The Favourite (2018)

  • 2018 Venice Film Festival Awards – Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA Wins Golden Lion for Best Film

    [caption id="attachment_30917" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]ROMA ROMA[/caption] The Jury of the 2018 Venice Film Festival chaired by Guillermo del Toro awarded the top prize, Golden Lion for Best Film to ROMA by Alfonso Cuarón. The Favourite by Yorgos Lanthimos was awarded the Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize, along with the award for Best Actress to Olivia Colman.

    VENEZIA 75

    GOLDEN LION for Best Film to: ROMA by Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico) SILVER LION – GRAND JURY PRIZE to: THE FAVOURITE by Yorgos Lanthimos (UK, Ireland, USA) SILVER LION – AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR to: Jacques Audiard for the film THE SISTERS BROTHERS (France, Belgium, Romania, Spain) COPPA VOLPI for Best Actress: Olivia Colman in the film THE FAVOURITE by Yorgos Lanthimos (UK, Ireland, USA) COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor: Willem Dafoe in the film AT ETERNITY’S GATE by Julian Schnabel (USA, France) AWARD FOR BEST SCREENPLAY to: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for the film THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (USA) SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to: THE NIGHTINGALE by Jennifer Kent (Australia) MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD for Best Young Actor or Actress to: Baykali Ganambarr in the film THE NIGHTINGALE by Jennifer Kent (Australia)

    VENICE AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM

    LION OF THE FUTURE “LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” VENICE AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM to: YOM ADAATOU ZOULI (THE DAY I LOST MY SHADOW)  by Soudade Kaadan (Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon, France, Qatar) ORIZZONTI

    ORIZZONTI

    ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST FILM to: KRABEN RAHU (MANTA RAY) by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng (Thailand, France, China) ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR to: Emir Baigazin for the film OZEN (THE RIVER) (Kazakhstan, Poland, Norway) SPECIAL ORIZZONTI JURY PRIZE to: ANONS (THE ANNOUNCEMENT) by Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun (Turkey, Bulgaria) ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS to: Natalya Kudryashova in TCHELOVEK KOTORIJ UDIVIL VSEH (THE MAN WHO SURPRISED EVERYONE) by Natasha Merkulova e Aleksey Chupov  (Russia, Estonia, France) ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST ACTOR to: Kais Nashif in TEL AVIV ON FIRE by Sameh Zoabi (Luxembourg, France, Israel, Belgium) ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST SCREENPLAY to: Pema Tseden   for JINPA by Pema Tseden (China) ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM to: KADO  by Aditya Ahmad (Indonesia) VENICE SHORT FILM NOMINATION FOR THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2018 to: GLI ANNI by Sara Fgaier (Italy, France)

    VENICE CLASSICS

    VENICE CLASSICS AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY ON CINEMA to: THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION by Peter Bogdanovich (USA) VENICE CLASSICS AWARD FOR BEST RESTORED FILM to: LA NOTTE DI SAN LORENZO by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Italy, 1982)

    VENICE VIRTUAL REALITY

    BEST VR AWARD (IMMERSIVE STORY) to: SPHERES  di Eliza McNitt (USA, France) BEST VR EXPERIENCE AWARD (FOR INTERACTIVE CONTENT) to: BUDDY VR  by Chuck Chae (South Korea) BEST VR STORY AWARD (FOR LINEAR CONTENT) to: L’ÎLE DES MORTS by Benjamin Nuel (France)

    COLLATERAL AWARDS

    HFPA Award – HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) Presented to three filmmakers (director, producer) from the Orizzonti category awarded for Best Film, Best Director and Special Jury Prize

    Casa Wabi – Mantarraya Award (Fundación Casa Wabi – Mantarraya Group) To the director winner of the Award for a Debut Film of the 75th Venice Film Festival

    FIPRESCI Award (International Federation of Film Critics) Napszállta (Sunset) by László Nemes Best Film from Orizzonti and from the parallel sections: Lissa Ammetsajjel (Still Recording) by Saeed Al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub

    SIGNIS Award (International World Catholic Association for Communication) ROMA by Alfonso Cuarón Special Mention: 22 JULY by Paul Greengrass

