory, simply because it feels so homegrown.” As if to bridge the gap from his prior film, Il Posto, Olmi opens with a dancehall sequence in which our doleful protagonist—factory worker Giovanni (Carlo Cabrini)—faces the weight of his choices. Giovanni has been offered a promotion, but it means relocating from Milan to far-off Sicily for 18 months and leaving behind his longtime fiancée Liliana (Anna Canzi). There he finds loneliness and isolation among the mainland transplants and anxiety over his future with Liliana. Melding Antonioni-esque alienation and essentially neorealist content (using nonprofessional actors), Olmi tenders a work both melancholy and lyrical. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Saturday, June 15, 4:30pm
Tuesday, June 18, 8:30pm
Sunday, June 23, 7:30pm

The Fiancés

Genesis: The Creation and the Flood / Genesi (La creazione e il diluvio)
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1994, 35mm, 91m
Italian with English subtitles
In one of his most ravishingly sensuous works, Olmi imagines the biblical book of Genesis as a golden-hued visual tone poem. Shot in Morocco with a cast of local Bedouins, Genesis: The Creation and the Flood begins as an old man answers his curious grandson’s questions by recounting to him the Christian story of creation, from the first day, to the tale of Adam and Eve, to the myth of the great flood. Worlds removed from the high-gloss spectacle of Hollywood’s biblical epics, Olmi’s vision is a meditative, lyrical expression of personal spirituality that finds transcendence in the beauty of the natural world. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Monday, June 17, 2:00pm
Tuesday, June 25, 8:30pm

Greenery Will Bloom Again / Torneranno i prati
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2014, 80m
Italian with English subtitles
At the age of 83, Olmi turned his attention to the First World War. But instead of making a combat film, he chose to capture a single snowy night on the Italian front, as soldiers burrowed in trenches confront their loneliness and find pockets of hope where they can. With measured pacing and sparse dialogue, hypnotizing in its patient alertness and reminiscent of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line in its ethereality and focus on inner thoughts, this haunting meditation features actual World War I footage and is dedicated to the director’s father, who told Olmi tales of the war when he was a child. DCP from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Thursday, June 20, 4:00pm
Saturday, June 22, 2:00pm

Il Posto
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1961, 35mm, 93m
Italian with English subtitles
As with the earlier Italian neorealists, Olmi generally opted to work with nonprofessional actors and frequently shot on location, but such strategies are here used to depict life during the era of rapid economic expansion following the postwar recovery. The film follows wide-eyed Domenico as he journeys to Milan to interview for his first job. There, he becomes smitten with a young woman, Antonietta, applying for a position at the same company, a blush of romantic longing counterposed with the spiritual enervation of his office’s paper-pushing maze. “For me,” Olmi once remarked, “the cinema is a state of mind and a process of analysis from a series of detailed observations,” and this attitude is very much at work in Il Posto, a tender yet unflinching look at the passage into adulthood and capitalist bureaucracy, with all its concomitant disappointments. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Friday, June 14, 4:30pm
Wednesday, June 19, 6:30pm
Friday, June 21, 4:00pm

In the Summertime / Durante l’estate
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1971, 35mm, 105m
Italian with English subtitles
Olmi took a turn into Chaplin-esque whimsy with this rarely screened tragicomic fable about an eccentric mapmaker with a most unusual hobby: conferring phony aristocratic titles, complete with custom-made coats of arms, upon ordinary people in whom he detects a certain nobility. It’s a curious avocation that leads to both unexpected human connection and serious legal trouble when his lofty fantasies bump up against harsh reality. The closest Olmi came to pure comedy—delicate and bittersweet as it may be—In the Summertime achieves a touching poignancy thanks to the director’s abiding affection for the good-hearted outsiders of the world. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Saturday, June 15, 6:15pm
Tuesday, June 18, 2:00pm

The Legend of the Holy Drinker / La leggenda del santo bevitore
Ermanno Olmi, Italy/France, 1988, 35mm, 128m
English, French, and Italian with English subtitles
The spiritual humanism that runs through Olmi’s work reaches transcendent heights in this sublime adaptation of a novella by Austrian writer Joseph Roth. When a pious stranger bequeaths him 200 francs—with the caveat that he someday repay the debt in the form of an offering to Saint Therese—a homeless alcoholic (a transfixing Rutger Hauer) living under the bridges of Paris finds himself launched into a subtly surreal journey of the soul that takes him from the height of luxury to the depths of despair. Set to the music of Stravinsky and punctuated by hypnotic passages that unfold with the hushed intensity of a reverie, The Legend of the Holy Drinker confirmed Olmi’s status as cinema’s most sensitive chronicler of the downtrodden and dispossessed. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Sunday, June 16, 8:00pm
Saturday, June 22, 7:30pm

