New York Film Festival

FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS (Fifi az khoshhali zooze mike shad)

Additional programming was announced today for the 2013 New York Film Festival, including a spotlight on three documentary sections (Applied Sciences, Motion Portraits and How Democracy Works Now), and a lineup of movies that have recently been restored (Revivals).

Motion Portraits will focus on cinematic portraiture, which is now a dominant key strain in documentary filmmaking. Among the vastly different approaches to the mode of the cinematic portrait to be found in this section are Nancy Buirski‘s AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ which profiles the wife and muse of George Balanchine; Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s THE DOG, which looks at the man who was the real life inspiration for the movie DOG DAY AFTERNOON; Nadav Schirman’s IN THE DARK ROOM, about Magdalena Kopp, the co-revolutionary, lover, and then wife of the international terrorist Carlos; and Marc Silver’s WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL?, a documentary/narrative hybrid that follows the forensic analysis of an unidentified body found along the Arizona border, juxtaposed with semi-fictional scenes featuring Gael Garcia Bernal.

Other titles include Joaquim Pinto’s self portrait, WHAT NOW? REMIND ME, which recently won the Grand Jury Prize at Locarno; Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s MANAKAMANA, a film shot inside a cable car that carries pilgrims and tourists to and from a mountaintop temple in Nepal, which won the Filmmakers of the Present Prize at Locarno; and Mitra Farahani’s FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS, about Iranian painter Bahman Mohasses; screening with Laura Mulvey, Faysal Abdullah, and Mark Lewis’s 23^RD AUGUST 2008, which tells the story of the history of Iraq’s leftist intelligentsia through a portrait of an Iraqi journalist’s brother.

Applied Science features three films, each built around obsessive, Utopian, technologically driven projects. Ben Lewis’s GOOGLE AND THE WORLD BRAIN tells the borderline surreal story of Google’s project to digitize every book ever written; Mark Levinson’s PARTICLE FEVER which contemplates the 18-mile long CERN super-collider and the search for the Higgs particle; and Teller’s (as in “Penn and Teller”) TIM’S VERMEER is about tech genius Tim Jenison’s obsessive project to re-paint “The Music Lesson” according to David Hockney’s controversial theories about Vermeer and the use of optics.

How Democracy Works Now is a series of documentaries directed by the filmmaking team of Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson (WELL-FOUNDED FEAR). Since 2001, Camerini and Robertson have been focusing their cameras on immigration reform, insinuating their way into the offices of congressmen and senators on all sides of the political spectrum, gaining unprecedented access to hearings and bill-mark-ups and back room machinations, and traveled throughout the country to film the organizers and activists working at the grass-roots level in battleground states like Arizona.

Revivals continues the NYFF tradition (formerly under the heading of “Masterworks”) of celebrating and re-visiting classic and important films by filmmakers, auteurs, producers and studios that helped shape world cinema.

NYFF CATEGORIES AND FILM DESCRIPTIONS

SPOTLIGHT ON DOCUMENTARIES

Motion Portraits
AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ (2013) 93 min
Director: Nancy Buirski
Country: USA
A radiant film about Tanaquil Le Clercq – wife of and muse to George Balanchine – who was struck down by polio at the peak of her career, and a vivid portrayal of a world and a time gone by.

THE DOG (2013) 101 min
Directors: Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren
Country: USA
Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s portrait of the motor-mouthed, completely uncorked John Wojtowicz, whose 1972 botched robbery of a Brooklyn bank was dramatized in DOG DAY AFTERNOON, is hilarious, hair-raising, and giddily profane.

FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS (Fifi az khoshhali zooze mike shad) (2013) 97 min
Director: Mitra Farahani
Countries: France/USA
Shot throughout the final months in the life of the jubilant, egotistical and irascible Iranian painter Bahman Mohasses, Mitra Farhani’s film is at once a cinematic fresco of Mohasses’ life and a celebration of freedom.
Screens with
23RD AUGUST 2008 (2013) 22 min
Directors: Laura Mulvey, Faysal Abdullah, and Mark Lewis
Country: UK
Faysal Abdullah, an Iraqi journalist living in London, tells the tragic story of his brilliant younger brother Kamel and offers a glimpse of the history of Iraq’s leftist intelligentsia, almost completely unknown in America.

IN THE DARK ROOM (2013) 90 min
Director: Nadav Schirman
Countries: Germany/Israel/Finland/Romania/Italy
A quietly riveting film about Magdalena Kopp, the co-revolutionary, lover, and then-wife of the international terrorist Carlos, and a fascinating non-fiction companion piece to Olivier Assayas’ CARLOS.

MANAKAMANA (2013) 118 min
Directors: Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez
Country: USA
The new film from MIT’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, shot inside a cable car that carries pilgrims and tourists to and from a mountaintop temple in Nepal, is both literally and figuratively transporting. Winner of the Filmmakers of the Present Prize at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival.
A Co-Presentation with Views From the Avant-Garde.

WHAT NOW? REMIND ME (E Agora? Lembra-me) (2013) 164 min
Director: Joaquim Pinto
Country: Portugal
Joaquim Pinto’s self-portrait is a testament to the joys of a fully lived life and a revivifying love of cinema in the face of a chronic and debilitating illness. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival.

WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL? (2013) 80 min
Director: Marc Silver
Countries: USA/Mexico
A startling hybrid documentary that follows the progress of forensic anthropologists as they determine the identity of a body found along the Arizona border, and charts a parallel course with Gael Garcia Bernal as a migrant making his way to the US.

Applied Science
GOOGLE AND THE WORLD BRAIN (2013) 90 min
Director: Ben Lewis
Country: USA, 2013
The borderline surreal story of Google’s project to digitize every book ever written will definitely make you laugh, maybe until you cry.

PARTICLE FEVER (2013) 97 min
Director: Mark Levinson
Country: USA
Physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson’s documentary about the 18-mile long CERN super-collider and the search for the Higgs particle is an epic scientific adventure.

TIM’S VERMEER (2013) 80 min
Director: Teller
Country: USA
Tech genius Tim Jenison’s obsessive project was to re-paint “The Music Lesson” according to David Hockney’s controversial theories about Vermeer and the use of optics; the resulting film directed by Teller (as in Penn and) is a bouncy, entertaining, real-life detective story. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

How Democracy Works Now
Directors: Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson
Country: USA

THE GAME IS ON
91 min
2001, and despite rumblings in the heartland, all signs point toward a comprehensive immigration reform bill with bi-partisan support in congress from Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. President Bush and President Fox of Mexico make a joint public announcement in support of a bill. And then, 9/11 happens. For the moment, any hope of immigration reform vanishes into thin air.

MOUNTAINS AND CLOUDS
93 min
By 2002, immigration is becoming viable again, Kennedy and Brownback are back in action, and they have joined forces with Dianne Feinstein of California and John Kyl of Arizona to address the newly urgent issue of border security. Suddenly, the White House throws a wrench into the machinery by proposing a provision to be added to a security bill that would allow illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. while their green cards are processed, frustrating both proponents and opponents of full-scale reform.

SAM IN THE SNOW
93 min
David Neal and Esther Olivarría, aides to Brownback and Kennedy respectively and two of the driving forces behind immigration reform on Capitol Hill, get back to work on a bill when the White House sends everything into a tailspin one more time with a proposal to create a vast new government entity to be called the Department of Homeland Security. Brownback is now put on the defensive by the growing anti-immigration sentiment in his own party, and we get a close look at a politician forced to weigh his options.

THE KIDS ACROSS THE HILL
82 min
By early 2003, Kennedy is alone and looking for a Republican co-sponsor, who he thinks he might find in John McCain. As Esther tries to write Kennedy’s bill, two Republican congressmen from Arizona, Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, are writing their own vastly different guest worker bill, and a Democrat from Chicago, Luis Gutierrez, is writing yet another. When the Republican “kids” find a Democratic co-sponsor, Esther struggles to maintain the political balance that will keep Kennedy’s comprehensive bill alive and well through the legislative “season.”

MARKING UP THE DREAM
60 min
Fall, 2003, and another smaller bill has made it through the senate. It’s called the Dream Act, and it offers in-state tuition to undocumented students and citizenship to those who graduate from college. The bill, as expected, is fervently embraced by the students themselves and by pro-immigration activists, and reviled by anti-immigration groups who see it as yet another offering of amnesty. The question is, will the bill survive the “mark-up,” where bills are hammered out between parties and senators one word at a time?

AIN’T THE AFL FOR NOTHIN’
80 min
September 2003, and Esther is nervous. She’s shopping for a Republican co-sponsor for Kennedy, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is interested but wants a temporary worker program added to the bill, and the unions don’t like temporary worker programs: in public, they’re pro-immigration, but in private they’re trying to destroy the bill. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO lobbyist Gerron Levi arranges a meeting between Kennedy and AFL president John Sweeney. Everything rides on this one conversation…

BROTHERS AND RIVALS
92 min
Because of their work on ground-breaking immigration reform the previous year, Arizona congressmen Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake both face tough challenges in the 2004 primaries and angry charges of amnesty for illegals. In the new year, their aides join forces with Kennedy and McCain’s staffers in an effort to introduce a whole new bill that combines the best parts of earlier competing bills. If they succeed, it will be the first bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill from both houses to go to Congress.

PROTECTING ARIZONA
99 min
Summer, 2004, and we’re in Arizona, the belly of the beast, where an anti-immigrant statewide ballot initiative called “Protect Arizona Now” has huge popular support. Frank Sharry and Alfredo Gutierrez, radio host, activist and former state senator, lead the movement to defeat the proposition. As the months go on, each strategy twist and new alliance has a dramatic effect on the poll numbers. And the entire nation is watching: if it goes badly here, it will go worse in Washington.

THE SENATE SPEAKS
96 min
As 2006 begins, Senator Kennedy is back in action, trying to gain bipartisan support for an immigration bill. But the House acts first, passing a harsh bill with no amnesty that threatens anyone who helps illegal immigrants. There are rallies all over the country urging the Senate to act. The senators and their aides work on a compromise that could actually pass unless, as Kennedy fears, politics trumps policy.

LAST BEST CHANCE
101 min
Spring 2007, and immigration advocates are optimistic. But with Senator McCain tied up with presidential primaries, Senator Ted Kennedy has lost his partner. Republicans change their offer, and things come down to what is in essence a moral tale of American politics: Kennedy must decide exactly how much he has to compromise in order to strike a deal on what could be his greatest legacy.

 

REVIVALS

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993) 139 min
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA
Edith Wharton’s 1925 novel about a secret passion within the social universe of Old New York struck many writers and fans as an odd departure for Martin Scorsese. When it was released in 1993, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE was greeted with equal amounts of admiration and puzzlement. 20 years later, this stunning film seems like one of Scorsese’s greatest – as visually expressive as it is emotionally fine-tuned, the movie is a magnificent lament for missed chances and lost time. With an extraordinary cast led by Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ellen. Grover Crisp and his team at Sony have now given Scorsese’s film the long-awaited restoration it deserves – this is the world premiere. Restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

BOY MEETS GIRL (1984) 100 min
Director: Leos Carax
Country: France
Leos Carax’s debut feature is a lush black-and-white fable of last-ditch romance and a prodigious act of youthful self-mythologizing, drawn from a cinephilic grab bag of influences and allusions. Denis Lavant, in his first of five collaborations with Carax to date, plays an emotionally shattered filmmaker who finds consolation after a bad break-up in the arms of an equally depressed young woman. Shot when the director was all of 24, the film instantly situated Carax as a modern-day heir to the great French Romantics. It prompted the critic Serge Daney to declare “that the cinema will go on, will produce a Rimbaud against all odds, that it will start again at zero, that it will not die.” A Carlotta US release.

THE CHASE (1946) 86 min
Director: Arthur Ripley
Country: USA
This crazily plotted 1946 adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s even crazier novel The Black Path of Fear is the very essence of the post-war strain of American cinema now known as “film noir.” Robert Cummings plays an everyman vet whose life is turned upside down when he finds a wallet that belongs to a sadistic gangster (Steve Cochran) who hires him as his chauffeur. The lovely Michèle Morgan is the gangster’s captive wife and Peter Lorre is his “assistant” Gino. For many years, THE CHASE was available only in substandard prints. When the negative was found in Europe, a full-scale restoration was undertaken, and here is the glorious outcome. Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, funding provided by The Film Foundation and The Franco-American Cultural Fund.