    Leoncino d’Oro Award (Agiscuola) WERK OHNE AUTOR by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Cinema for UNICEF: What you gonna do when the world’s on fire? by Roberto Minervini Francesco Pasinetti Award (Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani) CAPRI-REVOLUTION by Mario Martone Special Pasinetti Award: SULLA MIA PELLE by Alessio Cremonini ALESSANDRO BORGHI and JASMINE TRINCA Brian Award (UAAR, Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti) SULLA MIA PELLE by Alessio Cremonini

    Queer Lion Award (Associazione di Promozione Sociale Queer Lion) JOSÉ by Li Cheng

    ARCA Cinemagiovani Award Best Italian Film in Venice: CAPRI-REVOLUTION by Mario Martone Best Film of Venezia 75: WERK OHNE AUTOR by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

    CICT – UNESCO “Enrico Fulchignoni” Award (Conseil International du Cinema et de la Télévision) EL PEPE, UNA VIDA SUPREMA by Emir Kusturica

    FEDIC Award (Federazione Italiana dei Cineclub) SULLA MIA PELLE by Alessio Cremonini Special Mention FEDIC: RICORDI? by Valerio Mieli Mention FEDIC Il Giornale del Cibo: I VILLANI by Daniele De Michele

    Fondazione Mimmo Rotella Award JULIAN SCHNABEL and WILLEM DAFOE

    Lanterna Magica Award (Associazione Nazionale C.G.S.) AMANDA by Mikhael Hers

    Gillo Pontecorvo Award (Istituto Internazionale per il cinema e l’audiovisivo dei paesi latini) Best co-production for a debut film: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by Tang Gaopeng

    Smithers Foundation Award (International Council of Film and Television at UNESCO and the Observatory on Cultural Communication at U.N.) A STAR IS BORN by Bradley Cooper Special Mention: THE MOUNTAIN by Rick Alverson

    Interfilm Award for Promoting Interreligious Dialogue (International Interchurch Film Organisation) TEL AVIV ON FIRE by Sameh Zoabi

    Green Drop Award (Green Cross Italia) AT ETERNITY’S GATE by Julian Schnabel WILLEM DAFOE

    Premio Soundtrack Stars (Free Event and SNGCI) Best Soundtrack: CAPRI-REVOLUTION by Mario Martone, music by Sacha Ring and Philipp Thimm Best original song: A SUSPIRIUM by Thom Yorke for the film Suspiria by Luca Guadagnino Special Mention: JUDY HILL for the film What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire by Roberto Minervini

    Sun Film Group Audience Award (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) LISSA AMMETSAJJEL (STILL RECORDING) by Saeed Al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub

    Circolo del Cinema di Verona Award (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) BETES BLONDES (BLONDE ANIMALS) by Maxime Matray and Alexia Walther

    Mario Serandrei – Hotel Saturnia & International Award for the Best Technical Contribution (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) LISSA AMMETSAJJEL (STILL RECORDING) by Saeed Al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub

    Award for Best Short Film SIC@SIC 2018 (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) MALO TEMPO by Tommaso Perfetti

    Award for Best Director SIC@SIC 2018 (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) GAGARIN, MI MANCHERAI by Domenico De Orsi

    Award for Best Technical Contribution SIC@SIC 2018 (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) QUELLE BRUTTE COSE by Loris Giuseppe Nese

    Label Europa Cinemas Award (Giornate degli Autori) JOY by Sudabeh Mortezai

    BNL People’s Choice Award (Giornate degli Autori) RICORDI? by Valerio Mieli

    GdA Director’s Award (Giornate degli Autori) C’EST ÇA L’AMOUR by Claire Burge

    HRNs Award (Human Rights Nights Association) A Letter to a Friend in Gaza by Amos Gitai Special Mention: PETERLOO by Mike Leigh Special Mention: 1938 DIVERSI by Giorgio Treves

    Sorriso diverso Award (Ass. studentesca “L’università cerca lavoro”, UCL) Best Film: UN GIORNO ALL’IMPROVVISO by Cirio D’Emilio

    NuovoImaie Award (Artists’ Rights in collaboration with SNGCI and SNCCI) Linda Caridi and Giampiero De Concilio

    Sfera 1932 Award (Consorzio Venezia e il suo Lido with Seguso Vetri d’Arte – Murano dal 1397) CAPRI-REVOLUTION by Mario Martone

    UNIMED Award (Mediterranean Universities Union) A TRAMWAY IN JERUSALEM by Amos Gitai

