The Close-up

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a Q&A from the 51st New Directors/New Films with Eskil Vogt, director of The Innocents, moderated by FLC’s Director of Programming Dennis Lim and a programmers preview of the 29th New York African Film Festival. Perhaps best known as the co-screenwriter of acclaimed Norwegian director Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World), Eskil Vogt proves himself to be a filmmaker of astonishing skill and elemental force in his own right with this daring supernatural thriller. Set during the summer at an apartment complex surrounded by an ominous, fairy-tale-like forest, The Innocents follows the sinister, increasingly alarming interactions of a group of prepubescent children: Ida, feeling ignored next to her autistic older sister Anna; the bullied Ben; and the angelic Aisha, who appears to communicate telepathically—and feel through—the nonverbal Anna. With unforgettable, dark images and fleet visual storytelling, Vogt’s film pushes the “evil childre