THE LUSTY MEN (1952) 113 min
Director: Nicholas Ray
Country: USA
Nick Ray made six films (and shot material for several more) for RKO under Howard Hughes, with whom he enjoyed a tumultuous but close relationship. This one, set in the tough, restless world of the rodeo circuit, about “people who want a home of their own,” as Ray himself put it, was to be his last credited film at the studio. It is also one of his very best, and it has become more heartbreakingly lonesome and expressive with each passing year. With Robert Mitchum, Susan Hayward and Arthur Kennedy and a great supporting cast, shot by the great Lee Garmes, and now restored to its full elegiacal beauty. Restored by Warner Brothers in collaboration with The Film Foundation and The Nicholas Ray Foundation.

MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT (Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag) (1975) 124 min
Director: Lino Brocka
Country: Philippines
This searing melodrama shot on the streets of Manila with Bembel Roco and Hilda Koronel as doomed lovers, is one of the greatest films of Lino Brocka, the prolific Filipino filmmaker who tragically died in a car accident at the age of 52. “Lino knew all the arteries of this swarming city,” wrote his friend Pierre Rissient, “and he penetrated them just as he penetrated the veins of the outcasts in his films. Sometimes a vein would crack open and bleed. And that blood oozed onto the screen.” For too long, it has been difficult to see a lot of Brocka’s work, MANILA included. Now, this magnificent film has been given a full-scale restoration. Restored by the World Cinema Foundation and The Film Development Council of the Philippines at the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with LVN, Cinema Artists Philippines and Mike de Leon.

MAUVAIS SANG (1986) 116 min
Director: Leos Carax
Country: France
Leos Carax made his international breakthrough with this swoon-inducing portrait of love among thieves. In the near future, an aging crime lord (Michel Piccoli) recruits young delinquent Alex (Denis Lavant) to steal a locked-up serum designed to fight a mysterious STD. When Alex falls for his boss’s girlfriend (a radiant Juliette Binoche), MAUVAIS SANG becomes something rarer: an ecstatic depiction of what it feels like to be young, restless and madly in love. With its balletic gestures and bold primary colors, much of the film plays as if through the eyes of its lovesick protagonist. And it hinges on one of the most thrilling scenes in modern movies: Lavant sprinting and cartwheeling through the Parisian night to David Bowie’s “Modern Love,” a bundle of desires set briefly and wildly free. A Carlotta US release.

MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON (Doka nai meuman) (2000) 83 min
Director: Apichatpong Weerasetakhul
Country: Thailand
For his first feature, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES) orchestrated this beguiling, sui generis hybrid: part road movie, part folk-storytelling exercise, part surrealist party game. A camera crew travels the length of Thailand asking villagers to invent episodes in an ever-expanding story, which ends up incorporating witches, tigers, surprise doublings and impossible reversals. With each participant, MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON seems to take on a new unresolved tension. Celebrating equally the possibilities of storytelling and of documentary, it’s a work that’s grounded in a very specific region, but feels like it came from another planet. Restored by the Austrian Film Museum in collabotration with The World Cinema Foundation. A Strand release.

PROVIDENCE (1977) 110 min
Director: Alain Resnais
Countries: France/Switzerland/UK
Alec Guinness once aptly likened his fellow actor John Gielgud’s voice to the sound of “a silver trumpet muffled in silk.” Gielgud’s extraordinary instrument is heard throughout Alain Resnais’ first English-language production. English playwright David Mercer’s script is set for most of its duration within the feverish mind of a dying novelist (played by Gielgud) during a sleepless night, as he compulsively conjures a labyrinthine narrative in which the same five people (played by Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, David Warner, Elaine Stritch and Denis Lawson) are cast and recast. Resnais’ opulent, handsome film, with a lush romantic score by Miklós Rósza, has been long overdue for a restoration – it’s a feast for the eye and the ear. Restored by Jupiter Communications in collaboration with Director of Photography Ricardo Aronovich.

SANDRA (Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa) (1965) 105 min
Director: Luchino Visconti
Country: Italy
Shady family secrets, incestuous sibling bonds, descents into madness, decades-old conspiracies: with SANDRA, Luchino Visconti traded THE LEOPARD’s elegiac grandeur for something grittier and pulpier: the Electra myth in the form of a gothic melodrama. Claudia Cardinale’s title character returns to her ancestral home in Tuscany and has an unexpected encounter with her long-lost brother and a reckoning with her family’s dark wartime past. Shooting in a decaying mansion set amid a landscape of ruins, Visconti found a new idiom for the great theme of his late career: the slow death of an aristocracy rooted in classical ideals but long since hollowed out by decadence and corruption. Restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee (ASAC).

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948) 95 min
Director: Nicholas Ray
Country: USA
After his years in New York left-wing theater and on the road with Alan Lomax, Nick Ray went to Hollywood to work with his friend Elia Kazan. John Houseman brought Ray to RKO, then owned by Howard Hughes, and in 1948 the young director made one of the most striking debuts in American cinema. Adapted from Edward Anderson’s 1935 novel Thieves Like Us (which would be revisited in 1974 by Robert Altman), THEY LIVE BY NIGHT is at once innovative (the film opens with the first genuinely expressive helicopter shot), visually electrifying, behaviorally nuanced, and, in the scenes between the young Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, soulfully romantic. Restored by Warner Brothers in collaboration with The Film Foundation and The Nicholas Ray Foundation.

TRY AND GET ME (1950) 85 min
Director: Cy Endfield
Country: USA
Soon-to-be-blacklisted director Cy Endfield’s coruscating film is based on Joe Pagano’s novel The Condemned (Pagano also wrote the adaptation), which was in turn based on the actual 1933 case of two men from San Jose who were taken into custody for the kidnapping and murder of a wealthy man and then dragged from their jail cells and lynched (the story of Fritz Lang’s American debut, FURY is drawn from the same incident). Endfield’s film, largely shot on location and animated by an acute awareness of class and economic pressures, carefully builds scene by scene to a truly harrowing climax. With terrific performances by Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy as the kidnappers. 35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive; preservation funding provided by The Film Noir Foundation.

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Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s REAL has been added to the lineup for the previously announced Main Slate Official Selections for the 51st New York Film Festival taking place September 27 – October 13, 2013.

REAL is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first feature since his 2008 TOKYO SONATA (which was an NYFF Main Slate selection as was his film, LICENSE TO LIVE in 1999), and is at once the most romantic and tender film of his career, and entirely consistent with the rest of his unparalleled body of work. It is also, as always, as visually and tonally exquisite as it is unsettling. A star manga artist (Haruka Ayase) is in a coma, the result perhaps of a suicide attempt. In an experimental medical procedure, her husband (Takeru Satô) enters her unconscious in an attempt to awaken her. But when one psyche merges with another, mirror opposites are the possible, troubling result. A haunting successor to the mother of all time travel films, Chris Marker’s LA JETÉE, with a tip of the hat to Bong Joon-ho’s THE HOST, REAL finds its mysteries in the ordinary. What does it mean to be coupled? Can love conquer death? A unique film from one of the most unique artists in contemporary cinema.

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The New York Film Festival unveiled the names of the 35 films that will comprise the main slate of official selections for the 51st edition film that will run September 27-October 13, 2013. American and British comedies are a significant presence in this year’s lineup of of main slate official selections with Richard Curtis’s ABOUT TIME, a romantic comedy about a family whose men have the ability to travel in time, starring Bill Nighy and Rachel McAdams; Declan Lowney’s ALAN PARTRIDGE, which brings Steve Coogan’s legendary television character to the big screen for the first time; Roger Michell’s LE WEEK-END, featuring Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as a couple visiting Paris with hopes of rekindling their relationship; and Alexander Payne’s NEBRASKA, about a father and son (Bruce Dern and Will Forte) on a road trip to pick up a million dollar prize that may or may not await them; and the previously announced Centerpiece and Closing Night Gala selections, Ben Stiller’s THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY and Spike Jonze’s HER.

Documentary filmmaking legends Claude Lanzmann and Frederick Wiseman each make their third appearances in NYFF’s main slate. Lanzmann returns with THE LAST OF THE UNJUST, a portrait of Benjamin Murmelstein, the last Jewish elder of Theresienstadt, once despised by many of its surviving inhabitants. Wiseman turns his camera toward the University of California, Berkeley, with his latest film, AT BERKELEY.

Films & Descriptions

ABOUT TIME (2013) 123min
Director: Richard Curtis
Country: UK
Richard Curtis adds a touch of time-travel to this hilarious romantic comedy, a perfect vehicle for the comic talents of Bill Nighy, Rachel McAdams, Lindsay Duncan, and emerging star Domhnall Gleeson. A Universal Pictures release.

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (Abus de Faiblesse) (2013) 105min
Director: Catherine Breillat
Country: France
Catherine Breillat’s haunting film about her 2004 stroke and subsequent self-destructive relationship with star swindler Christophe Rocancourt, starring Isabelle Huppert.

ALAN PARTRIDGE (2013) 90min
Director: Declan Lowney
Country: UK/France
In the long-awaited big-screen debut of Steve Coogan’s singular comic creation, the vain and obliviously tactless Alan Partridge must serve as an intermediary when North Norfolk Digital is seized at gunpoint by a down-sized DJ.

ALL IS LOST (2013) 107min
Director: J.C. Chandor
Country: USA
Robert Redford as you’ve never seen him before, gives a near-wordless all-action performance as a lone sailor trying to keep his yacht afloat after a collision with a discarded shipping container in the middle of the Indian Ocean. A Roadside Attractions release.

AMERICAN PROMISE (2013) 135min

Directors: Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
Country: USA
Two Brooklyn filmmakers follow their son Idris and his friend Suen from their enrollment in the Dalton School as children through their high school graduations in this devastating, years-in-the-making documentary that takes a hard look at race and class in America.

AT BERKELEY (2013) 244min
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Country: USA
Another masterfully constructed documentary from Frederick Wiseman, examining the University of California, Berkeley from multiple angles – the administrators, the students, the surrounding community – to arrive at a portrait that is as rich in detail as it is epic in scope.

BASTARDS (Les Salauds) (2013) 100min
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France/Germany
Claire Denis’s jagged, daringly fragmented and deeply unsettling film inspired by recent French sex ring scandals is the rarest of cinematic narratives—a contemporary film noir, perfect in substance as well as style.

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR (La Vie d’Adèle) (2013) 179min

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Country: France
The sensation of this year’s Cannes Film Festival is an intimate – and sexually explicit – epic of emotional transformation, featuring two astonishing performances from Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. A Sundance Selects release.
Please be advised that this film has scenes of a sexually explicit nature.

BURNING BUSH (Hořicí Keř) (2013) 234min
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Country: Czech Republic
A passionately brilliant Czech mini-series from Agnieska Holland about the events that followed student Jan Palach’s public self-immolation in protest against the Soviet invasion after Prague Spring.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (2013) 143min
Director: Paul Greengrass
Country: USA
Paul Greengrass has crafted an edge-of-your-seat thriller based on the true story of the seizure of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship in 2009 by four Somali pirates, with remarkable performances from Tom Hanks and four first-time actors, Barkhad Abdi, Faysal Ahmed, Barkhad Abdirahman and Mahet M. Ali. A Sony Pictures release.

CHILD OF GOD (2013) 104min
Director: James Franco
Country: USA
James Franco’s uncompromising excursion into American Gothic, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 1973 novel, about an unstable sociopath in early 60s rural Tennessee who descends into an animal-like state – not for the faint-hearted.

GLORIA (2013) 110min

Director: Sebastián Lelio
Countries: Chile/Spain
A wise, funny, liberating movie from Chile, about a middle-aged woman who finds romance but whose new partner finds it painfully difficult to abandon his old habits.