    La Pellicola d’Oro Award (Association “Articolo 9 Cultura & Spettacolo” and “S.A.S. Cinema”) FRANCO RAGUSA Special effects for the film Suspiria KATIA SCHWEIGGL Best tailor for the film Capri-Revolution SARTORIA ATELIER NICOLAO DI STEFANO NICOLAO Lifetime Achievement

    Lizzani Award – ANAC (Associazione Nazionale Autori Cinematografici) CAPRI-REVOLUTION by Mario Martone

    Premio Vivere da Sportivi, Fair play al cinema (Vivere da sportivi: a scuola di fair play Assoc.) What you gonna do when the world’s on fire? by Roberto Minervini Special Mention: ZEN SUL GHIACCIO SOTTILE by Margherita Ferri Special Mention: Lissa ammetsajjel (Still Recording) by Saeed al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub

    Edipo Re Award (Università degli Studi di Padova e ResInt Rete dell’Economia Sociale Internazionale) LISSA AMMETSAJJEL (STILL RECORDING) by Saeed Al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub

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  • Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE FAVOURITE Starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz to UK Premiere at London Film Festival [Trailer]

    The Favourite The Favourite, directed by Academy Award nominee Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, will receive its UK premiere as this year’s American Express Gala at the 62nd BFI London Film Festival on Thursday October 18. It’s the early 18th century and England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving at court. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to both Sarah and the queen, and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become intense, so too does intrigue at the palace. Abigail is determined to fulfil her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way. The Favourite, a film by Academy Award nominated Yorgos Lanthimos, starring BAFTA and Golden Globe winner Olivia Colman, Academy Award winner Emma Stone and Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz. The Favourite also stars BAFTA nominee Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith, Primetime Emmy winner Mark Gatiss and Jenny Rainsford. The Favourite will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on January 1, 2019. The 62nd BFI London Film Festival  takes place from Wednesday October 10 to Sunday October 21, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ1cQqkdiqo

