The Close-up

This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation from 2011 at the 49th New York Film Festival with The Loneliest Planet director Julia Loktev and lead actress Hani Furstenberg. Acclaimed artist and filmmaker Loktev returns to the New York Film Festival this fall with the NYFF62 Main Slate selection My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow. Single tickets to the festival will go on sale on Tuesday, September 17! Learn more at filmlinc.org/nyff. In The Loneliest Planet, Julia Loktev crafts an intimate relationship film starring Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg as young fiancés backpacking through the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The two characters are joined by a mountaineer, forming a trio that quietly treks across dramatic landscapes, where there is just as much said as left unsaid. Loktev dramatically expands her scope with The Loneliest Planet and in the gorgeously filmed mountains has found the perfect setting for isolated, at times suffocating drama. The conversation was m

This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation from 2011 at the 49th New York Film Festival with the makers of the Main Slate selection A Dangerous Method: director David Cronenberg, screenwriter Christopher Hampton, producer Jeremy Thomas, and lead actor Michael Fassbender. Cronenberg returns to the New York Film Festival this Fall with the NYFF62 Main Slate selection The Shrouds starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. Don’t miss the U.S. Premiere of The Shrouds and many more great films by securing your Pass to NYFF62 today at filmlinc.org/passes. From acclaimed director David Cronenberg came A Dangerous Method, a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery featuring two of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) has just begun his psychiatric career, having been inspired by the great Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). When a mysterious and beautiful woman (Keira Knightley) goes under Jung's care, Jung finds himself crossing the line of the doctor/pa

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Between the Temples director Nathan Silver and cast members Carol Kane, Robert Smigel, and Cindy Silver. Directed by New York filmmaker Nathan Silver, who co-wrote the screenplay with C. Mason Wells, Between the Temples follows Jason Schwartzman as a bereaved cantor at an upstate New York synagogue, who has lost his wife, can’t sing anymore, lives with his two mothers, and has a newfound taste for mudslide cocktails. While he keeps kosher and remains devout, his ennui-addled regression seems all but terminal until his 70-year-old grade school music teacher (played by Carol Kane) walks back into his life and becomes his new adult Bat Mitzvah student… and maybe something more.  Something like Harold and Maude by way of Mike Leigh, Silver’s ninth feature is perhaps his most accomplished film yet—a portrait of love in a time of loss that is equal parts touching, cringingly hilarious, and effortlessly strange, shot in stunning 16mm by Sean Price Williams and

This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation from 2020 with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker RaMell Ross, moderated by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Garrett Bradley (Time). The two discuss Ross’s documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which was a 2018 New Directors/New Film selection. Ross’s next feature, Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, will open the 62nd New York Film Festival on September 27.  “The American stranger knows Blackness as a fact—even though it is fiction,” says writer-director RaMell Ross. For his visionary and political debut feature, Ross spent five years intimately observing African-American families living in Hale County, Alabama. It’s a region made unforgettable by Walker Evans and James Agee’s landmark 1941 photographic essay, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which documented the impoverished lives of white sharecropper families in Alabama’s Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Ross’s poetic return to this pla

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Red Island director Robin Campillo from the 2024 edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. Rendez-Vous and NYFF veteran Robin Campillo, whose 2017 period drama BPM: Beats Per Minute reconstructed and celebrated ACT UP’s legacy of AIDS activism in France during the 1990s, once again draws on personal history with his latest film, reaching back further to evoke a sumptuously visualized 1970s childhood spent with his military family on Madagascar. Growing up on one of the last remaining French colonial bases on the island, young Thomas (Charlie Vauselle) keeps a curious and observant eye on the adults around him, not least his parents (Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Quim Guterriez). Bonding with young Suzanne (Cathy Pham) over the Fantômette comic books, Thomas’s imagination and observational powers grow even as the world around him is about to die. Making striking use of a child’s perspective, Campillo’s carefully observed drama of a lost world is lyrical and cl

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Good One director India Donaldson and cast members Lily Collias and James Le Gros from the 2024 edition of New Directors/New Films. Good One opens at FLC on August 9 with Q&As opening weekend. A seemingly small incident has monumental implications in the extraordinary feature debut of India Donaldson, a film of expertly harnessed naturalism and restrained emotional intensity. Seventeen-year-old high school senior Sam (a revelatory Lily Collias) has agreed to join her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his longtime buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy) on a camping trip in the Catskills, though she’d rather be hanging with her friends for the weekend. Affable and wise, Sam at first seems to enjoy the intergenerational bonding experience with the two divorced dads, yet the men’s own festering, middle-aged resentments begin to change the emotional tenor of the trip—until something happens that alters Sam’s perception of the men and her place in their orbit. Amidst the