HER (2013)
Director: Spike Jonze
Country: USA
In Spike Jonze’s magical, melancholy comedy of the near future, lonely Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his new all-purpose operating system (the voice of Scarlett Johansson), leading to romantic and existential complications. A Warner Bros. Pictures release.

THE IMMIGRANT (2013) 120min
Director: James Gray
Country: USA
In James Gray’s richly detailed period tragedy, set in a dusty, sepia-toned 1920s Manhattan, a young Polish immigrant (Marion Cotillard) is caught in a dangerous battle of wills with a shady burlesque manager (Joaquin Phoenix). A Radius-TWC release.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (2013) 105min
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Country: USA/France
Joel and Ethan Coen’s picaresque, panoramic and wryly funny story of a singer/songwriter is set in the New York folk scene of the early 60s and features a terrific array of larger-than-life characters and a glorious score of folk standards. A CBS Films release.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (2013) 111min
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Country: UK
Ralph Fiennes directs and stars as Charles Dickens in this adaptation of Claire Tomalin’s revelatory 1992 biography, which brought the upright Victorian author’s secret 13-year affair with a young actress to light. A Sony Pictures Classics Release.

JEALOUSY (La Jalousie) (2013) 77min
Director: Philippe Garrel
Country: France
Another intimate, handcrafted work of poetic autobiographical cinema from French director Philippe Garrel, in which his son Louis and Anna Mouglalis star as actors and lovers trying to reconcile their professional and personal lives.

JIMMY P: PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN (2013) 114min
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Country: France
In Arnaud Desplechin’s intelligent and moving depiction of a successful “Talking Cure,” the encounters between patient (Benicio del Toro) and therapist (Mathieu Amalric) are electric with discovery.

THE LAST OF THE UNJUST (Le Dernier des injustes) (2013) 218min

Director: Claude Lanzmann
Countries: France/Austria
This moral and cinematic tour de force from the creator of SHOAH will cause you to reconsider your understanding of Adolph Eichmann and of Benjamin Murmelstein, the last Jewish elder of Theresienstadt and the film’s central figure.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (Soshite Chichi ni Naru) (2013) 120min
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Country: Japan
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s sensitive drama takes a close look at two families’ radically different approaches to the horribly painful realization that the sons they have raised as their own were switched at birth. A Sundance Selects release.

THE MISSING PICTURE (L’image manquante) (2013) 92min
Director: Rithy Panh
Country: Cambodia
Filmmaker Rithy Panh’s brave new film revisits his memories of four years spent under the Khmer Rouge and the destruction of his family and his culture; without a single memento left behind, he creates his “missing images” with narration and painstakingly executed dioramas. A Strand release.

MY NAME IS HMMM… (Je m’appelle Hmmm…) (2013) 121min

Director: agnès B
Country: France
In this deeply personal, incandescent first feature from designer agnès B, a young girl holding her family together and bearing the weight of sexual abuse runs away from home and enjoys a carefree idyll with a kindly Scottish trucker.

NEBRASKA (2013) 115min
Director: Alexander Payne
Country: USA
This masterful film from Alexander Payne, about a quiet old man (Bruce Dern) whose mild-mannered son (Will Forte) agrees to drive him from Montana to Nebraska to claim a non-existent prize, shades from the comic to multiple hues of melancholy and regret. A Paramount Pictures release.

NOBODY’S DAUGHTER HAEWON (Nugu-ui ttal-do anin Haewon) (2013) 90min
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Country: South Korea
A young student at loose ends after her mother moves to America tries to define herself one encounter and experience at a time, in reality and in dreams, in another deceptively simple chamber-piece from South Korean master Hong Sang-soo.

NORTH, THE END OF HISTORY (Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan) (2013) 250min

Director: Lav Diaz
Country: Philippines
Filipino director Lav Diaz’s twelfth feature – at four-plus hours, one of his shortest – is a careful rethinking of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, with a tortured anti-hero who is a haunting embodiment of the dead ends of ideology.

OMAR (2013) 96min
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Country: Palestinian Territories
A tense, gripping, ticking clock thriller about betrayal, suspected and real, in the Occupied Territories, from Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now).

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (2013) 123min

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Country: USA
Jim Jarmusch’s wry, tender and moving take on the vampire genre features Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as a centuries-old couple who watch time go by from separate continents as they reflect on the ever-changing world around them. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (2013)
Director: Ben Stiller
Country: USA
Ben Stiller stars in and directs this sweet, globe-trotting (but New York-based) comic fable about an up-to-the-minute everyman, co-starring Kristen Wiig as the woman of his dreams, Sean Penn as a legendary photographer and Shirley MacLaine as Walter’s mother. A Twentieth Century Fox release.

THE SQUARE (2013) 104min
Director: Jehane Noujaim
Country: USA/Egypt
Jehane Noujaim’s tense, vivid verité portrait of events as they unfolded in Tahrir Square through Arab Spring and beyond, in a newly revised, up-to-the-minute version.

STRANGER BY THE LAKE (L’Inconnu du lac) (2013) 97min

Director: Alain Guiraudie
Country: France
Alain Guiraudie’s lethally precise, sexually explicit film, which unfolds entirely in the vicinity of a gay cruising ground, is both a no-holds-barred depiction of a hedonistic subculture and a perverse and unnerving tale of amour fou. A Strand release.
Please be advised that this film has scenes of a sexually explicit nature.

STRAY DOGS (Jiao You) (2013) 138min
Director: Tsai Ming-liang
Country: Taiwan/France
Tsai Ming-liang’s fable of a homeless family living the cruelest of existences on the ragged edges of the modern world is bracingly pure in its anger and its compassion, and as visually powerful as it is emotionally overwhelming.

A TOUCH OF SIN (Tian Zhu Ding) (2013) 133min

Director: Jia Zhangke
Country: China
Jia Zhangke’s bloody, bitter new film builds a portrait of modern-day China in the midst of rapid and convulsive change through four overlapping stories of marginalized and oppressed citizens pushed to murderous rage. A Kino Lorber release.

LE WEEK-END (2013) 93min
Director: Roger Michell
Country: UK
A magically buoyant, bittersweet comedy drama about a middle-aged and middle class English couple who go to Paris for a weekend holiday, starring two of Britain’s national treasures, Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan. A Music Box Films release.

WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM (2013) 89min

Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Countries: Romania/France
A rigorously structured and fascinatingly oblique new film from Corneliu Porumboiu that examines the life of a film director during the moments on a shoot when the camera isn’t rolling.

THE WIND RISES (Kaze Tachinu) (2013) 126min
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Country: Japan
The great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s new film is based on the life of Jiro Hirokoshi, the man who designed the Zero fighter. An elliptical historical narrative, THE WIND RISES is also a visionary cinematic poem about the fragility of humanity.

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Spike Jonze’s HER, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde and Scarlett Johansson will make its World Premiere as the Closing Night Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival running September 27 – October 13, 2013.

Written and directed by Jonze, HER is set in Los Angeles, in the near future and follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice (Scarlett Johansson), who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other. HER is an original love story that explores the evolving nature—and the risks—of intimacy in the modern world. The Warner Bros. Pictures film is set for a limited release on November 20.

Spike Jonze said, “I’m very excited that it’s a premiere in the city. The New York Film Festival is where we premiered our first movie and that’s really special. It was our first U.S. premiere of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and we had all our friends there and it feels so nice to come back to NYFF.”

http://youtu.be/rS8zOLOcPMQ

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Ben Stiller’s adaptation of James Thurber’s classic short story THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY which also stars Stiller alongside Kristen Wiig, will make its World Premiere on Saturday, October 5 as the Centerpiece Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13).

Stiller directs and stars in the remake of James Thurber’s classic story (first published in The New Yorker in 1939) of a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker (Kristen Wiig) are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined. Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Patton Oswalt and Sean Penn also star. The 20th Century Fox release is set to open wide on Christmas Day.

Ben Stiller said, “I am incredibly honored and excited to have THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY premiere in the New York Film Festival. When I first heard, I wanted to make sure it was the one at Lincoln Center and not one in Utica or somewhere. Making this film has been a wonderful collaboration with a really special screenwriter, Steve Conrad, and all the extremely talented cast and crew who worked on this movie. Having grown up a few blocks away on Riverside Drive, I couldn’t be happier to have it premiere here.”

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Paul Greengrass’s CAPTAIN PHILLIPS will make its World Premiere as the Opening Night Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13). Starring two-time Academy Award winner and 2009 Film Society Chaplin Award honoree Tom Hanks in the title role, the film is described as Academy Award-nominated director Paul Greengrass’s multi-layered examination of the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama by a crew of Somali pirates.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is—through Greengrass’s distinctive lens—simultaneously a pulse-pounding thriller and a complex portrait of the myriad effects of globalization. The film focuses on the relationship between the Alabama’s commanding officer, Captain Richard Phillips (two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks), and his Somali counterpart, Muse (Barkhad Abdi). Set on an incontrovertible collision course off the coast of Somalia, both men will find themselves paying the human toll for economic forces outside of their control. From a screenplay by Billy Ray, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is based upon the book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty. The Sony Pictures release is due in theaters October 11.

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[caption id="attachment_2828" align="alignnone" width="600"] Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa[/caption]

Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner Amour starring veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva is among 32 films on the Main slate lineup for the 50th New York Film Festival. More 2012 Cannes Film Festival winners on the lineup include Critics Week Grand Prize winner Here and There by Spanish director Antonio Mendez Esparza (Aquí y Allá) and Chilean Pablo Larrain’s Director’s Fortnight prizewinner No.

Award winning films on the lineup from other festivals include Berlinale Golden Bear winner Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire) directed by Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani; Song Fang’s Memories Look At Me, winner of the best first feature prize at the recent Locarno Film Festival,

World premieres include Alan Berliner’s new essay film First Cousin, Once Removed, as well as the gala titles. Ang Lee’s Life of Pi will open the festival on Friday, September 28 while David Chase’s Not Fade Away is in the Centerpiece slot on Saturday, October 6 and Robert Zemeckis’ Flight will close the 50th NYFF on Sunday, October 14.

The 50th New York Film Festival runs September 28 thru October 14th, 2012.

The Main Slate of the 50th New York Film Festival:

 

Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria/France/Germany)
Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner of Cannes 2012 is a merciless and compassionate masterpiece about an elderly couple dealing with the ravages of old age. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Araf—Somewhere In Between (Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Turkey/France/Germany)
Director Yesim Ustaoglu depicts with empathy and uncompromising honesty the fate of a teenaged girl when she becomes sexually obsessed with a long-distance trucker and the promise of freedom that he embodies.

Barbara (Christian Petzold, Germany)
Christian Petzold’s perfectly calibrated Cold War thriller features the incomparable Nina Hoss as a physician planning to defect while exiled to a small town in East Germany. An Adopt Films release.

Beyond the Hills/După dealuri (Cristian Mungiu, Romania)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days director Cristian Mungiu returns with a harrowing, visually stunning drama set in a remote Romanian monastery. Winner, Best Actress and Best Screenplay, 2012 Cannes Film Festival. A Sundance Selects release.

Bwakaw (Jun Robles Lana, The Philippines)
A moving and funny surprise from the Philippines starring the great Eddie Garcia—and a truly unforgettable dog—in the story of an elderly loner going where he’s never dared venture before.

Camille Rewinds/Camille Redouble (Noémie Lvovsky, France)
Noemie Lvovsky directs and stars in an ebullient comedy of remarriage that gives Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married a sophisticated, personal, and decidedly French twist.

Caesar Must Die/Cesare deve morire (Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, Italy)
Convicted felons stage a production of Julius Caesar in this surprising new triumph for the Taviani Brothers, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. An Adopt Films release.

The Dead Man and Being Happy/El muerto y ser feliz (Javier Rebollo, Spain/Argentina)
A dying hitman and a mysterious femme fatale set off on an oddball journey through Argentina’s interior in this playful and unexpectedly moving reverie on love, death and the open road.

Fill the Void/Lemale et ha’chalal (Rama Burshtein, Israel)
With her first dramatic feature, writer-director Rama Burshtein has made a compelling, disconcerting view of Israel’s orthodox Hassidic community from the inside.