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  • Films From Barry Jenkins, Alex Ross Perry, Claire Denis among Main Slate of 56th NY Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_31277" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]If Beale Street Could Talk If Beale Street Could Talk[/caption] The Film Society of Lincoln Center today announced the 30 films for the Main Slate of the 56th New York Film Festival taking place September 28 to October 14, 2018. This year’s Main Slate showcases films from 22 different countries, including new titles from celebrated auteurs, extraordinary work from directors making their first NYFF bows, and captivating features that wowed audiences at international festivals. Five films in the festival were honored at Cannes, including Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or–winner Shoplifters; Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book, awarded a Special Palme d’Or; Cold War, which took home the Best Director prize for Paweł Pawlikowski; and Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro and Jafar Panahi’s 3 Faces, which shared the Best Screenplay award. Returning to the festival for the third consecutive year is Hong Sangsoo with two new films, joined by his fellow NYFF54 filmmakers Olivier Assayas and Barry Jenkins. Frederick Wiseman makes his 10th appearance at the festival, while other returning filmmakers include Joel & Ethan Coen, Alex Ross Perry, Claire Denis, Ulrich Köhler, Lee Chang-dong, Jia Zhangke, and Christian Petzold. Making both their directorial and NYFF debuts are Paul Dano and Richard Billingham, and Louis Garrel makes his first NYFF showing as a director. Other filmmakers new to the festival include Dominga Sotomayor, Christophe Honoré, Tamara Jenkins, Mariano Llinás, and Ying Liang, as well as Bi Gan and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, both alumni of New Directors/New Films 2016. The NYFF56 Opening Night is Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA is Centerpiece, and Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate will close the festival. NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “Francis Ford Coppola said that the cinema would become a real art form only when the tools of moviemaking became as inexpensive as paints, brushes, and canvases. That has come to pass, but at the same time it’s become increasingly tough to do serious work that is beholden to nothing but the filmmaker’s need to express these emotions in this form in moving images and sound. So if I were pressed to choose one word to describe the films in this year’s Main Slate, it would be: bravery. These films were made all over the globe, by young filmmakers like Dominga Sotomayor and masters like Fred Wiseman, by artists of vastly different sensibilities from Claire Denis to the Coen Brothers, Jafar Panahi to Jean-Luc Godard. And the unifying thread is their bravery, the bravery needed to fight past the urge to commercialized smoothness and mediocrity that is always assuming new forms. That’s what makes every single title in this year’s Main Slate so precious, and so vital.” The 56th New York Film Festival Main Slate Opening Night The Favourite Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/USA, 2018, 121m In Yorgos Lanthimos’s wildly intricate and very darkly funny new film, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and her servant Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) engage in a sexually charged fight to the death for the body and soul of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession. This trio of truly brilliant performances is the dynamo that powers Lanthimos’s top-to-bottom reimagining of the costume epic, in which the visual pageantry of court life in 18th-century England becomes not just a lushly appointed backdrop but an ironically heightened counterpoint to the primal conflict unreeling behind closed doors. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. Centerpiece ROMA Dir. Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico/USA, 2018, 135m In Alfonso Cuarón’s autobiographically inspired film, set in Mexico City in the early ’70s, we are placed within the physical and emotional terrain of a middle-class family whose center is quietly and unassumingly held by its beloved live-in nanny and housekeeper (Yalitza Aparicio). The cast is uniformly magnificent, but the real star of ROMA is the world itself, fully present and vibrantly alive, from sudden life-changing events to the slightest shifts in mood and atmosphere. Cuarón tells us an epic story of everyday life while also gently sweeping us into a vast cinematic experience, in which time and space breathe and majestically unfold. Shot in breathtaking black and white and featuring a sound design that represents something new in the medium, ROMA is a truly visionary work. A Netflix release. Closing Night At Eternity’s Gate Dir. Julian Schnabel, USA/France, 2018, 106m North American Premiere Julian Schnabel’s ravishingly tactile and luminous new film takes a fresh look at the last days of Vincent van Gogh, and in the process revivifies our sense of the artist as a living, feeling human being. Schnabel; his co-writers Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg, also the film’s editor; and cinematographer Benoît Delhomme strip everything down to essentials, fusing the sensual, the emotional, and the spiritual. And the pulsing heart of At Eternity’s Gate is Willem Dafoe’s shattering performance: his Vincent is at once lucid, mad, brilliant, helpless, defeated, and, finally, triumphant. With Oscar Isaac as Gauguin, Rupert Friend as Theo, Mathieu Amalric as Dr. Gachet, Emmanuelle Seigner as Madame Ginoux, and Mads Mikkelsen as The Priest. A CBS Films release. 