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Customs Frontline lead actor Nicholas Tse, recently on hand for the film's North American Premiere at the 2024 New York Asian Film Festival. In this explosive Hong Kong thriller, superstars Nicholas Tse (2024 Screen International Star Asia Awardee) and Jacky Cheung ignite the screen as customs officers caught in a deadly web of arms smuggling. Tse, in a powerhouse performance that also marks his debut as an action director, plays the uncompromising Chow Ching-lai, whose unwavering dedication puts him on a collision course with the elusive mastermind behind the weapons trafficking, while Cheung, as Chow’s mentor and superior, brings a world-weary gravitas to the role. As the stakes rise and the body count mounts, Chow and his Thai counterparts race against time to thwart the shipment of stolen weapons. With pulse-pounding action, shocking twists, and a villain who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once, this is a white-knuckle ride that will take you

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Dìdi director Sean Wang, who recently joined us for the 2024 New York Asian Film Festival. In his feature debut, Sean Wang, hot on the heels of his Oscar-nominated documentary short Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, crafts a poignant and humorous narrative that captures the essence of adolescence in 2008 California. Thirteen-year-old Chris, aka Wang Wang (Izaac Wang), navigates the treacherous waters of teenage life, from awkward dating to ruining friendships, while discovering his passion for skateboard filming. Wang deftly employs timeless coming-of-age tropes, exposing the embarrassing and hilarious moments that define this pivotal stage. However, it is Chris’s struggle with his identity as an Asian American that elevates the film. Joan Chen and Shirley Chen deliver nuanced performances as Chris’s mother and sister, respectively, adding depth to the family dynamics. Wang’s nonfiction background lends authenticity and an insightful touch to this resonant dramedy, remi

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with The Life Ahead director Edoardo Ponti who recently joined us for the retrospective Sophia Loren: La Signora di Napoli. Sophia Loren delivers a towering performance in her son Edoardo Ponti’s 2020 adaptation of the novel Madame Rosa, which embodies the range, intelligence, and innate charisma of the legendary actress. Previously adapted in 1977 by Moshé Mizrahi, with Simone Signoret in the lead role, Ponti moves Romain Gary’s novel to Bari, Italy, where a Holocaust survivor turned children’s caretaker (Loren) forms an unlikely friendship with a bitter street kid (a spectacular Ibrahim Gueye) after he robs her. By turns tender and haunted, the storied role of Rosa is imbued here with the unmistakable wisdom of a seasoned performer, who subtly nods to her own illustrious on-screen persona with subtlety and grace. This conversation was moderated by FLC Programmer Tyler Wilson.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation between My Dinner with André lead actor Wallace Shawn and Janet Planet filmmaker Annie Baker. When Dan Talbot, the pioneering distributor and exhibitor of international art films, read playwrights Wallace Shawn and André Gregory’s script for My Dinner with André, he was so excited about the project that he helped director Louis Malle procure production funding from Gaumont. The concept was to depict an encounter between the two writers, playing fictionalized versions of themselves, as they discuss mortality, money, despair, and love over a meal at an Upper West Side restaurant—according to Gregory, Malle’s one direction was to “talk faster.” By turns entertaining, confessional, funny, and moving, suffused with melancholy and joy alike, the film became a sensation at the art house upon its release, playing to packed theaters for a solid year, and went on to endure as a perennial favorite on the home video circuit. Now please enjoy the conversation between Ann

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Last Summer director Catherine Breillat and lead actress Léa Drucker from the 61st New York Film Festival. An NYFF61 Main Slate selection, Last Summer opens Friday at FLC, featuring Q&As with Breillat on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/summer One of the world’s most consistently provocative filmmakers for nearly 50 years, Catherine Breillat proves with her incendiary, compelling new drama that she is not through toying with viewers’ comfort levels. In Last Summer, Léa Drucker stars as Anne, a lawyer who specializes in cases of sexual consent and parental custody. Seemingly happily married to kind-hearted businessman Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) with adopted twin daughters, Anne inexplicably finds herself drawn to Pierre’s estranged 17-year-old son Théo (Samuel Kircher) after the boy returns home to live with them. Embarking on a passionate affair with the teenager, Anne all too willingly thrusts herself into a maelstrom of attract

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Music director Angela Schanelec following her film’s U.S. premiere in the Main Slate at the 61st New York Film Festival. Music opens at Film at Lincoln Center next Friday, June 28 with introductions by Doug Tielli, the singer-songwriter featured in the film, at the 6:15pm screenings on June 28 and 29. Get tickets to Music! Leading contemporary German filmmaker Angela Schanelec is singularly adept at creating dramas of unexpected catharsis via the most oblique narrative strategies. Her latest film, Music, pushes this approach to new levels of emotionality. Using abstract gestures and broad narrative ellipses, yet still managing to plumb the depths of its characters’ complicated traumas, Music tells the story of a young man and woman unknowingly united by the same violent death. Brought together by fate and horrible irony, Ion (Aliocha Schneider) and Iro (Agathe Bonitzer) first meet in prison, where he’s an inmate and she’s a guard; they kindle a romance

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Film at Lincoln Center Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle, as she discusses the films featured in FLC’s new series Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker. A series of 17 films handpicked by acclaimed playwright Annie Baker that engage with theater as a cinematic theme, Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Bakera runs from June 14-20 in anticipation of the release of Baker’s directorial debut, Janet Planet, on June 21. Get tickets to Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker! Get tickets to Janet Planet! Many films in the series will be shown on 35mm and Baker will join us in-person for select introductions and Q&As, including a sneak preview of Janet Planet on June 20. Opening Night of the series will feature Louis Malle’s iconic collaboration with André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, My Dinner with André (1981) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), both presented on 35mm. Baker will also engage in a discussion

