The Close-up

For the 58th New York Film Festival’s final week, a group of critics gathered together for a spirited discussion with Devika Girish, Assistant Editor of Film Comment and Talks programmer for the NYFF, about the movies they saw in this year's lineup and their tales from the trenches of the pandemic-era festival. Participants included Molly Haskell (author, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies), Eric Hynes (curator of film, Museum of the Moving Image), Ela Bittencourt (freelance critic & curator), Monica Castillo (arts and culture reporter, CPR News), and Clinton Krute (digital editor, Film Comment). Their discussion covered a wide selection of films, including Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock and Mangrove, Hong Sang-soo's The Woman Who Ran, Victor Kossakovsky's Gunda, Marie-Claude Treilhou's Simone Barbes or Virtue, Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning, Chloé Zhao's Nomadland, Philippe Garrel's The Salt of Tears, and many others. All NYFF58 Free Talks are presented by HBO.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, we're featuring a conversation with Pietro Marcello, whose NYFF favorite Martin Eden opens in our Virtual Cinema today along with a weeklong four-film retrospective. This Q&A is from the 57th New York Film Festival, featuring Marcello in conversation with programmer Florence Almozini and interpretation by Michael Moore. Get tickets for Martin Eden and our retrospective here: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/ One of world cinema’s most exciting working directors, he has spent the last 15 years crafting a filmography that straddles past and present, documentary and fiction, folklore and political intervention. His idiosyncratic use of archival materials paired with his penchant for capturing, enlarging, and exalting the sensuous details of the physical world yields films that have distinguished themselves within today’s Italian cinema, or indeed, world cinema at large. In Marcello’s work, history, mythology, and the political situation of today

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Programmer Florence Almozini is joined by director Azazel Jacobs and actors Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges to discuss French Exit. In the Closing Night selection, Pfeiffer is entirely bewitching as an imperious, widowed New York socialite who, facing financial insolvency, relocates to a friend’s empty apartment in Paris with her dyspeptic son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), and their mercurial cat, and begins to grimly plan for an impossible future. Azazel Jacobs’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Patrick deWitt is a rare American film of genuine eccentricity, with a brilliant central performance. French Exit is sponsored by Campari. There's only a few virtual nationwide tickets remaining for tonight's premiere at 8pm ET. Get yours here: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim connects with director Christian Petzold to discuss Undine, the latest from the filmmaker behind Phoenix and Transit, among others. In his new film, the German director injects a mythological element into a lush melodrama about a pair of star-crossed lovers—Undine (Paula Beer), a historian and museum tour guide specializing in urban development, and Christoph, an industrial diver—linked by an affinity for the water. Get nationwide virtual tickets, premiering tonight at 8pm ET: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/undine/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF programmer Tyler Wilson is joined by co-directors Paul Felten & Joe DeNardo and star Stephanie Hayes of the funny and alluring Slow Machine. Featuring an intriguingly eclectic cast—including experimental theater performers Hayes and Scott Shepherd, the musician Eleanor Friedberger, and Chloë Sevigny—Slow Machine follows an actress whose intimate relationship with a shadowy NYPD-affiliated operative ends abruptly and disastrously, leading her to hide out in a country house otherwise occupied by a band preparing their new record. The film explodes and reassembles the thriller genre, producing a work on paranoia, surveillance, and performance. Get nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/slow-machine/

Director/actor/writer/producer Tim Robbins is proud to introduce Bobbo Supreme - originally conceived as a film and adapted for a new realm of aural entertainment in pandemic times. Bobbo Supreme is a hard-hitting, bitingly funny, no holds barred look at the hypocrisy, deception, and danger in the current American political landscape. A satirical fever dream in five parts. New York Film Festival Director Eugene Hernandez was delighted to welcome Tim Robbins and his all-star cast–including Jack Black, Haley Joel Osment, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Rita Brent, Ray Wise, and Ted Levine, along with composer David Robbins–for a special panel discussion, followed by the premiere of the first episode. The immersive aural entertainment experience debuts today on Patreon. Learn more at patreon.com/TimRobbinsPresents

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi joins NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim to discuss Notturno, Rosi’s latest immersive work of nonfiction. Shot over the course of three years along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon, Notturno is a nighttime ramble through a region rocked and shattered by catastrophe and violence.  All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/notturno/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen is joined by directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw to discuss their revelatory, earthy documentary The Truffle Hunters. This engaging and beautifully shot film immerses the viewer in the forests of Northern Italy where dogs, accompanied by their elderly and often irascible human owners of modest means, seek the precious white Alba truffle. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-truffle-hunters/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by director Spike Lee and musician David Byrne to discuss American Utopia, Lee’s concert film recording of Byrne’s acclaimed Broadway show. American Utopia is an exhilarating record of a seismic theater event as well as a momentous work of cinema in its own right. Both joyous and politically engaged, it’s a reckoning of these dark times through music and togetherness, with a galvanizing rendition of Janelle Monáe’s “Hell You Talmbout” that’s destined to be one of the year’s most talked-about screen moments. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for screenings of David Byrne’s American Utopia at the Brooklyn and Bronx drive-ins or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/david-byrnes-american-utopia/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim connects with director Steve McQueen to discuss Red, White, and Blue, one of the three entries in McQueen’s Small Axe anthology playing at this year’s NYFF. Red, White, and Blue is a vivid adaptation of a true story set in the early ’80s and features an impassioned yet nuanced performance from John Boyega as Leroy Logan, a member of the London Metropolitan Police force who both witnessed and experienced first-hand the organization’s fundamental racism. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Brooklyn drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets. Through Monday, we will also present virtual encore screenings of McQueen’s Lovers Rock and Mangrove. Learn more: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/page/small-axe-at-nyff-58/ Small Axe at the 58th NYFF is presented by Campari.