3 Faces Dir. Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2018, 100m U.S. Premiere Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth completed feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking is one of his very best. Panahi begins with a smartphone video shot by a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei) who announces to the camera that her parents have forbidden her from realizing her dream of acting and then, by all appearances, takes her own life. The recipient of the video, Behnaz Jafari, as herself, asks Panahi, as himself, to drive her to the woman’s tiny home village near the Turkish border to investigate. From there, 3 Faces builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy to put forth a grand expression of community and solidarity under the eye of oppression. Asako I & II Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan/France, 2018, 119m U.S. Premiere A truly original Vertigo riff, based on a novel by Tomoka Shibasaki, Asako I & II is an enchanting, unnerving paean to the notion of love as a trance state. Asako (Erika Karata) and Baku (Masahiro Higashide) share an intense, all-consuming romance—but one day the moody Baku ups and vanishes. Two years later, having moved from Osaka to Tokyo, Asako meets Baku’s exact double. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who gained plenty of attention for 2015’s five-hour-plus Happy Hour, has returned with a beguiling and mysterious film that traces the trajectory of a love—or, to be accurate, two loves—found, lost, displaced, and regained. A Grasshopper Film release. Ash Is Purest White Dir. Jia Zhangke, China, 2018, 142m U.S. Premiere Jia Zhangke’s extraordinary body of work has doubled as a record of 21st-century China and its warp-speed transformations. A tragicomedy in the fullest sense, Ash Is Purest White is at once his funniest and saddest film, portraying the passage of time through narrative ellipses and, like his Mountains May Depart (NYFF53), a three-part structure. Despite its jianghu—criminal underworld—setting, Ash is less a gangster movie than a melodrama, beginning by following Qiao and her mobster boyfriend Bin as they stake out their turf against rivals and upstarts in 2001 postindustrial Datong before expanding out into an epic narrative of how abstract forces shape individual lives. As the formidable, quick-witted Qiao, a never better Zhao Tao has fashioned a heroine for the ages. A Cohen Media Group release. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, USA, 2018, 128m North American Premiere Here’s something new from the Coen Brothers—an anthology of short films based on a fictional book of “western tales,” featuring Tim Blake Nelson as a murderous, white-hatted singing cowboy; James Franco as a bad luck bank-robber; Liam Neeson as the impresario of a traveling medicine show with increasingly diminishing returns; Tom Waits as a die-hard gold prospector; Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck as two shy people who almost come together on the wagon trail; and Tyne Daly, Saul Rubinek, Brendan Gleeson, Chelcie Ross, and Jonjo O’Neill as a motley crew on a stagecoach to nowhere. Each story is distinct, but unified by the thematic thread of mortality. As a whole movie experience, Buster Scruggs is wildly entertaining, and, like all Coen films, endlessly surprising. An Annapurna Production and Netflix release. Burning Dir. Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 2018, 148m Expanded from Haruki Murakami’s short story “Barn Burning,” the sixth feature from Korean master Lee Chang-dong, known best in the U.S. for such searing, emotional dramas as Secret Sunshine (NYFF45) and Poetry (NYFF48), begins by tracing a romantic triangle of sorts: Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in), an aspiring writer, becomes involved with a woman he knew from childhood, Haemi (Jun Jong-seo), who is about to embark on a trip to Africa. She returns some weeks later with a fellow Korean, the Gatsby-esque Ben (Steven Yeun), who has a mysterious source of income and a very unusual hobby. A tense, haunting multiple-character study, the film accumulates a series of unanswered questions and unspoken motivations to conjure a totalizing mood of uncertainty and quietly bends the contours of the thriller genre to brilliant effect. A Well Go USA release. Cold War Dir. Paweł Pawlikowski, Poland, 2018, 90m Academy Award–winner Paweł Pawlikowski follows up his box-office sensation Ida with this bittersweet, exquisitely crafted tale of an impossible love. Set between the late 1940s and early 1960s, Cold War is, as the title implies, a Soviet-era drama, but it stringently and inventively avoids the clichés of many a classical-minded World War II art film, tracking the tempestuous love between pianist (Tomasz Kot) and singer (Joanna Kulig) as they navigate the realities of living in both Poland and Paris, in and outside of the Iron Curtain. Shot in crisp black-and-white and set to a bewitching jazzy score, Pawlikowski’s evocative film consummately depicts an uncompromising passion caught up in the gears of history. An Amazon Studios release. A Faithful Man / L’Homme fidèle Dir. Louis Garrel, France, 2018, 75m U.S. Premiere Nine years after she left him for his best friend, journalist Abel (Louis Garrel) gets back together with his recently widowed old flame Marianne (Laetitia Casta). It seems to be a beautiful new beginning, but soon the hapless Abel finds himself embroiled in all sorts of dramas: the come-ons of a