The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Long Live the Lady! / Lunga vita alla signora!
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1987, 35mm, 105m
English, French, and Italian with English subtitles
Six young men and women are whisked away to a mysterious, heavily surveilled castle in the mountains where they are being employed as the hired help for a swanky soiree, an elaborate dinner party for a coterie of intellectual and cultural elites presided over by an ancient, unsmiling noblewoman. But as the bizarre, oddly funereal night progresses, the young charges being to suspect there is something fishy going on—and it’s not just the enormous, grotesque flounder being served as the centerpiece. A subversive, Buñuelian send-up of one of Olmi’s recurring concerns—the conditioning of young people for the labor force—Long Live the Lady! is a rich and strange feast indeed. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Monday, June 17, 8:15pm
Wednesday, June 19, 2:00pm

A Man Named John / E venne un uomo
Ermanno Olmi, UK/Italy, 1965, 35mm, 90m
English and Italian with English subtitles
This unique biography of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli—the son of humble Bergamo sharecroppers who would go on to become the much-loved and subsequently sainted Pope John XXIII—casts Rod Steiger as an “intermediary” between the man and the audience, narrating and sometimes reenacting the formative events of his life. Based on the diaries Roncalli kept during his teenage years, A Man Named John is less a conventional biopic than an awe-inspiring, deeply felt spiritual portrait that glows with the Catholic piety and belief in the extraordinary goodness of ordinary people so central to Olmi’s worldview. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Sunday, June 23, 2:00pm
Wednesday, June 26, 4:00pm

One Fine Day / Un certo giorno
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1968, 35mm, 105m
Italian with English subtitles
Olmi returned to the soulless corporate environs of Il Posto for this provocatively open-ended portrait of bourgeois moral breakdown. Unfolding in a series of fleeting flashbacks and impressions, the ironically titled One Fine Day takes place in the mind of a philandering, middle-aged advertising executive whose banal existence is upended by two sudden twists of fate—one that works seemingly to his advantage, the other a tragedy that leaves him questioning everything. Steadfastly refusing to pass judgement on his subject, Olmi creates a minutely sketched character study that exemplifies his mantra: “For me, the cinema is a state of mind and a process of analysis from a series of detailed observations.” 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Saturday, June 15, 8:30pm
Tuesday, June 18, 4:15pm

One Hundred Nails / Centochiodi
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2007, 35mm, 92m
English and Italian with English subtitles
Conceived by Olmi as his final film (though he would ultimately go on to direct two more narrative features), this deceptively slight character study neatly summarizes the director’s spiritual and humanist philosophies. Opening with a shocking crime—a twisted individual has driven stakes through 100 precious books at a university library—the film goes on to follow the perpetrator: a disillusioned religion scholar (Raz Degan) who flees the arid world of academia to rediscover himself amid the simple pleasures of the countryside. Awash in images of impressionist beauty, One Hundred Nails is a paean to that which Olmi loved most: the glory of the natural world and the goodness of everyday people. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Thursday, June 20, 2:00pm
Wednesday, June 26, 9:00pm

World Premiere of New Digital Restoration
The Profession of Arms / Il mestiere delle armi
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2001, 105m
Italian with English subtitles
The Profession of Arms is Olmi’s quietly shattering requiem for Giovanni de’ Medici, the 16th-century military captain whose death signaled the end of an era in Italian history. Hired by the Pope to command an army of mercenary Italian soldiers against invading German forces, the fearless de’ Medici leads his band of condottieri in a series of increasingly intense battles—until a cannon wound to the leg leaves him on the brink of death. With a painterly visual style and a meticulous attention to period detail, Olmi crafts a hushed and hallucinatory meditation on corporeal suffering, spiritual release, and the inhumanity of industrial warfare. This restoration was completed in 2019 at the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà laboratories, by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, from the original 35mm picture and Dolby Master audio. Laboratory work was supervised by director of photography Fabio Olmi. Sound restoration supervision by Federico Savina.
Sunday, June 16, 5:30pm
Friday, June 21, 6:30pm