First Cousin Once Removed (Alan Berliner, USA)
Alan Berliner creates a compelling, heartfelt chronicle of poet and translator Edwin Honig’s loss of memory, language and his past due to the onslaught of Alzheimer’s. An HBO Documentary Films release. World Premiere.

Flight (Robert Zemeckis, USA)
Denzel Washington and Robert Zemeckis team on this tense dramatic thriller about an airline pilot who pulls off a miraculous crash landing…while flying under the influence. A Paramount Pictures release. Closing Night. World Premiere.

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, USA)
Lightning-in-a-bottle, Noah Baumbach’s love poem to his star and screenwriter Greta Gerwig recalls Godard’s early celebrations of Anna Karina, but, as a New York movie, it’s beautiful in a brand new way.

The Gatekeepers/Shomerei Ha’saf (Dror Moreh, Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Six former heads of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, discuss their nation’s past, present and future, in what will surely be one of the most hotly discussed films of the year. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Ginger and Rosa (Sally Potter, UK)
Sally Potter’s riveting coming-of-age story, set in London in 1962, centers on two teenage best friends (played by the revelatory Elle Fanning and talented newcomer Alice Englert) who are driven apart by a scandalous betrayal.

Here and There/Aquí y Allá (Antonio Méndez Esparza, Spain/US/Mexico)
After years in the U.S., Pedro returns home to his family in Mexico, but the lure of the north remains as strong as ever. A most impressive feature debut by Antonio Mendez Esparza.

Holy Motors (Léos Carax, France)
Leos Carax’s unclassifiable, breathtaking, expansive movie—his first in 13 years—stars the great Denis Lavant as a man named Oscar who inhabits 11 different identities over a single day in Paris. An Indomina Releasing release.

Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, USA/UK)
Bill Murray caps his career with a wily turn as FDR in this captivating comedy-drama about the President’s relationship with his cousin Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (Laura Linney). A Focus Features release.

Kinshasa Kids (Marc-Henri Wajnberg, Belgium/France)
Perhaps the most ebullient “musical” you’ll see this year, Marc-Henri Wajnberg’s singular documentary/fiction hybrid follows a group of street children in the Congolese capital.

The Last Time I Saw Macao/A Última Vez Que Vi Macau (João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata)
This stunning amalgam of film noir and Chris Marker cine-essay poetically explores the psychic pull of the titular former Portuguese colony.

Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, USA)
NYFF alumni Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel (Foreign Parts) team for another singular anthropological excavation, this time set inside the commercial fishing industry.

Life of Pi (Ang Lee, USA)
Ang Lee’s superb 3D adaptation of the great bestseller resembles no other film. A 20th Century Fox release. Opening Night. World Premiere.

Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, Japan/Iran/France)
Master Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostmi ventures to Japan for this mysterious beautiful romantic drama about the brief encounter between an elderly professor and a young student. A Sundance Selects release.

Lines of Wellington/Linhas de Wellington (Valeria Sarmiento, France/Portugal)
Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal in Valeria Sarmiento’s intimate epic.

Memories Look at Me/Ji Yi Wang Zhe Wo (Song Fang, China)
Song Fang’s remarkable first feature, in which she travels from Beijing to Nanjing for a visit with her family, perfectly captures the rhythms of brief sojourns home.

Night Across the Street/La Noche de enfrente (Raul Ruiz, Chile/France)
A final masterpiece from one of the cinema’s most magical artists, this chronicle of the final months of one Don Celso allows the late Raul Ruiz the chance to explore the thin line between fact and fiction, the living and the dead. A Cinema Guild release.

No (Pablo Larrain, Chile/USA)
Gael Garcia Bernal stars as a Chilean adman trying to organize a campaign to unseat Pinochet in Pablo Larrain’s smart, engrossing political thriller. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Not Fade Away (David Chase, USA)
The debut feature from The Sopranos creator David Chase is a wise, tender and richly atmospheric portrait of a group of friends trying to start a rock band in 1960s suburban New Jersey. A Paramount Vantage release. Centerpiece. World premiere.

Our Children/À perdre la raison (Joachim Lafosse, Belgium)
Belgian director Joachim LaFosse turns a lurid European news story about a mad housewife into a classical tragedy. Émilie Dequenne more than fulfills the promise of her award-winning performance in Rosetta.

Passion (Brian de Palma, France/Germany)
Brian De Palma brings great panache and a diabolical mastery of surprise to a classic tale of female competition and revenge. Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams are super-cool and oh so mean.

Something in the Air/Après Mai (Olivier Assayas, France)
Too young to have been on the May ’68 barricades, a group of young people explore their options for continuing the political struggle in Olivier Assayas’ incisive portrait of a generation. A Sundance Selects release.

Tabu (Miguel Gomes, Portugal)
An exquisite, absurdist entry in the canon of surrealist cinema, Tabu is movie-as-dream—an evocation of irrational desires, extravagant coincidences, and cheesy nostalgia grounded in serious feeling and beliefs. An Adopt Films release.

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet/Vous n’avez encore rien vu (Alain Resnais, France)
The latest from 90-year-old Alain Resnais is a wry, wistful and always surprising valentine to actors and the art of performance starring a who’s-who of French acting royalty.

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The New York Film Festival will open with the World Premiere of Ang Lee’s Life of Pi on Friday, September 28. 

“I am both delighted and honored to be back at the New York Film Festival with Life of Pi,” Ang Lee said in a statement today. “I have the deepest respect for Richard Peña and his team and to be selected by them as the Opening Night film for the 50th Anniversary is extremely gratifying. I am also excited because this is my hometown, and to be unveiling this film that I am so proud of here is a real pleasure.”

The story of young man who survives a disaster at sea, Life of Pi is based on Yann Martel’s bestselling novel of the same name. Long considered an un-filmable book, Life of Pi takes place over three continents, two oceans and many years. Lee has employed breakthrough technology and his distinctive visual style in order to tell this epic story. While marooned on a lifeboat, the young man at the center of Life of Pi forms an unexpected bond with the other survivor, a Bengal tiger.

Ang Lee’s Life of Pi will be released in theaters on November 21, 2012.

The 50th New York Film Festival will close on Sunday, October 14th with the world premiere of Robert Zemeckis’ Flight.           

 

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VITO, an HBO documentary film about gay rights activist Vito Russo, premieres tonight at the New York Film Festival. The film premieres at 6:00 PM with an encore screening at 9:15 PM.

VITO offers rare insight into one of the most important voices in the birth of contemporary gay culture and AIDS activism.  His book The Celluloid Closet published in 1981 (and updated in 1987), remains a landmark historical work and his co-founding of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and early activism with ACT UP established Vito Russo as one of the most important civil rights activists in New York and the country.

For over two decades, Vito Russo was a ubiquitous presence in New York, a ravenous, tireless cinephile and critic who became one of the earliest, most important voices in the struggle for gay rights. His two passions came together in an extraordinary book, The Celluloid Closet, a groundbreaking study of gay and lesbian imagery and themes in movies that remains a landmark in the field. Now Jeffrey Schwarz, using some incredible period footage as well as the testimonies of those who knew him best, has created this heartfelt, insightful portrait of Vito that serves simultaneously as a revealing chronicle of the birth of contemporary gay culture and of later AIDS activism. An HBO Documentary FIlms release.

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[caption id="attachment_1637" align="alignnone" width="550"]The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension [/caption]

The next presentation of Kevin Smith’s SMoviola will take place during the upcoming New York Film Festival with a celebration of the cult hit THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION featuring the film’s star Peter Weller, John Lithgow and additional guests. The festival also released the lineup of filmmakers set for NYFF’s celebrated HBO Films® Directors Dialogues and the complete lineup of films for the 15th edition of the film festival’s Views From the Avant-Garde series.

Returning to the Film Society after a special screening of VALLEY GIRL during the launch of the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Kevin Smith’s SMoviola will now be a continuing series of appearances by the popular filmmaker and film personality during which he will take a look at a classic, and personally beloved film, with the filmmakers and stars of the film.

Directed by W.D. Richter, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984) stars Peter Weller as an adventurer/surgeon/rock star who leads a band of men known as the Hong Kong Cavaliers versus nefarious alien invaders from the 8th dimension. Featuring a formidable cast including Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd as well as Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff and musician Billy Vera, the film was a made-to-order cult hit from its debut onward. The film will screen at the Walter Reade Theater on Saturday, October 15 at 7:30PM with Smith leading a discussion about the film with Weller, Lithgow and others following the screening.

The popular HBO Films® Directors Dialogues returns to the New York Film Festival with a new home, the state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street). The Directors Dialogues pair a director with a journalist as they discuss the filmmaker’s career, views on their own approach to making movies as well as the current state of the art of filmmaking. This year’s lineup will feature an eclectic group of filmmaking visionaries including the documentary directing duo of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY), New York indie iconoclast Abel Ferrera (4:44 – LAST DAY ON EARTH), filmmaker and video artist Julia Loktev (THE LONELIEST PLANET) and German filmmaking auteur Wim Wenders (PINA).

Julia Loktev will be joined by Melissa Anderson (NYFF Selection Committee and contributor, The Village Voice) in conversation on Sunday, October 2 at 3:00PM.

Abel Ferrera will be joined by Dennis Lim (NYFF Selection Committee and Editor, Moving Image Source & Freelance Critic) in conversation on Tuesday, October 11 at 6:00PM.

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky will be joined by Eugene Hernandez (FSLC Digital Strategies Director and former IndieWire Editor-in-Chief) in conversation on Thursday, October 13 at 6:00PM.

Wim Wenders will be joined by Scott Foundas (NYFF Selection Committee, FSLC Asociate Program Director and contributing editor, Film Comment) in conversation on Sunday, October 16 at 12:00PM.

For its 15th year, Views from the Avant-Garde returns with an expanded edition, presenting four nights of New York and world premieres from the frontiers of innovative moving-image making. Curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith, the program’s highlights include films by such notables of the experimental film world as James Benning, Kevin Jerome Everson, George Kuchar, and NYFF favorite Ben Rivers, as well as a first-time screening at NYFF of work by Daniel Eisenberg. The program also includes the return of the 3D film artists, OpenEndedGroup (following a screening of their work this summer during the launch of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center), as well as the anticipated screening of JOHN ZORN: A FILM IN 15 SCENES, which features four different film interpretations of a list of shots (or “score”) provided by Zorn.

Gavin Smith, editor-in-chief of Film Comment, said “In our 15th edition of Views From the Avant-Garde, we have seen the program double in size due to the continuing expansion of work being made by experimental film artists and the growing demand for this kind of cinema. What is particularly exciting about this lineup is that it literally includes the work of five generations of filmmakers.”

Screening Schedule for VIEWS FROM THE AVANT-GARDE

Friday, October 7
Location: FRANCESCA BEALE THEATER
12:30PM
Screening program: The Soul and the Stem
Total running time: 99min

SENORA CON FLORES (Woman with Flowers) (1995/2011) 15min
Director: Chick Strand
Country: U.S./Mexico
(preservation print from the Academy Film Archives)
JAN VILLA (2010) 20min
Director: Natasha Mendonca
Country: India/U.S.
THE SOLE OF THE FOOT (2011) 34min
Director: Robert Fenz
Country: U.S/Israel/Chile/France
CORRESPONDENCE (2011) 30min
Director: Robert Fenz
Country: U.S./India

3:15PM
Screening Program:  Ben Rivers
Total running time:  66min

SACK BARROW (2011) 21min
Country: U.K.
SLOW ACTION (2010) 45min
Country: U.K.


5:45PM
Screening Program:  Bitches Brew
Total running time:  107min

POSTHASTE PERENNIAL PATTERN (2010) 3min 39sec
Director: Jodie Mack
Country: U.S.
BABOBILICONS (1982) 16min
Director: Daina Krumins
Country: U.S.
(new 35mm preservation by the Academy Film Archive)
YOU ARE NOW RUNNING ON RESERVE BATTERY POWER (2011) 11min
Director: Jessie Stead
Country: U.S.
HULL (2011) 7min 32sec
Director: Tara Merenda Nelson
Country: U.S.

From JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS (2011):
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Telephone Call 1min 
Billy and the Magician 3min 18sec
Little Kitten 42sec
Zero Buoyancy 4min 53sec
Romance Novels 1min 4sec

A PARTY RECORD PACKED WITH SEX AND SADNESS (2011) 10min 11sec
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.
PRAXIS 8 – 12 SCENES (2010) 25min
Director: Dietmar Brehm
Country: Austria
TASTE TEST (2011) 2min 30sec
Director: Andrew Lampert
Country: U.S.
BITCH-BEAUTY (2011) 7min
Director: MM Serra
Country: U.S.


8:45PM
Screening Program:  Ladders and Tracks
Total running time:  104min

BERLIN TRACKS 18h00-20h00 (2011) 2min 7sec
Director: Shiloh Cinquemani
Country: U.S./Germany
(k)now (t)here (2011) 8min 50sec
Director: Hey–Yeun Jang
Country: U.S.
SUBWAY (2011) 7min 40sec
Director: Angela Ferraiolo
Country: U.S.
VILLAGE, SILENCED (2011) 4min 56min      
Director: Deborah Stratman
Country: U.S.
SNAKES AND LADDERS (2011) 3min
Director: Katherin McInnis
Country: U.S.
LONGHORN TREMOLO (2010) 16min
Director: Scott Stark
Country: U.S.
LAND FILLL (2011) 8min 52sec
Director: Jennifer Reeves
Country: U.S.
BARREN (2010) 2min
Director: Katherin McInnis
Country: U.S.
BACK VIEW (2011) 17min
Director: Vincent Grenier
Country: U.S.
THE TOY SUN (2011) 33min
Director: Ken Kobland
Country: U.S.


Location: WALTER READE THEATER
1:00PM
UPENDING (2011) 65min
Director: OpenendedGroup
Country: U.S.
(digital 3-D)

3:30PM
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING (2011) 40min
Director: Ken Jacobs
Country: U.S.


5:30PM
Screening Program:  Ernie Gehr
Total running time:  88min

CRYSTAL PALACE (2002-11) 28min
Country: U.S.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING (2010) 12min
Country: U.S.
MIST (2010) 9min
Country: U.S.
ABRACADABRA (2009) 39min
Country: U.S.

8:30PM
Screening Program:  George Kuchar
Total running time:  87min

LINGO OF THE LOST (2010) 37min 45sec
Country: U.S.
EMPIRE OF EVIL (2011) 50min
Country: U.S.


Saturday October 8
Location: FRANCESCA BEALE THEATER
11:15AM
Screening Program:  Cabinet of Curiosities
Total running time:  82min

BETWEEN GOLD (2011) 10min 42sec
Director: Jonathan Schwartz
Country: U.S.
TIN PRESSED (2011) 6min 23sec
Director: Dani Leventhal
Country: U.S.
FIFTEEN AN HOUR (2011) 6min
Director: Kevin Jerome Everson
Country: U.S.
TABLEAUX VIVANTS (2011) 10min 20sec
Director: Vincent Grenier
Country: U.S.
CURIOUS LIGHT (2011) 4min 12sec
Director: Charlotte Pryce
Country: U.S.
FORMS ARE NOT SELF-SUBSISTENT SUBSTANCES (2010) 22min
Director: Samantha Rebello
Country: U.K.
THE MATTER PROPOUNDED, OF ITS POSSIBILITY OR IMPOSSIBILITY, TREATED IN FOUR PARTS (2011) 13min
Director: David Gatten
Country: U.S.

From JHAMA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS (2011):
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Miniatures 2min    
Degas 58sec
The Eclipse 33sec

RANSOM NOTES (2011) 4min
Director: Kelly Egan
Country: Canada
CONJUROR’S BOX (2011) 4min
Director: Kerry Laitala
Country: U.S.

1:45PM
Screening Program:  Looking Through A Glass Onion
Total running time:  89min   

PASSAGE UPON THE PLUME (2011) 6min 46sec
Director: Fern Silva
Country: U.S.
SHAYNE’S RECTANGLE (2011) 5min 4sec 
Director: Dani Leventhal
Country: U.S.
LINE DESCRIBING YOUR MOM (2011) 5min 50sec
Director: Michael Robinson
Country: U.S.
GOSSIP ON THE WATER (2011) 8min 19sec
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.

From JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Tatum’s Ghost 3min 45sec

THE DEATH OF THE GORILLA (1966) 16min
Director: Peter Mays
Country: U.S.
(new restoration by the Academy Film Archive)
BY FOOT-CANDLE LIGHT (2011) 9min
Director: Mary Helena Clark
Country: U.S.
A LAX RIDDLE UNIT (2011) 9min
Director: Laida Lertxundi
Country: Spain
SOUNDING GLASS (2011) 7min
Director: Sylvia Schedelbauer
Country: Germany
THE EVIL EYES (2010) 18min
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.


4:15PM
VOLUPTUOUS SLEEP (2011) 95min
Director: Betzy Bromberg
Country: U.S.

7:15PM
Screening Program:  Jerome Hiler & Nathaniel Dorsky
Total running time:  54min

WORDS OF MERCURY (2011) 25min
Director: Jerome Hiler
Country: U.S.
THE RETURN (2011) 27min
Director: Nathaniel Dorsky
Country: U.S.

9:30PM
Screening Program:  John Zorn: A Film in 15 Scenes
Total running time:  97min 

15 SCENES: 254 SHOTS (2011) 15min
Director: Gobolux
Country: U.S.
WELL THEN THERE NOW (2011) 19min 30sec
Director: Lewis Klahr
Country: U.S.
BARE ROOM (2011) 31min 33sec
Director: Joey Izzo
Country: U.S.
ARCANA (2011) 33min
Director: Henry Hills
Country: U.S./Austria

Location: WALTER READE THEATER
11:00AM
Screening Program:  Jean-Marie Straub
Total running time:  66min

LOTHRINGEN! (1994) 20min
(co-directed with Danièle Huillet)
Country: France
UN HÉRITIER (2011) 20min
Country: France/South Korea
L’INCONSOLABLE (2011) 15min
Country: France
SCHAKALE UND ARABER (2011) 11min
Country: Switzerland

1:15PM
STUDIES FOR THE DECAY OF THE WEST (2010) 80min
Director: Klaus Wyborny
Country: Germany


4:00PM
Screening Program:  Daniel Eisenberg: The Unstable Object
Total running time:  83min

LESS AND LESS/TOUJOURS MOINS (2010) 14min
Director: Luc Moullet
Country: France, 2010
THE UNSTABLE OBJECT (2011) 69min
Country: U.S./Germany/Turkey


6:45PM
Screening Program:  Kevin Jerome Everson
Total running time:  82min

QUALITY CONTROL (2011) 70min 42sec
Country: U.S.
THE PRICHARD (2011) 11min 18sec
Country: U.S.


9:45PM
Screening Program:  George Kuchar
Total running time:  87min

LINGO OF THE LOST (2010) 37min 45sec
Country: U.S.
EMPIRE OF EVIL (2011) 50min
Country: U.S.


Sunday October 9
Location: FRANCESCA BEALE THEATER
12:00PM
Screening program: The Soul and the Stem
Total running time: 99min

SENORA CON FLORES (Woman with Flowers) (1995/2011) 15min
Director: Chick Strand
Country: U.S./Mexico
(preservation print from the Academy Film Archives)
JAN VILLA (2010) 20min
Director: Natasha Mendonca
Country: India/U.S.
THE SOLE OF THE FOOT (2011) 34min
Director: Robert Fenz
Country: U.S/Israel/Chile/France
CORRESPONDENCE (2011) 30min
Director: Robert Fenz
Country: U.S./India


2:45PM
Screening Program:  Jerome Hiler & Nathaniel Dorsky
Total running time:  54min

WORDS OF MERCURY (2011) 25min
Director: Jerome Hiler
Country: U.S.
THE RETURN (2011) 27min
Director: Nathaniel Dorsky
Country: U.S.


5:30PM
Screening Program:  Ladders and Tracks
Total running time:  104min

BERLIN TRACKS 18h00-20h00 (2011) 2min 7sec
Director: Shiloh Cinquemani
Country: U.S./Germany
(k)now (t)here (2011) 8min 50sec
Director: Hey–Yeun Jang
Country: U.S.
SUBWAY (2011) 7min 40sec
Director: Angela Ferraiolo
Country: U.S.
VILLAGE, SILENCED (2011) 4min 56min      
Director: Deborah Stratman
Country: U.S.
SNAKES AND LADDERS (2011) 3min
Director: Katherin McInnis
Country: U.S.
LONGHORN TREMOLO (2010) 16min
Director: Scott Stark
Country: U.S.
LAND FILLL (2011) 8min 52sec
Director: Jennifer Reeves
Country: U.S.
BARREN (2010) 2min
Director: Katherin McInnis
Country: U.S.
BACK VIEW (2011) 17min
Director: Vincent Grenier
Country: U.S.
THE TOY SUN (2011) 33min
Director: Ken Kobland
Country: U.S.


8:15PM
Screening Program:  The Red and The Black
Total running time:  86min

RIVER RITES (2011) 11min 30sec
Director: Ben Russell
Country: U.S./Suriname
SHADOW, SEED, SPAGYRIC (2011) 5min 12sec
Director: David Baker
Country: U.S.
PERIL OF THE ANTILLES (2011) 5min 51sec
Director: Fern Silva
Country: U.S.
A PREFACE TO RED (2010) 6min
Director: Jonathan Schwartz
Country: U.S./Turkey
PROTOCOL (2011) 1min 15sec
Director: Lina Rodriguez
Country: Canada/Colombia
IMPERCEPTIHOLE (2011) 14min 37sec
Director: Lori Felker & Robert Todd
Country: U.S.
LIGHT LICKS: BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON: I WANT TO PAINT IT BLACK (2011) 12min
Director: Saul Levine
Country: U.S.
THIRD LAW: N KEDZIE BLVD. (2011) 7min 10sec
Director: Mike Gibisser
Country: U.S.
SLOW BURN (2011) 19min 46sec
Director: Jesse Cain
Country: U.S.


Location: WALTER READE THEATER
1:00PM
Screening Program:  Virgin Springs
Total running time:  86min

BAPTISMAL STICKS AND STONES (2011) 6min 50sec
Director: April Simmons
Country: U.S.
DEVILS GATE (2011) 20min
Director: Laura Kraning
Country: U.S.
TWICE REMOVED (2011) 11min
Director: Leslie Thornton
Country: U.S.
RICKY (2011) 11min
Director: Janie Geiser
Country: U.S.
SILENT SPRINGS (2011) 12min 57sec
Director: Erin Espelie
Country: U.S.
GAZETTE (2009) 4min 12sec
Director: Eliénore de Montesquiou
Country: Russia/Estonia
KUDZU VINE (2011) 19min 52sec
Director: Josh Gibson
Country: U.S.


3:30PM
THE PETTIFOGGER (2011) 65min
Director: Lewis Klahr
Country: U.S.

6:00PM
Screening Program:  John Zorn: A Film in 15 Scenes
Total running time:  97min 

15 SCENES: 254 SHOTS (2011) 15min
Director: Gobolux
Country: U.S.
WELL THEN THERE NOW (2011) 19min 30sec
Director: Lewis Klahr
Country: U.S.
BARE ROOM (2011) 31min 33sec
Director: Joey Izzo
Country: U.S.
ARCANA (2011) 33min
Director: Henry Hills
Country: U.S./Austria

9:00PM
TWENTY CIGARETTES (2011) 99min
Director: James Benning
Country: U.S.