wily jeune femme (Lily-Rose Depp), the machinations of Marianne’s morbid young son, and some unsavory questions about what exactly happened to his girlfriend’s first husband. Shifting points of view as nimbly as its players switch partners, the sophomore feature from actor/director Louis Garrel—co-written with the legendary Jean-Claude Carrière—is at once a beguiling bedroom farce and a slippery inquiry into truth, subjectivity, and the elusive nature of romantic attraction. A Family Tour Dir. Ying Liang, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore/Malaysia, 2018, 107m U.S. Premiere Since his 2012 feature When Night Falls, a stinging critique of state power that the Chinese authorities attempted to suppress, the director Ying Liang has been forced to live in exile in Hong Kong. His return to feature filmmaking is a characteristically precise and powerful work, and, as inspired by his own precarious situation and based on a reunion with his in-laws, an autobiographical one. The film follows a Hong Kong–exiled director (Gong Zhe) as she travels to a film festival in Taiwan with her husband and toddler, while her ailing mother (Nai An) vacations there separately with a tour group. To avoid attracting attention, the family shadows the tour’s sightseeing itinerary, visiting each other during photo stops and mealtimes. An empathetic snapshot of a mother-daughter relationship, this brave, poised film is also a deeply moving testament to the inseparability of the personal and the political. La Flor Dir. Mariano Llinás, Argentina, 2018, 807m North American Premiere A decade in the making, Mariano Llinás’s follow-up to his 2008 cult classic Extraordinary Stories is an unrepeatable labor of love and madness that redefines the concept of binge viewing. The director himself appears at the start to preview the six disparate episodes that await, each starring the same four remarkable actresses: Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, and Laura Paredes. Overflowing with nested subplots and whiplash digressions, La Flor shape-shifts from a B-movie to a musical to a spy thriller to a category-defying metafiction—all of them without endings—to a remake of a very well-known French classic and, finally, to an enigmatic period piece that lacks a beginning (granted, all notions of beginnings and endings become fuzzy after 14 hours). An adventure in scale and duration, La Flor is a marvelously entertaining exploration of the possibilities of fiction that lands somewhere close to its outer limits. Grass Dir. Hong Sangsoo, South Korea, 2018, 66m U.S. Premiere Sitting in a café, typing on a laptop, Areum (Kim Min-hee) eavesdrops on three dramatic situations unfolding in her general vicinity: a young woman bound for Europe and a male friend who erupt in vitriolic accusations, a washed-up actor trying to sweet-talk his way into staying with an old friend, and a narcissistic actor-director (Jung Jin-young) trying to rope a young writer into his next project. Playing out largely in long-take two-shots, these conversations create a kind of never-ending theatrical performance, with Areum as the anchor. With its raw emotions and seeming formal simplicity masking a complex episodic approach, Grass finds Korean master Hong Sangsoo setting up a fascinating narrative problem for himself and solving it as only he can. A Cinema Guild release. Happy as Lazzaro / Lazzaro felice Dir. Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, 2018, 128m North American Premiere In the transfiguring and transfixing third feature from Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, NYFF52), we find ourselves amid a throng of tobacco farmers living in a state of extreme deprivation on an estate known as Inviolata, with wide-eyed teenager Lazzaro (nonprofessional discovery Adriano Tardiolo) emerging as a focal point. Although this all seems to be taking place in the past (as implied by the warm grain of Hélène Louvart’s 16mm cinematography), a stunning mid-movie leap vaults the narrative squarely into the present day and into the realm of parable. In a fable touching on perennial class struggle with Christian overtones, Rohrwacher summons the spirit of Pasolini, while also nodding to Ermanno Olmi and Visconti. A Netflix release. Her Smell Dir. Alex Ross Perry, USA, 2018, 134m U.S. Premiere The latest from Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip, NYFF52) traces the psychology of an unforgettable woman under the influence. Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss, in a powerhouse performance), the influential lead singer of a popular ’90s alt-rock outfit, struggles with her demons as friends, family, and bandmates alike behold her unraveling through a prism of horror, empathy, and resentment. Perry tracks Becky’s self-destruction—and potential creative redemption—through snaking long takes (arguably some of DP Sean Price Williams’s finest work) in claustrophobic backstage hallways, garishly lit dressing rooms, and recording studios, and the film’s ensemble cast (including Cara Delevingne, Ashley Benson, Amber Heard, Virginia Madsen, Dan Stevens, and Eric Stoltz) is impeccable in support of Moss’s rattling trip to the brink. High Life Dir. Claire Denis, Germany/France/USA/UK/Poland, 2018, 110m U.S. Premiere Claire Denis’s latest film is set aboard a spacecraft piloted by death row prisoners on a decades-long suicide mission to enter and harness the power of a black hole. But as is always the case with this filmmaker, the actual structure seems to evolve organically through moods and uncanny spells, and the closest juxtapositions of violence and intimacy. High Life features