The Profession of Arms

The Scavengers / I recuperanti
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1970, 35mm, 101m
Italian with English subtitles
Shot amid the scenic splendor of the Alps, this postwar-set pastoral follows the fortunes of a young soldier who returns from the front lines to his home village faced with no prospects. Desperate to earn a living, he joins forces with a boisterous, free-spirited old man who teaches him the ropes of a most dangerous line of work: salvaging undetonated bombs leftover from the war for scrap metal. A tender, rollicking portrait of intergenerational friendship shot with a documentarian’s eye for naturalism, The Scavengers is an alternately lighthearted and serious variation on Olmi’s key theme: the tension between the demands of labor and personal liberty. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Saturday, June 15, 2:00pm
Monday, June 17, 6:00pm

The Secret of the Old Woods / Il segreto del bosco vecchio
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1993, 35mm, 134m
Italian with English subtitles
Following the death of his uncle, a bull-headed army colonel (beloved Italian character actor Paolo Villaggio) inherits a storybook mountain estate with the stipulation that he preserve, at all costs, the ancient woodlands adjoining it. When, despite the warnings of the townspeople, the stubborn military man proceeds with a plan to cut down the trees and sell the lumber, he awakens the spirits that dwell within the forest who fight to save their home. Gorgeously shot on location in the mist-shrouded, moonlight-drenched Dolomite mountains, this wondrous magical-realist fable is graced with a gentle animist spirit and an impassioned message of ecological stewardship. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Wednesday, June 26, 6:15pm

Singing Behind Screens / Cantando dietro i paraventi
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2003, 35mm, 98m
English, Italian, and Mandarin with English subtitles
Stories within stories and plays within plays feature prominently in Olmi’s late works, perhaps never more dazzlingly than in this rapturous blend of Chinese opera, high-seas adventure, and fairy tale. On a rain-soaked night, a timid young man mistakenly enters a Chinese brothel where he is mesmerized by a most amazing sight: an opulent stage production about the legend of a vengeful female pirate that shifts magically between layers of reality. A sensuous and surreal spectacle, Singing Behind Screens finds the director leaving his neorealist roots behind once and for all in favor of sumptuous, fully transportive fantasy.
Wednesday, June 19, 4:30pm
Tuesday, June 25, 6:00pm

Time Stood Still / Il tempo si è fermato
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1958, 35mm, 83m
Italian with English subtitles
Tasked by the Edison-Volta electric company with documenting the building of a hydroelectric dam, Olmi turned the project into his first narrative feature: a charmingly inventive human comedy bursting with the fresh exuberance of youth. In a snowbound shack in the Alps, a veteran dam worker—charged with overseeing the construction site while the rest of the crew is away for Christmas—has his solitude interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected roommate: a rock ’n’ roll–mad young man with whom he gradually forms an unexpected bond. Imbuing the simple story with sincere humanity, Olmi finds common ground in the gulf between generations. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Friday, June 14, 2:30pm
Tuesday, June 18, 6:30pm

The Tree of Wooden Clogs / L’albero degli zoccoli
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1978, 186m
Italian with English subtitles
Olmi’s Palme d’Or–winning masterpiece is an epic, ennobling portrait of four families living and working on a wealthy landowner’s estate in 19th-century Lombardy. From an accumulation of richly observed details, the director builds a work of monumental majesty that vividly portrays the peasants’ hardships, celebrations, beliefs, relationships to the land and animals, and, above all, the rhythms and rituals of their work, at once backbreaking but honest in its purity. Balancing an almost documentary-like commitment to realism with a poetic feeling for landscape, The Tree of Wooden Clogs overflows with love and concern for its common heroes.
Friday, June 14, 6:30pm
Sunday, June 16, 2:00pm
Saturday, June 22, 4:00pm

Walking, Walking / Cammina cammina
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1983, 35mm, 171m
Italian with English subtitles
Five years after the international success of The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Olmi returned with another neorealist historical epic, this one a sprawling retelling of the biblical story of the Magi. Opening in contemporary Italy as a village prepares for a celebratory reenactment of the wise men’s journey, the film magically transforms pageant into “reality,” following the three kings and a caravan of believers on their arduous pilgrimage to Bethlehem, their courage and faith tested every step of the way. Forgoing preachy piousness in favor of probing philosophical inquiry and earthy realism, Olmi crafts a provocative, uniquely elemental spiritual odyssey. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.
Sunday, June 23, 4:00pm
Tuesday, June 25, 2:30pm

Singing Behind Screens

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The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2013’s Exhibition and a breakthrough from the year’s Sundance Film Festival, is an autobiographical portrait of the artist as a young woman in early 1980s London. Starring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton, and Tom Burke, The Souvenir is a moving bildungsroman about the ties that inexplicably bind; it is also an absorbing evocation of a time, place, and national mood.