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez is joined by director Heidi Ewing, along with subjects Ivan Garcia & Gerardo Zabaleta, and actor Armando Espitia to discuss their film I Carry You With Me. Among the most emotionally resonant and innovatively conceived cinematic love stories in years, I Carry You With Me unexpectedly and brilliantly incorporates documentary elements into the tale of a burgeoning romance between two men who cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. Get nationwide virtual tickets, screening tonight only in a four-hour window beginning at 8pm ET: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/i-carry-you-with-me/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF programmer K. Austin Collins is joined by director Jia Zhangke to discuss the filmmaker’s evocative new documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue. Jia Zhangke gathers three prominent authors—Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong—in Shanxi province, where he grew up, to create a tapestry of testimonies about the drastic changes in Chinese life and culture that began with the social revolution of the 1950s. Interpretation by Vincent Cheng. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s premiere at the Brooklyn drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/swimming-out-till-the-sea-turns-blue/ All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO.

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen is joined by director Philippe Lacôte to discuss the Ivory Coast filmmaker’s breakout feature The Night of Kings. Paying homage to the tradition of the griot in West African culture, this original vision tells the story of a pickpocket (Koné Bakary), newly arrived at a correctional facility in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan, who, in order to stay alive, must keep his fellow inmates entertained with wild tales over the course of a night. Interpretation by Isabelle Dupuis. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Bronx drive-in here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/night-of-the-kings/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF programmer Florence Almozini is joined by director Chaitanya Tamhane to discuss The Disciple, the Indian filmmaker’s much-anticipated follow-up to Court. The Disciple is a finely crafted labor of love set in the world of Hindustani classical music, starring singer—and remarkable first-time actor—Aditya Modak as a man living in Mumbai who tries to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a maestro in the Khayal raag music tradition. Get tickets for Thursday's premiere at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets available through Sunday at 8pm ET here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-disciple/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez is joined by director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Tilda Swinton to discuss their new short film The Human Voice. In the film, Swinton swallows up the screen as a woman traumatized by the end of a relationship. An impeccably designed yet combustible adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play The Human Voice, it marks the Spanish director’s English-language debut. They discussed the power and perseverance of cinema during tumultuous times, how their collaboration came about, the classic film influences they were inspired by, why the pandemic didn't influence Almodóvar's original design for the film, and more. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the 58th New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema from September 17-October 11. This year’s festival features drive-in screenings in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens and virtual screenings available nationwide. See the comple

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez is joined by filmmaker Chloé Zhao to discuss Nomadland, the director’s richly textured follow-up to her acclaimed The Rider. The NYFF58 Centerpiece selection recounts a year in the life of Fern (Frances McDormand), a stoic, stubbornly independent widow who, having spent her adult life in a now-defunct company town, repurposes an old van and sets off in search of seasonal work. Mixing professionals and non-actors, Nomadland is a road movie for our precarious times. Nomadland is sponsored by Campari. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the 58th New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema from September 17-October 11. This year’s festival features drive-in screenings in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens and virtual screenings available nationwide. Get tickets and see more information: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by director Steve McQueen to discuss Mangrove, making its world premiere at the festival. An epic piece of McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, Mangrove tells the true story of Frank Crichlow, the Trinidad-born owner of a café in Notting Hill who was arrested for protesting the police’s intimidation and brutality. This is a vivid and gripping dramatization of these events and the resulting landmark 1970 court case of Crichlow and the other defendants, who came to be known as the Mangrove Nine. Small Axe at the 58th NYFF is presented by Campari. Then, Lim is joined by Tsai Ming-liang to discuss one of the Taiwanese director’s best and sparest works, Days. In the film, Lee Kang-sheng plays a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok goes

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF programmer K. Austin Collins sits down with director Matías Piñeiro to discuss the Argentinian filmmaker’s latest feature, Isabella. Never has Piñeiro’s art been more graceful or structurally complex than in his latest, in which he again uses a Shakespeare text to anchor a loose yet intellectually rigorous examination of life’s loves, labors, and futile pursuits. Get nationwide virtual tickets through Sept. 29: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/film/isabella/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez is joined by Sofia Coppola, Bill Murray, Rashida Jones, and Marlon Wayans to discuss On the Rocks. A Spotlight selection at NYFF, Coppola’s latest work is a lighthearted but poignantly personal comedy about aging, marriage, and the tenuous bond between parents and grown children. The story follows a New York author and married mother-of-two who has become suspicious that her career-driven husband may be having an affair with a coworker—a speculation encouraged by her caddish, bon vivant father. On the Rocks is sponsored by Campari. Learn more about NYC drive-in and nationwide virtual tickets for NYFF: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, programmer K. Austin Collins is joined by director Sam Pollard to discuss his new documentary MLK/FBI. Throughout his history-altering political career, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic documentary, veteran editor and director Pollard lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the 1950s and ’60s. Get tickets for tonight’s premiere at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/mlk-fbi/