some of the most unsettling passages Denis has ever filmed, as well as moments of the greatest delicacy and tenderness. With Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, and Mia Goth. Hotel by the River Dir. Hong Sangsoo, South Korea, 2018, 96m U.S. Premiere Two tales intersect at a riverside hotel: an elderly poet (Ki Joo-bong), invited to stay there for free by the owner, summons his two estranged sons, sensing his life drawing to a close; and a young woman (Kim Min-hee) nursing a recently broken heart is visited by a friend who tries to console her. At times these threads overlap, at others they run tantalizingly close to each other. Using a stark black-and-white palette and handheld cinematography (with frequent DP Kim Hyung-ku), Hong crafts an affecting examination of family, mortality, and the ways in which we attempt to heal wounds old and fresh. If Beale Street Could Talk Dir. Barry Jenkins, USA, 2018 U.S. Premiere Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight is a carefully wrought adaptation of James Baldwin’s penultimate novel, set in Harlem in the early 1970s. Fonny (Stephan James) and Tish (KiKi Layne) are childhood friends who fall in love as young adults. Tish becomes pregnant, and Fonny suffers a fate tragically common to young African-American men: he is arrested and convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. Jenkins’s deeply soulful film stays focused on the emotional currents between parents and children, couples and friends, all of whom spend their lives repairing and reinforcing the precious but fraying bonds of family and community in an unforgiving racist world. With Regina King, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Aunjanue Ellis, and Michael Beach. An Annapurna Pictures release. The Image Book / Le Livre d’image Dir. Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland, 2018, 90m U.S. Premiere Jean-Luc Godard’s “late period” probably began with 2001’s In Praise of Love, and since then he has been formulating and enacting a path toward an ending: the ending of individual films, the ending of engagement with cinema, and, now that he’s 87, the possible ending of his own existence. With The Image Book all barriers between the artist, his art, and his audience have dissolved. The film is structured in chapters and predominantly comprised of pre-existing images, many of which will be familiar from Godard’s previous work. The relationship between image and sound is, as always, intensely physical and sometimes jaw-dropping. And…isn’t it enough to say, simply, that this is the work of a master? And that you have to see it? A Kino Lorber release. In My Room Dir. Ulrich Köhler, Germany, 2018, 119m U.S. Premiere The fourth feature from German director Ulrich Köhler (Sleeping Sickness, NYFF49) takes a disarmingly realistic and restrained approach to a fantastical premise: the eternally popular fantasy of the last man on earth. Sad-sack, 40ish TV cameraman Armin (Hans Löw) has been summoned home by his father to help tend to his terminally ill grandmother, but awakens one morning to find the world around him entirely depopulated. Eventually, the film introduces a fellow survivor, an Eve (Elena Radonicich) to complicate the apparent contentment of its Adam. In My Room is a film of meticulous details and sly, subtle ironies, crafted by the skills, temperament, and philosophical inquiry of an emerging master. A Grasshopper Film release. Long Day’s Journey Into Night Dir. Bi Gan, China/France, 2018, 133m U.S. Premiere As proven by his knockout debut, Kaili Blues, Bi Gan is preoccupied with film’s potential to both materialize mental space and convey physical sensation. His cinematic ambitions are further crystallized, to say the least, in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a noir-tinged film about a solitary man (Huang Jue) haunted by loss and regret, told in two parts: the first an achronological mosaic, the second a nocturnal dream. Again centering around his native province of Guizhou in southwest China, the director has created a film like nothing you’ve seen before, especially in the second half’s hour-long, gravity-defying 3D sequence shot, which plunges its protagonist—and us—through a labyrinthine cityscape. Monrovia, Indiana Dir. Frederick Wiseman, USA, 2018, 143m U.S. Premiere Every new film from Frederick Wiseman, now 88 years old, seems more vigorous and acute than the last. His subject here is Monrovia, Indiana; population 1063, as of 2017; located deep in the American heartland. Wiseman alights on key activities: talk among friends over coffee at the diner, packaging meat at the supermarket, trucks loading with corn, expansion debates at town planning commission meetings, and, most intriguingly, a funeral. Monrovia, Indiana is a tough, piercing look at the rhythm and texture of life as it is lived in a wide swathe of this country. A Zipporah Films release. Non-Fiction / Doubles vies Dir. Olivier Assayas, France, 2018, 106m Set within the world of publishing, Olivier Assayas’s new film finds two hopelessly intertwined couples—Guillaume Canet’s troubled book executive and Juliette Binoche’s weary actress; Vincent Macaigne’s boorish novelist and Nora Hamzawi’s straight-and-balanced political operative—obsessed with the state of things, and how (or when) it will (or might) change. Is print dying? Has blogging replaced writing? Is fiction over? But the divide between what these characters—and their friends, and their enemies, and everyone in between—talk about and what is actually happening between them, moment by moment, is what gives Non-Fiction its very particular charm, humor, and lifelike