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Another End director Piero Messina from Opening Night of this year’s edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. A melancholic, philosophical take on science fiction, Piero Messina’s ensemble drama contemplates a futuristic twist on the afterlife and its implications for those whom the deceased have left behind. Gael García Bernal stars as Sal, who has recently lost his partner Zoe in a car accident. When Sal’s sister Ebe (Bérénice Bejo) suggests he use a new technology to transplant Zoe’s memories into the mind and body of a stranger (Renate Reinsve), he finds himself confronted with a new opportunity to say goodbye to his love—but at what price? A rare blend of high-concept and deep feeling, Another End is a moving work on human connection in an increasingly virtual world. This conversation was moderated by FLC programmer Tyler Wilson.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 61st New York Film Festival with Green Border director Agnieszka Holland, cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk, and cast members Behi Djanati Atai & Joely Mbundu. This conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle. Green Border was a Main Slate selection of NYFF61 and will open in select theaters on June 19th. A Syrian family leaves the violence of their country behind, hoping to cross from Belarus into Poland and then onto the safe haven of Sweden. But, like so many lost souls, they end up caught in a political maelstrom, demonized by the Polish government and press and used as pawns in an inhumane, deadly border game. This harrowing, urgent drama from the veteran Polish director Agnieszka Holland constructs an intricate account of the contemporary global humanitarian crisis, expanding out to encompass the interconnected lives of security patrol officers, activist lawyers, and civilians who put themselves on the line for strange

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Over the Bridge director Tolu Ajayi from a recent Q&A at the Opening Night of the 2024 edition of the New York African Film Festival. Since its inception in 1993, the festival has been at the forefront of showcasing African and diaspora filmmakers’ unique storytelling through the moving image. In Over the Bridge, a man named Folarin is an accomplished investment banker with a beautiful wife and a life most people can only dream of. When a high-profile government project his company was hired to manage goes awry, he starts to question everything he’s ever known to be true. After going missing, he discovers himself in a remote fishing village and starts to put together the missing pieces—but will he ever find his way back home?

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, lead actor Hitoshi Omika, and composer Eiko Ishibashi from a recent Q&A for Evil Does Not Exist, an NYFF61 Main Slate selection currently playing in our theaters. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/evil Deep in the forest of the small rural village Harasawa, single parent Takumi lives with his young daughter, Hana, and takes care of odd jobs for locals, chopping wood and hauling pristine well water. The overpowering serenity of this untouched land of mountains and lakes, where deer peacefully roam free, is about to be disrupted by the imminent arrival of the Tokyo company Playmode, which is ready to start construction on a glamping site for city tourists—a plan, which Takumi and his neighbors discover, that will have dire consequences for the ecological health and cleanliness of their community. The potent and foreboding new film from Oscar-winning director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, both NYFF59

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes from a recent advance screening of the highly anticipated new film Challengers. From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist, West Side Story), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (Josh O’Connor, The Crown)–his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win? The conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.

This week we’re excited to present a special podcast episode featuring the star-studded speeches from our recent Chaplin Award Gala. FLC was pleased to honor Jeff Bridges as the recipient of the 49th Chaplin Award, presented at a gala evening on April 29. The full house at Alice Tully Hall was treated to a joyful celebration of the actor’s incredible body of work with hilarious and heartfelt tributes by Bridges’s costars, culminating in Chris Pine presenting the Chaplin Award to the Dude himself. The evening’s guest speakers included, in order of appearance, FLC President Lesli Klainberg; Sharon Stone, who starred in two 1999 films with Bridges: Matthew Warchus’s Simpatico and Albert Brooks’s The Muse; Rosie Perez, who appeared with Bridges in Peter Weir’s Fearless, for which Perez received a 1993 Academy Award nomination; Blythe Danner, who starred alongside Bridges in the 1975 film Hearts of the West; and Chris Pine, who co-starred with Bridges in the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water in 2016.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2024 edition of New Directors/New Films with Exhibiting Forgiveness director Titus Kaphar and lead actor André Holland. One of the contemporary art world’s most important painters, Titus Kaphar creates powerful work that is multidisciplinary in nature and profound in historical meaning, often incorporating multiple layers and sculptural dimensions to his canvases. Kaphar brings the same sense of profoundly felt dynamism to his startlingly accomplished cinematic debut, Exhibiting Forgiveness, a wrenching work of emotional depth and visual flair starring the magnificent André Holland in one of the actor’s greatest screen roles so far. Painter Tarrell Rodin (Holland) is a loving and grounded husband to singer Aisha (Andra Day) and father to young Jermaine (Daniel Berrier), but he’s violently haunted by nightmares of his childhood. While preparing for a new gallery show, Tarrell finds his life upended by the sudden return of his father, La’Ron (John Earl