We presented a sneak preview of the film last week ahead of its official theatrical release this weekend. Following the screening, Joanna Hogg, Honor Swinton Byrne, and Tilda Swinton joined Director of Programming Dennis Lim for a Q&A. 

Watch/listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes. See a photo gallery above.

For more on The Souvenir, pick up the May-June 2019 issue of Film Comment magazine.

Tilda Swinton poses with the May-June 2019 issue of Film Comment magazine. Photo by Dan Rodriguez.

The post Joanna Hogg, Tilda Swinton, and Honor Swinton Byrne Talk <i>The Souvenir</i> appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY), a branch of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea; Film at Lincoln Center; and the New York Asian Film Foundation are proud to present Kokdu: A Story of Guardian Angels, a once in-a-lifetime film and concert experience marrying cinema with traditional Korean music (gugak) at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on June 29, 2019 at 7PM.

The event features live traditional accompaniment performed by a 20-member ensemble from the National Gugak Center, the representative headquarters of Korean traditional performing arts, who will be playing the score for the first time in the U.S. Tickets go on sale May 24.

Director Kim Tae-yong, whose past films include Memento Mori (1999) and the critically acclaimed Late Autumn (2010); Music Director Bang Jun-seok of Korean box-office hits The Throne (2015) and the Along with the Gods series (2017 and 2018); and the National Gugak Center have joined forces to acquaint international audiences with Korean music and dance by bridging several art forms and building a unique, heartwarming story of loss and redemption, steeped in local Korean folklore but with a universal appeal.

Both a fairy tale and a phantasmagoria, the film follows two children, Su-min and her younger brother Dong-min, who accidentally fall in the realm of the dead after losing their grandmother’s shoes in a thoughtless, Faustian deal. The children search the netherworld to retrieve the shoes, unaware that they might not be able to return home. They encounter a mischievous band of living kokdu, the wooden figurines that guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

Melding fantasy and reality, Kokdu weaves between cinematic storytelling and an impressively staged theatrical piece, creating a moving and magical experience. It explores Korean myths and traditions while deftly addressing dark themes of death, guilt, and mourning with an empathetic, poignant, and ultimately uplifting touch. As a spectacle, not only does Kokdu brim with music and dance, it makes the challenging topic of our mortality accessible to audiences of all ages.

Kokdu premiered to much acclaim at the 2018 Busan International Film Festival, praised for its unique way of blending cinema, theater, and music. Kokdu was also presented at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival as a part of the Generation Kplus lineup. The National Gugak Center boasted an enchanting performance in Seoul as its “best-selling show” of 2017 and 2018, earning record ticket sales, and the team will now re-create the magic here in New York City.

This performance is presented by Film at Lincoln Center, New York Asian Film Foundation, and the Korean Cultural Center New York; performed by the National Gugak Center.

About Film at Lincoln Center
Film at Lincoln Center is dedicated to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema and enriching film culture.

Film at Lincoln Center fulfills its mission through the programming of festivals, series, retrospectives, and new releases; the publication of Film Comment; the presentation of podcasts, talks, and special events; the creation and implementation of Artist Initiatives; and our Film in Education curriculum and screenings. Since its founding in 1969, this nonprofit organization has brought the celebration of American and international film to the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center, making the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broad audience, and ensuring that it remains an essential art form for years to come.

Film at Lincoln Center receives generous, year-round support from The New York Times, Shutterstock, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of the Film at Lincoln Center. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on Twitter and Instagram.

About the New York Asian Film Festival
The New York Asian Film Foundation Inc. is America’s premier 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and appreciation of Asian film culture in all its forms, with year-round festivals and programs, and a view to building bridges between Asia and America.

The New York Asian Film Foundation’s flagship event is the annual New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which has been presented in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center since 2010. Now entering its 18th year, NYAFF is North America’s leading festival of Asian cinema.

The Foundation’s other events and initiatives include monthly series at Quad Cinema (showcase for the best of classic martial arts films) and a Winter Showcase at the SVA Theatre. www.nyaff.org

About the Korean Cultural Center New York
Inaugurated in 1979, the Korean Cultural Center New York is a branch of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) of the Republic of Korea. Under the authority of the Consulate General, KCCNY works to promote cultural arts exchange and stimulate interest in Korean culture through various opportunities including exhibitions, concerts, film festivals, and educational programs. www.koreanculture.org

About the National Gugak Center
The National Gugak Center (NGC) is the headquarters of Korean traditional performing arts.  Music is an essential part of Korean history, which stretches back over five millennia. As a national institution, NGC was first established as Eumseongseo during the Silla dynasty (7th century). NGC maintains a variety of assets ranging from the long standing traditions of court and popular music and dance to contemporary musical compositions for today’s audiences. NGC’s performing traditions and reinterpretations open a vast new world by broadening the scope of music made in the “here and now” with music that “has yet to come.”