Monday October 10
Location: FRANCESCA BEALE THEATER
11:00AM
Screening Program:  Cabinet of Curiosities
Total running time:  82min

BETWEEN GOLD (2011) 10min 42sec
Director: Jonathan Schwartz
Country: U.S.
TIN PRESSED (2011) 6min 23sec
Director: Dani Leventhal
Country: U.S.
FIFTEEN AN HOUR (2011) 6min
Director: Kevin Jerome Everson
Country: U.S.
TABLEAUX VIVANTS (2011) 10min 20sec
Director: Vincent Grenier
Country: U.S.
CURIOUS LIGHT (2011) 4min 12sec
Director: Charlotte Pryce
Country: U.S.
FORMS ARE NOT SELF-SUBSISTENT SUBSTANCES (2010) 22min
Director: Samantha Rebello
Country: U.K.
THE MATTER PROPOUNDED, OF ITS POSSIBILITY OR IMPOSSIBILITY, TREATED IN FOUR PARTS (2011) 13min
Director: David Gatten
Country: U.S.

From JHAMA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS (2011):
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Miniatures 2min    
Degas 58sec
The Eclipse 33sec

RANSOM NOTES (2011) 4min
Director: Kelly Egan
Country: Canada
CONJUROR’S BOX (2011) 4min
Director: Kerry Laitala
Country: U.S.

1:30PM
Screening Program:  Aurand/Muñoz/Sami
Total running time:  76min

VILLATALLA (2011) 21min 59sec
Director: Jeannette Muñoz
Country: Switzerland/Chile/Italy
A YEAR/EIN JAHR (2011) 12min
Director: Renate Sami
Country: Germany
YOUNG PINES/JUNGE TIEFERN (2011) 43min
Director: Ute Aurand
Country: Germany/Japan


3:45PM
Screening Program:  Looking Through A Glass Onion
Total running time:  89min   

PASSAGE UPON THE PLUME (2011) 6min 46sec
Director: Fern Silva
Country: U.S.
SHAYNE’S RECTANGLE (2011) 5min 4sec 
Director: Dani Leventhal
Country: U.S.
LINE DESCRIBING YOUR MOM (2011) 5min 50sec
Director: Michael Robinson
Country: U.S.
GOSSIP ON THE WATER (2011) 8min 19sec
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.

From JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Tatum’s Ghost 3min 45sec

THE DEATH OF THE GORILLA (1966) 16min
Director: Peter Mays
Country: U.S.
(new restoration by the Academy Film Archive)
BY FOOT-CANDLE LIGHT (2011) 9min
Director: Mary Helena Clark
Country: U.S.
A LAX RIDDLE UNIT (2011) 9min
Director: Laida Lertxundi
Country: Spain
SOUNDING GLASS (2011) 7min
Director: Sylvia Schedelbauer
Country: Germany
THE EVIL EYES (2010) 18min
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.

6:30PM
Screening Program:  Paul Clipson Super 8 performance
Total running time:  70min   
CHORUS (2009/2011) 8min
Country: U.S.
COMPOUND EYES NO. 1-5 (2011) 27min
Country: U.S.
LIGHT FROM THE MESA (2010) 7min
Country: U.S.
CHORUS (2009/2011) 8min
Country: U.S.
(16mm version)
MORPHOLOGIES (2011) 20min
Country: U.S.

8:45PM
Screening Program:  Bitches Brew
Total running time:  107min

POSTHASTE PERENNIAL PATTERN (2010) 3min 39sec
Director: Jodie Mack
Country: U.S.
BABOBILICONS (1982) 16min
Director: Daina Krumins
Country: U.S.
(new 35mm preservation by the Academy Film Archive)
YOU ARE NOW RUNNING ON RESERVE BATTERY POWER (2011) 11min
Director: Jessie Stead
Country: U.S.
HULL (2011) 7min 32sec
Director: Tara Merenda Nelson
Country: U.S.

From JHANA AND THE RATS OF JAMES OLDS (2011):
Director: Stephanie Barber
Country: U.S.
Telephone Call 1min 
Billy and the Magician 3min 18sec
Little Kitten 42sec
Zero Buoyancy 4min 53sec
Romance Novels 1min 4sec

A PARTY RECORD PACKED WITH SEX AND SADNESS (2011) 10min 11sec
Director: Bobby Abate
Country: U.S.
PRAXIS 8 – 12 SCENES (2010) 25min
Director: Dietmar Brehm
Country: Austria
TASTE TEST (2011) 2min 30sec
Director: Andrew Lampert
Country: U.S.
BITCH-BEAUTY (2011) 7min
Director: MM Serra
Country: U.S.

Location: WALTER READE THEATER
11:30PM
Screening Program:  Jean-Marie Straub
Total running time:  66min

LOTHRINGEN! (1994) 20min
(co-directed with Danièle Huillet)
Country: France
UN HÉRITIER (2011) 20min
Country: France/South Korea
L’INCONSOLABLE (2011) 15min
Country: France
SCHAKALE UND ARABER (2011) 11min
Country: Switzerland


1:45PM
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING (2011) 40min
Director: Ken Jacobs
Country: U.S.

3:00PM
THE PETTIFOGGER (2011) 65min
Director: Lewis Klahr
Country: U.S.


5:00PM
Screening Program:  Virgin Springs
Total running time:  86min

BAPTISMAL STICKS AND STONES (2011) 6min 50sec
Director: April Simmons
Country: U.S.
DEVILS GATE (2011) 20min
Director: Laura Kraning
Country: U.S.
TWICE REMOVED (2011) 11min
Director: Leslie Thornton
Country: U.S.
RICKY (2011) 11min
Director: Janie Geiser
Country: U.S.
SILENT SPRINGS (2011) 12min 57sec
Director: Erin Espelie
Country: U.S.
GAZETTE (2009) 4min 12sec
Director: Eliénore de Montesquiou
Country: Russia/Estonia
KUDZU VINE (2011) 19min 52sec
Director: Josh Gibson
Country: U.S.

7:30PM
TWO DAYS AT SEA (2011) 86min
Director: Ben Rivers
Country: U.K.

Location: ELINORE BUNIN MUNROE AMPHITHEATRE
Daily Friday October 7-10
Open to the general public, with no admission charge. Each film will be repeated across the four days in groupings and individual rotations several times a day.

Films will include the following (in alphabetical order):

ARMOIRE (Four Parts) (2007-2011) 9min 5sec
Director: Vincent Grenier
Country: U.S.
JOHN KRIEG EXITING THE FALK CORPORATION IN 1971 (2011) 71min
Director: James Benning
Country: U.S
PICTURE TAKING (2011) 9min 30sec
Director: Ernie Gehr
Country: U.S.
SOFT PALATE (2010) 3min 10sec
Director: Martin Arnold
Country: Austria
SELF CONTROL (2011) 1min 56sec
Director: Martin Arnold
Country: Austria
TRADERS LEAVING THE EXCHANGE, A GUARD AND THE STREET (2011) 15min
Director: Les Leveque
Country: U.S.

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[caption id="attachment_1635" align="alignnone" width="550"]Oliver Stone[/caption]

The 2011 New York Film Festival announced two short films programs as well as late-breaking updates for the Oliver Stone presentation and the Masterworks screening of BEN HUR.

Due to scheduling conflicts, Oliver Stone’s “Untold History of the United States” will no longer screen at the 2011 New York Film Festival. However, Oliver Stone will still be appearing at NYFF to present a 25th Anniversary screening of SALVADOR, a film that burst onto the American film scene with a force that immediately established Stone as an artist to be reckoned with.

The Masterworks screening of BEN-HUR at Alice Tully Halll on Saturday, October 1 at 10:30AM will now be a family affair, with the attendance of Fraser Heston (the son of Charlton Heston), Catherine Wyler (the daughter of director William Wyler) and Toby Wyler, (the director’s great-grandson). The trio will take part in introductions of the film with FSLC’s Richard Pena and will also be available for interviews to discuss the careers of Heston and Wyler as well as the restoration of the cinema classic.

BEH-HUR has been given a meticulous frame-by-frame restoration from the original 65mm camera negative, completed from an 8K scan of the original 65mm camera negative, making this the highest-resolution restoration ever completed by Warner Bros. studio. The innumerable qualities of the William Wyler’s film will be on display on the giant screen in the original 2.76 aspect ratio, and this theatrical premiere of the restored version provides audiences of all ages the rare opportunity to marvel at Hollywood maximally lavish, stirring and exciting epic entertainment.

NYFF 2011 also announced the lineup for two shorts programs set to screen at FSLC’s new Film Center. Both programs feature original short films by exciting new talents on the world cinema stage.



SHORTS PROGRAM #1

Total running time: 92 minutes

Tuesday, October 4 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater

Saturday, October 15 at 2:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater



THE BIRD SPIDER (La Migala) (2011) 14min

Director: Jaime Dezcallar

Country: Spain

A lovelorn man enters into a deadly game of chance when he intentionally sets a poisonous arachnid loose in his apartment.



BLUE (2011) 14min

Director: Stephen Kang

Country: New Zealand

The life and hard times of a human-sized plush toy, formerly a children’s TV star, now a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes Critics Week.



THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF (2011) 11min

Director: Jessica Brickman

Country: USA

Death is both an aid and an impediment to romantic bliss in this wry comedy about the mourning after, co-starring Fran Kranz and Jason Ritter.



GRAFFITIGER (2010) 10min

Director: Libor Pixa

Country: Czech Republic

A lonely graffiti-drawn tiger wanders the walls and sidewalks of Prague looking for companionship.



THE RUNNER (2011) 15min

Director: Ana Lazarevic

Country: Serbia and Montenegro/USA

In the lush and weedy Serbian countryside, a first time human trafficker becomes stranded with the Roma boy he is assigned to deliver.



THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS (2011) 28min

Director: Ari Aster

Country: USA

In the picture-perfect Johnson family, a scandalous secret bubbles to the surface with outrageous, darkly comic complications.



SHORTS PROGRAM #2

Total running time: 88 minutes

Wednesday, October 5 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater

Saturday, October 15 at 4:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater



AARON BURR, PART 2 (2011) 8min

Director: Dana O’Keefe

Country: USA

You only thought you knew all there was to know about the much-maligned third Vice President of the United States.



THE GREAT GATSBY IN FIVE MINUTES (2011) 10min

Director: Michael Almereyda

Country: USA

The Fitzgerald classic as you’ve never seen it, transposed to a Los Angeles of sleek modern architecture and strip-mall foot clinics.



MEMORY BY DESIGN (2011) 5min

Director: Nathan Punwar

Country: USA

A dazzling love letter to all things analog, as they recede into the horizon of the digital age.



MY BOW BREATHING (Il respiro dell’arco) (2011) 10min

Director: E.M. Artale

Country: Italy

Revenge has the sting of a perfectly aimed arrow as a young archer gets in touch with her primal instincts.



GRANDMOTHERS (Abuelas) (2011) 9min

Director: Afarin Eghbal

Country: UK

A lyrical animated documentary about the search by Argentinian grandmothers for the orphaned children of the “disappeared.”



FIRST MATCH (2011) 15min

Director: Olivia Newman

Country: USA

No amount of practice on the mat can prepare Mo for the challenge she faces at her first high school wrestling match.



TRAITORS (2011) 31min

Director: Sean Gullette

Country: Morocco/USA

A night in the lives of an all-girl punk band as they illicitly shoot their first music video on the streets of Tangier.

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[caption id="attachment_1633" align="alignnone"]PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY[/caption]

The 49th New York Film Festival will offer an ‘unprecedented’ selection of programs, led by the first-ever premiere screening of a new ending to Joe Berlinger’s and Bruce Sinofsky’s PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY including footage from the events surrounding the recent celebrated release of the West Memphis Three. PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY is an HBO Documentary Films production set to premiere on the network in 2012.

Oliver Stone will offer a special sneak preview of his new documentary project, The Untold History of the United States. Produced as a 10-part miniseries for Showtime (where it will premiere in 2012), NYFF will present this special sneak preview of Untold History’s first three chapters, which focus on the events leading up to America’s entrance into World War II, the war itself, and the unjustly forgotten figure of former U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace. PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY and Stone’s The Untold History of the United States project headline an impressive slate of documentary offerings at NYFF this year with such diverse and fascinating subjects as independent film legend Roger Corman, musician Andrew Bird, The Rings of Saturn author W.G. Sebald, “The Girl From Ipanema” composer/performer Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim, influential British rock group Mott The Hoople, film critic and gay activist Vito Russo, and Frederick Wiseman’s latest, CRAZY HORSE, where the filmmaker turns his camera toward another Paris cultural institution – the Crazy Horse erotic cabaret (following 2009’s LA DANSE which delved into the Paris Opera Ballet).

Additional highlights include anniversary screenings of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, SPIRITED AWAY and THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL; musical accompaniment by members of the NY Philharmonic to the classic Charlie Chaplin film THE GOLD RUSH; as well as live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra to the silent film FROM MORNING TILL MIDNIGHT; a screening of the animated feature film THE 99 which follows super-powered heroes based on derivatives of the 99 attributes of Allah; and a recently rediscovered masterwork of the post-punk cinema, YOU ARE NOT I, directed by Sara Driver and shot by Jim Jarmusch. NYFF will also feature a panel on Pauline Kael followed by a screening of James Toback’s FINGERS, and a screening of Rin Tin Tin starrer CLASH OF THE WOLVES with film discussion focusing on the four-legged film legend by The Orchid Thief author Susan Orlean.

Views from the Avant Garde will make its fifteenth experimental journey to the screen this year and the New York Film Festival will once again partner with HBO in hosting four HBO Directors Dialogues – details for both of these special programs will be announced shortly.

MASTERWORKS AND SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY SCREENINGS

Masterworks: THE GOLD RUSH

Chaplin’s personal favorite among his own films, THE GOLD RUSH (1925), is a beautifully constructed comic fable of fate and perseverance, set in the icy wastes of the Alaskan gold fields. Re-released by Chaplin in 1942 in a recut version missing some scenes, and with added narration and musical score, THE GOLD RUSH will be presented in a new restoration of the original, silent 1925 version. In this frequently terrifying and always unpredictable universe of natural and human savagery packed with avalanches, wild bears, predatory dance hall girls and murderous claim-jumpers, the incomparable Gentleman-Tramp arrives, seeking his fortune and facing every imaginable threat to life and limb. The film contains one of Chaplin’s classic comic set pieces in which he elegantly cooks and eats his boot to fend off starvation. THE GOLD RUSH blends action, slapstick comedy and sentiment seamlessly, making it one of the most beloved of Charles Chaplin’s works. The screening features a new score restoration by Timothy Brock (his ninth, commissioned by the Chaplin Estate) live musical accompaniment conducted by Brock and performed by musicians from the NY Philharmonic.

Masterworks: INVASIÓN

A little-known classic of Latin American cinema, INVASIÓN (1969) was the first work conceived specifically for the cinema by the great Jorge Luis Borges, in collaboration with his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares. A kind of updating of The Illiad that breathlessly morphs from police thriller to dream-like fantasy, the film is set in Aquiléa, a city that looks a lot like Buenos Aires currently under siege by sinister forces.  A group of middle-aged men, led by a somewhat older man, resolve to mount resistance to the invaders. Meetings are held, maps are studied, strategies are proposed—but can the invasion really be overcome?  A former assistant to Bresson here making his feature film debut, Hugo Santiago with INVASIÓN created a work that is lyrical, unsettling and infinitely suggestive.

Masterworks: YOU ARE NOT I

A haunting adaptation of a 1948 short story by Paul Bowles about a woman who escapes from an asylum, YOU ARE NOT I (1981) played widely in the international film festival circuit in the early Eighties. Then, a leak in a New Jersey warehouse destroyed the negative, leaving director Sara Driver with only a battered, copy that could not be projected. Miraculously, a print was found among the holdings of Paul Bowles just three years ago, and now the film has been restored and is available once again. Undoubtedly one of the most impressive works to emerge from the post-punk downtown scene, the film was beautifully shot by Jim Jarmusch (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and features Suzanne Fletcher, Nan Goldin and Luc Sante. The screening will mark the world premiere of the rediscovered and restored version of the film.

50 Years of the New York Film Festival: THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL

In anticipation of the New York Film Festival’s historic 50th edition in the fall of 2012, the Film Society is proud to inaugurate a year-long retrospective of highlights from the festival’s past 49 editions, curated by current and former members of the NYFF selection committee. We begin with the opening night film of the very first NYFF, Luis Buñuel’s THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, described by festival director Richard Roud thusly: “For ninety hypnotic minutes Buñuel shatters all conventional notions of social logic and ethics. Never before has he been able to give such free reign to his vitality, wit and iconoclasm, his power to surprise and shock. Buñuel has been a great name in world cinema for over thirty years now, and we are proud to open the first New York Film Festival with his most remarkable film.”

New Wave presents THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS 10th Anniversary Screening

The Film Society’s young patrons group, New Wave, presents a special screening of Wes Anderson’s beloved contemporary classic—a world premiere at the 2001 NYFF—on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. A true American original, Anderson mingles romance, tragedy, social observation and unforgettable characters in his buoyant third feature, about a family of eccentric geniuses living in a parallel New York (where Helvetica is the only typeface and all cabs are Gypsies). Gene Hackman is perfection as Royal Tenenbaum, the erratic, unscrupulous paterfamilias, long banished by his orderly wife (Anjelica Huston). Now, faking an illness, he returns home to settle accounts with his estranged children: a financial whiz (Ben Stiller), a failed playwright (Gwyneth Paltrow), and a retired tennis champion (Luke Wilson). The screening will be followed by an on-stage reunion of Anderson and other members of the cast and crew.

Anniversary Screenings Celebrating Animation Legend Hayao Miyazaki

25th Anniversary Screening of CASTLE IN THE SKY

The third feature film directed by Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki—and the first produced under the aegis of his Studio Ghibli—takes place in a world where vast flying cities and castles once filled the skies, but now only one, named Laputa, remains. Sinister army officers and mercenary sky pirates variously seek the floating isle for their own purposes, but as usual in Miyazaki, a plucky young girl, Sheeta, reliably stays one step ahead of them all. Loosely inspired by Gulliver’s Travels, with an arresting visual design based in part on a visit Miyazaki once paid to a Welsh mining town, this exuberant, one-of-a-kind adventure fantasy, presented here in a new 35mm print, is certain to delight kids and kids-at-heart of all ages.

10th Anniversary Screening of SPIRITED AWAY

Miiyazaki’s Oscar-winning triumph follows the whimsical and occasionally terrifying adventures of 10-year-old Chihiro, who becomes trapped in a strange spirit world after an evil witch transforms her parents into pigs. Taking a job as an attendant in the witch’s sprawling bathhouse, Chihiro, now known as Sen, must find a way to rescue her parents—and herself—before she forgets her real name and stays trapped forever. A beautifully drawn coming-of-age story, with sharp observations on Japanese societal change, SPIRITED AWAY surpassed TITANIC as the biggest domestic box-office hit in Japanese history before becoming Miyazaki’s breakthrough film in the United States.

20 Years of Art Cinema: A Tribute to Sony Pictures Classics and screening of James Ivory’s HOWARDS END

Twenty years ago this December, former Orion Classics co-presidents Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom launched Sony Pictures Classics, instantly setting a new gold standard for the distribution of independent and foreign-language cinema in America. Their inaugural release, HOWARDS END, grossed more than $25 million at the U.S. box office and earned nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. In the two decades since, the hits have kept on coming, including three additional Best Picture nominees (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; CAPOTE; and AN EDUCATION), 10 winners of the Foreign Language Film Oscar, and eight New York Film Festival opening nights, including this year’s CARNAGE. On the occasion of their 20th anniversary, we salute the Sony Classics team with a look back at their remarkable career, including film clips and an in-depth conversation with Barker and Bernard moderated by NYFF selection committee chairman Richard Peña. The discussion will be followed by a screening of James Ivory’s HOWARDS END (1992).



SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: DOCUMENTARIES



ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR

With his stirring, soulful vocals, eccentric violin plucking and whistling, and music that ranges from blues to calypso to rock, electronic and just about everything in between, Andrew Bird has built on the basis of live performances and 20 albums an impressive international fan base. Yet now, moving into his late thirties, he wonders how much longer he can keep up the pace of 150+ concert dates a year, as well as what slowing down might mean to his career. Chock full of concert and private Bird performances, Xan Aranda’s ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR offers a look into the life of a remarkable contemporary musician and composer for whom each day, despite all his success, is still a struggle.

THE BALLAD OF MOTT THE HOOPLE

Storming out of Hereford, England in the late Sixties, Mott the Hoople became one of British rock’s most popular live acts. Yet, their records failed to reach audiences, and the band was on the verge of breaking up when one of their fans, a certain David Bowie, wrote “All the Young Dudes” for them; reborn, they zoomed to the top of the charts—and that’s really when the trouble started. A record of the rise, fall, rise and eventual disintegration of one of the era’s iconic bands, THE BALLAD OF MOTT THE HOOPLE also recounts the story of Guy Stevens, the band’s explosively brilliant manager. Accurate, insightful and full of never-before seen interviews and concert footage, Mike Kerry and Chris Hall’s terrific film is simply rock history at its best. Rock legend Ian Hunter will attend the festival and participate in a Q&A following the film’s screenings.

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL

Mention the name Roger Corman and you conjure up a whole world of movie-making: screaming young women in tight sweaters, lumbering monsters creeping out of shadows, shock movie posters. Yet beyond that somewhat sentimentalized image of the “King of the Bs” was a producer who prospered at a time when so much of Hollywood was collapsing, all the while nurturing talents ranging from Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Demme to Jack Nicholson, Pam Grier and Robert De Niro; eventually, even Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa would be associated with him. Alex Stapleton’s engaging and well-informed study offers a rich context for assessing Corman’s importance for cinema, with insightful and often hilarious testimony from friends and disciples. USA, 2011, 95 min. We will also present a rare screening of Roger Corman’s THE INTRUDER (1962, 84 min.), starring William Shatner as a mysterious man who arrives in a small Southern town on the eve of integration.

CRAZY HORSE

A sequel of sorts to LA DANSE, his 2009 portrait of the Paris Opera Ballet, the 39th feature by documentary master Frederick Wiseman takes us behind and in front of the scenes at another storied Paris cultural institution: the Crazy Horse erotic cabaret, now in its 60th year of continuous operation. In his signature observational style, Wiseman makes us a fly on the wall as the Crazy Horse team prepares a new revue, taking us from auditions and costume fittings to rehearsals and finally the highly seductive numbers themselves, filmed in shimmering close-up. Along the way, Wiseman steals remarkable glances at performers getting into character and directors and technicians battling management as they strive to perfect the aesthetics of desire. The result is an exuberant, one-of-a-kind musical valentine to the City of Light and the art of making art.

DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH

In this feature-length companion piece to (the previously announced) Nicholas Ray’s WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, Ray’s widow, Susan, examines her late husband’s stormy romance with Hollywood, his self-imposed exile in Europe, and his eventual return to America, where he began work on the wildly experimental magnum opus that would become his final cinematic testament. Incorporating never-before-seen archival picture and sound from the Nicholas Ray Archive, and new interviews with directors Victor Erice and Jim Jarmusch and many of the original cast and crew of WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH offers a revealing portrait of a great director’s life, work and lasting influence. North American premiere.

MUSIC ACCORDING TO TOM JOBIM

Composer/performer Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim introduced Brazil and bossa nova to the world with “The Girl from Ipanema.” He went on to write literally dozens of classics songs recorded by the international royalty of pop music. Legendary Brazilian director Nelson Pereira dos Santos has now created this loving, tuneful tribute to Jobim, featuring extraordinary renditions of Jobim standards by artists ranging from Judy Garland, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Chico Buarque and Lisa Ono. A veritable carnival of musical styles and approaches, all celebrating the unique artistry of Tom Jobim.

PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY

Don’t worry if you missed the first two parts of Emmy-winning documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s epic chronicle of the “West Memphis Three,” Arkansas teens convicted of the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys. The third film in a trilogy, PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY features never-before seen footage and quickly catches you up on this lightning-rod case, initially tried without a shred of physical evidence and amidst hysterical claims of satanic cultism. We then flash forward to the present, where the accused await their final appeal and staggering new revelations further point to a gross miscarriage of justice. A remarkable journey filmed over 18 years, the film follows an American tragedy, and capped by an extraordinary reversal of fortune. PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY (which will air on HBO in 2012) is also a profound meditation on the passage of time, lives interrupted, and salvation too long in coming.

PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD)

A multi-layered, highly original essay on landscape, history, art, life and loss, PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD) offers a unique exploration of the work of W.G. Sebald. Structured as a journey through the coastal Suffolk landscapes described in Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn—one of the most highly praised and hotly discussed literary works of recent years—the film avoids typical art documentary strategies, weaving commentaries by artists and critics such as  Robert McFarlane, Rick Moody, Adam Phillips, Tacita Dean and Chris Petit into a rich aural tapestry that offers a revealing counterpoint to images of places and things described in the book.  The result is not an adaptation or explanation of Sebald, but a kind of aesthetic response to his work.

TAHRIR

Soon after the first reports came about the occupation of Tahrir Square, filmmaker Stefano Savona headed for Cairo, where he stayed, amidst the ever-growing masses in the Square, for weeks. His film introduces us to young Egyptians such as Elsayed, Noha and Ahmed, spending all day and night talking, shouting, singing, and finally expressing everything they were forbidden to say out loud until now. As the protests grow in intensity, the regime’s repression becomes more violent, with the terrifying potential for massacre never far away.  TAHRIR is a film written in the faces, hands, and voices of those who experienced this period in the Square. It is a day-to-day account of the revolution, capturing the anger, fear, resolve and finally elation of those who made it happen.

VITO

For over two decades, Vito Russo was a ubiquitous presence in New York, a ravenous, tireless cinephile and critic who became one of the earliest, most important voices in the struggle for gay rights. His two passions came together in an extraordinary book, The Celluloid Closet, a groundbreaking study of gay and lesbian imagery and themes in movies that remains a landmark in the field. Now Jeffrey Schwarz, using some incredible period footage as well as the testimonies of those who knew him best, has created this heartfelt, insightful portrait of Vito that serves simultaneously as a revealing chronicle of the birth of contemporary gay culture and of later AIDS activism. VITO is an HBO Documentary Film that will premiere on the network in 2012.



SPECIAL EVENTS



THE 99 – UNBOUND

Kuwaiti clinical psychologist—and comic book fan—Naif A. Al-Mutawa wondered what a set of comic heroes based on Islamic archetypes might look like. The result? THE 99, a posse of super-powered heroes based on derivatives of the 99 attributes of Allah; there’s Bari the Healer, Darr the Afflicter, Hadya the Guide, and Jabbar the Powerful—an international selection of young people each given their powers by the mysterious Noor Stones. Currently published in nine languages and having recently joined forces with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in a special series published by DC Comics, THE 99 can now be seen here in its first animated feature film, directed by Dave Osborne. Bring the kids! Afterwards, Dr. Al-Mutawa will be on hand to discuss the ideas behind the project and some of his plans for introducing THE 99 to America.

A Conversation with Susan Orlean: “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend” with Noel Smith’s CLASH OF THE WOLVES

Writer Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief) has turned a childhood fascination with the greatest of canine movie heroes into a wonderful new book that chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of the Rin Tin Tin dynasty.  Orlean will offer a talk on Rin Tin Tin in the movies, as well as introduce and discuss Noel Smith’s CLASH OF THE WOLVES (1925), the movie that made Rinny a box office sensation.  Copies of Ms. Orleans’ Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend will be available for purchase.

Dreileben: Three Films

NYFF audiences who feasted on such epic, multi-part television projects as the Red Riding Trilogy, Carlos and Mysteries of Lisbon are sure to enjoy this remarkable meeting of three of the brightest talents at work in contemporary German cinema. For Dreileben, directors Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow), Dominik Graf (A Map of the Heart) and Christoph Hochhäusler (The City Below) have each made a feature-length film on the same general subject—the escape of a convicted criminal in a small central German town—but told from completely different points of view and in radically contrasting filmmaking styles: one as an offbeat youth romance, one as a Big Chill-style relationship drama, and one as a tense police procedural. Taken together, these compulsively watchable films make for generous entertainment and a fascinating exercise in the polymorphous possibilities of storytelling.

Dreileben Part 1: Beats Being Dead

A convicted killer, released under police custody to pay his last respects to his late mother, escapes from a country hospital at the start of director Christian Petzold’s genre-bending, wonderfully unpredictable Beats Being Dead. But the film soon comes to center on the story of two star-crossed lovers: Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), a shy young hospital orderly, and Bosnian refugee Ana (Luna Mijovic), whom Johannes nobly rescues from the clutches of her abusive biker boyfriend. In the background, a police manhunt proceeds apace, while in the foreground Petzold reminds us there is sometimes nothing as dangerous as first love.

Dreileben Part 2: Don’t Follow Me Around

In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo (Jeanette Hain), a big-city police psychologist, arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with open arms by Vera (Susanne Wolff), a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false appearances and deeply hidden truths.

Dreileben Part 3: One Minute of Darkness

The Dreileben trilogy comes to a nail-biting close with director Christoph Hochhäusler’s expert thriller, which also brings escaped felon Molosch—a peripheral character in the first two parts—into sharp focus. Hot on the killer’s trail, grizzled police inspector Marcus (Eberhard Kirchberg) tries to put himself inside the mind of the criminal, even as he begins to wonder if the condemned man really is guilty as charged. Meanwhile, as Molosch (brilliantly played by Stefan Kurt) flees deeper into Dreileben’s possibly enchanted forest, he has an unexpectedly tender encounter with a young runaway girl—scenes that echo the Frankenstein story and transform One Minute of Darkness into a dark, memorably strange fairy tale.

FROM MORNING TILL MIDNIGHT (with The Alloy Orchestra) and A TRIP TO THE MOON

FROM MORNING TILL MIDNIGHT

This stunning adaptation of Georg Kaiser’s play pushed the Expressionist stylization of sets, costumes and gestures introduced by THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (made a few months earlier) to such a radical point that German movie theaters refused to show it; long thought lost, a print was found and preserved by the National Film Center of Japan in the 1980s. Bored with his provincial, humdrum middle-class life as a bank teller, “the Cashier,” (a great performance by Ernst Deutsch) embezzles a considerable sum of money and heads to the city, where in no time he’s on a downward spiral. Of special note is the bicycle race, surely one of the most amazing sequences in silent cinema. The Alloy Orchestra has created a new score for this legendary work, which it will perform live at both shows. Thanks to the National Film Center of Japan for making this screening possible.

A TRIP TO THE MOON (La voyage dans la lune)

More than a century after its first release—and on the 150th anniversary of its creator’s birth—a fully restored color version of cinematic pioneer George Méliès’ 1902 science-fiction classic A Trip to the Moon is once again visible on screen. Long considered lost, a heavily damaged copy of the hand-painted film was anonymously donated in the 1990s to the Barcelona Cinematheque, and in 2010 an ambitious restoration project was launched by Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage. Thanks to state-of-the-art digital technology, the fragments of the 13, 375 frames have been reassembled and restored one by one. The stunning result screens here with a new original soundtrack by the French band Air.

Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States

For much of his remarkable career, three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone has set about exposing errors and omissions in the official record of such key moments in American history as the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, and the Nixon administration. In his hugely ambitious new project, The Untold History of the United States, Stone puts nothing less than the entire 20th century under a microscope, with results that are sobering, surprising and sure to be controversial. Produced as a 10-part miniseries for Showtime (where it will premiere in 2012), we are thrilled to present this special sneak preview of Untold History’s first three chapters, which focus on the events leading up to America’s entrance into World War II, the war itself, and the unjustly forgotten figure of former U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Stone, co-writer Peter Kuznick, historian Douglas Brinkley (Rice University) and journalist Jonathan Schell (The Nation).

“Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark” with James Toback’s FINGERS

Confirmed panelists: David Edelstein (Film Critic, New York magazine), Brian Kellow, Geoffrey O’Brien (Editor in Chief, Library of America), film director James Toback, Camille Paglia (University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies, University of the Arts)

A decade after her death, Pauline Kael remains a pivotal figure in American film criticism, thanks to her inimitable style, the sharpness of her observations, and the influence she exerted over subsequent generations of writers. On the occasion of two new books—Brian Kellow’s biography Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark and the Library of America anthology The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael—a panel of noted critics and filmmakers will discuss Kael’s life, work and legacy. The discussion will be followed by a screening of James Toback’s FINGERS, of which Kael wrote: “In FINGERS, the first film he has directed, James Toback is trying to be Orson Welles and Carol Reed, Dostoevsky, Conrad, and Kafka…Insanity, violent bouts of sex, Jacobean revenge killings—nothing is too much for Toback in his exhilarated state…Yet the film never seems ridiculous, because he’s got true moviemaking fever.”

Sodankylä Forever Parts 1-4

Surely the most singular of events in the annual calendar of film culture, the Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle—where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter Von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter Von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso—and 64 more! Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving. Call it Finland’s idiosyncratic and playful answer to Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinema.

Peter Von Bagh will present the program over the course of two evenings:

Part 1: History of a Century & Part 2: The Yearning for the First Cinema Experience (149m)

Part 3: Eternal Time & Part 4: Drama of Light (112m)



FILMS AND SPECIAL EVENTS (WITH DIRECTORS AND ADDITIONAL REFERENCE INFORMATION

Masterworks Screenings:

THE GOLD RUSH, directed by Charlie Chaplin (restored)

INVASIÓN, directed by Hugo Santiago (restored)

YOU ARE NOT I, directed by Sara Driver (restored)



Special Anniversary Screenings:

CASTLE IN THE SKY, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. 25th Anniversary Screening (Celebrating Animation Legend Hayao Miyazaki).

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, directed by Luis Buñuel (Mexico): 50 Years of the New York Film Festival

HOWARDS END, directed by James Ivory. (20 Years of Art Cinema: A Tribute to Sony Pictures Classics)

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, directed by Wes Anderson (USA). 10th Anniversary Screening. Presented by New Wave

SPIRITED AWAY (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Japan). 10th Anniversary Screening (Celebrating Animation Legend Hayao Miyazaki).



Special Presentations: Documentaries:

ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR, directed by Xan Aranda (USA)

THE BALLAD OF MOTT THE HOOPLE, directed by Mike Kerry and Chris Hall (UK)

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, directed by Alex Stapleton and screening of THE INTRUDER, directed by Roger Corman

CRAZY HORSE, directed by Frederick Wiseman (USA, France)

DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH, directed by Susan Ray (USA)

MUSIC ACCORDING TO TOM JOBIM, directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos (Brazil)

PARADISE 3: PURGATORY, directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (USA)

PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD), directed by Grant Gee (UK)

TAHRIR, directed by Stefano Savona (France/Italy)

VITO, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (USA)



Special Events:

THE 99 – UNBOUND, directed by Dave Osborne

A Conversation with Susan Orlean: “Rin Tin Tin, the Life and the Legend” with Noel Smith’s CLASH OF THE WOLVES screening.

Dreileben part 1 – 3: Beats Being Dead, directed by Christian Petzold; Don’t Follow Me Around, directed by Dominik Graf; One Minute of Darkness, directed by Christoph Hochhäusler (Germany)

FROM MORNING TILL MIDNIGHT (Von morgens bis Mitternacht), directed by Karl Heinz Martin (Germany) with Alloy Orchestra and A TRIP TO THE MOON, directed by George Melies.

Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States. Screening of the first 3 chapters of TV series with panel discussion featuring Oliver Stone, co-writer Peter Kuznick, historian Douglas Brinkley (Rice University) and journalist Jonathan Schell (The Nation).

“Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark” with James Toback’s FINGERS, directed by James Toback. Panel discussion with David Edelstein (Film Critic, New York magazine), Brian Kellow, Geoffrey O’Brien (Editor in Chief, Library of America), James Toback, Camille Paglia (University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies, University of the Arts), plus screening of Fingers, directed by James Toback

Sodankylä Forever Parts 1-4, directed by Peter Von Bagh (Finland)

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