Furthermore, by conducting studies of Korean music, NGC not only bolsters the preservation and transmission of Korean performing arts, but also elevates these traditions to entirely new heights. In addition, it offers diverse educational programs that promote Korean performing arts at home and abroad. Founded on the principle of “creating the new based upon the old,” NGC continues to cultivate Korean music with the aim of making a contribution to the greater culture of humanity. www.gugak.go.kr

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On this week’s podcast, we’re looking back to one of the highlights from the 56th New York Film Festival. 

The Opening Night selection of the Projections sidebar was Diamantino, a dazzlingly original feature about a chiseled fútbol star who flees the public eye. From longtime collaborators Daniel Schmidt and Gabriel Abrantes, Diamantino is a perversely pleasurable sendup of Brexit, genetic science, and the ongoing refugee crisis. The film opens in select theaters this weekend.

Schmidt and Abrantes joined Projections’ co-programmer Aily Nash at NYFF for a Q&A after the screening. Watch/listen below or click here to subscribe and listen on iTunes.

The post Daniel Schmidt and Gabriel Abrantes Discuss <i>Diamantino</i> on the Film at Lincoln Center Podcast appeared first on Film Society of Lincoln Center.

“A relaxing, uncrowded and smartly-curated night under the stars, with movies that nicely complement the great city views.”—Mekado Murphy, staff movies editor for The New York Times

The Trust for Governors Island and Film at Lincoln Center announced today its lineup of free outdoor movie screenings for the 2019 season. For its second year, Film at Lincoln Center will curate three outdoor screenings throughout the season, inspired by the city we all call home. This year’s outdoor film series will take place on the Island’s historic Parade Ground, an eight-acre lawn with expansive open views of Lower Manhattan. The series will be produced by Rooftop Films.

The films featured in this year’s edition of “Escape in New York” celebrate all the ways in which our city, like cinema itself, provides visitors, new arrivals, and lifelong residents alike with infinite avenues of escape: from the humdrum routines of a straitlaced existence, from the frustrations and indignities of childhood, and from the pain of one’s own past. This season’s series will kick off with a screening of extraterrestrial comedy Men in Black on Friday, June 14. Other films to be showcased include Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy classic After Hours and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, each paired with an independent short film by a local filmmaker selected by Film at Lincoln Center’s programming team.

“In 2018, our inaugural film series presented in partnership with Film at Lincoln Center was a huge success, giving new audiences the opportunity to spend evenings on Governors Island, experiencing in iconic NYC films with the iconic skyline of Lower Manhattan as a backdrop,” said Meredith Johnson, VP of Arts and Culture at the Trust for Governors Island. “We are thrilled to dive into year two of this landmark series, solidifying the Island and the center of New York Harbor as the best place in the city to watch a movie under the stars.”

“As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations in 2019, we are offering a variety of exciting summertime Film at Lincoln Center events, and we’re delighted that our continuing series of outdoor screenings at Governors Island can be part of these celebrations,” said Lesli Klainberg, Executive Director of Film at Lincoln Center. “These free events recall the origins of our organization, when we produced Films in the Parks, outdoor screenings around the city in the 1970s. We’re thrilled to again work with the Governors Island team, and we expect to build upon the excitement we created last year with this new slate of films.”

Screenings will be free and open to the public with pre-show entertainment kicking off at 6pm and the films beginning at dusk. Food and drinks will be available for purchase at each screening, including a beer garden by Threes Brewing, food by Perros y Vainas, People’s Pops, Melt Bakery and more.

During outdoor screenings, evening ferry service will run from Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, located at 10 South Street, departing Lower Manhattan at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30pm. Ferries will return to Lower Manhattan from Soissons Landing at 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00pm.

Full Schedule

June 14: Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997, 98m), preceded by Mr. Yellow Sweatshirt (Pacho Velez & Yoni Brook, 2017, 8m)

July 12: After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985, 98m), preceded by Ada (Eleanore Pienta, 2018, 11m)

August 9: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004, 108m), preceded by To the Unknown (Michael Almereyda, 2018, 6m)

Governors Island is open every day from May 1 through October 31. On weekdays, the Island is open from 10am to 6pm. On weekends and holidays, the Island is open from 10am to 7pm. On Friday and Saturday evenings between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend, the Island will be open until 10pm.

For more information on the lineup, visit govisland.org and filmlinc.org.

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