stabs of emotion. A Sundance Selects release. Private Life Dir. Tamara Jenkins, USA, 2017, 123m In Tamara Jenkins’s first film in ten years, Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti are achingly real as Rachel and Richard, a middle-aged New York couple caught in the desperation, frustration, and exhaustion of trying to have a child, whether by fertility treatments or adoption or surrogate motherhood. They find a willing partner in Sadie (the formidable Kayli Carter), Richard’s niece by marriage, who happily agrees to donate her eggs, and the three of them build their own little outcast family in the process. Private Life is a wonder, by turns hilarious and harrowing (sometimes at once), and a very carefully observed portrait of middle-class Bohemian Manhattanites. With John Carroll Lynch and Molly Shannon. A Netflix release. RAY & LIZ Dir. Richard Billingham, UK, 2018, 107m U.S. Premiere English photographer and visual artist Richard Billingham’s first feature is grounded in the visual and emotional textures of his family portraits, particularly those of his deeply dysfunctional parents, whose names give the film its title. Billingham builds astonishing and unflinching scenes with his principal actors—Ella Smith as Liz, Justin Salinger as Ray, Patrick Romer as the older Ray, Tony Way and Sam Gittins as neighbors, and Joshua Millard-Lloyd as the youngest child—that play out second by second as if by some new form of direct transmission from the artist’s memory bank. There is not a single second of this electrifying debut that doesn’t feel 100% rooted in personal experience. Shoplifters Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2018, 121m Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner is a heartrending glimpse into an often invisible segment of Japanese society: those struggling to stay afloat in the face of crushing poverty. On the the margins of Tokyo, a most unusual “family”—a collection of societal castoffs united by their shared outsiderhood and fierce loyalty to one another—survives by petty stealing and grifting. When they welcome into their fold a young girl who’s been abused by her parents, they risk exposing themselves to the authorities and upending their tenuous, below-the-radar existence. The director’s latest masterful, richly observed human drama makes the quietly radical case that it is love—not blood—that defines a family. A Magnolia Pictures release. Sorry Angel Dir. Christophe Honoré, France, 2018, 132m North American Premiere The ever-unpredictable Christophe Honoré (Love Songs) returns with perhaps his most personal, emotionally rich work yet. At once an intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of gay life in early 1990s France, Sorry Angel follows the intertwining journeys of Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps), a worldly, HIV-positive Parisian writer confronting his own mortality, and Arthur (Vincent Lacoste), a curious, carefree university student just beginning to live. Brought together by chance, the men find themselves navigating a casual fling that gradually deepens into a tender, transformative bond. Graced with vivid, complex characters and inspired flights of cinematic imagination, this is a vibrant, life-affirming celebration of love, friendship, and human connection. Released by Strand Releasing. Too Late to Die Young Dir. Dominga Sotomayor, Chile/Brazil/Argentina/Netherlands/Qatar, 2018, 110m U.S. Premiere The year 1990 was when Chile transitioned to democracy, but all of that seems a world away for 16-year-old Sofia, who lives far off the grid in a mountain enclave of artists and bohemians. Too Late to Die Young takes place during the hot, languorous days between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when the troubling realities of the adult world—and the elemental forces of nature—begin to intrude on her teenage idyll. Shot in dreamily diaphanous, sun-splashed images and set to period-perfect pop, the second feature from one of Latin American cinema’s most artful and distinctive voices is at once nostalgic and piercing, a portrait of a young woman—and a country—on the cusp of exhilarating and terrifying change. Transit Dir. Christian Petzold, Germany/France, 2018, 101m U.S. Premiere In Christian Petzold’s brilliant and haunting adaptation of German novelist Anna Seghers’s 1942 book Transit Visa, a hollowed-out European refugee (Franz Rogowski), who has escaped from two concentration camps, arrives in Marseille assuming the identity of a dead novelist whose papers he is carrying. There he enters the arid, threadbare world of the refugee community, and becomes enmeshed in the lives of a desperate young mother and son, and a mysterious woman named Marie (Paula Beer). Transit is a film told in two tenses: 1940 and right now, historic past and immediate present, like two translucent panes held up to the light and mysteriously contrasting and blending. Wildlife Dir. Paul Dano, USA, 2018, 104m In the impressive directorial debut from actor Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), a carefully wrought adaptation of Richard Ford’s 1990 novel, a family comes apart one loosely stitched seam at a time. We are in the lonely expanses of the American west in the mid-’60s. An affable man (Jake Gyllenhaal), down on his luck, runs off to fight the wildfires raging in the mountains. His wife (Carey Mulligan) strikes out blindly in search of security and finds herself running amok. It is left to their young adolescent son Joe (Ed Oxenbould) to hold the center. Co-written by Zoe Kazan, Wildlife is made with a sensitivity and at a level of craft that are increasingly rare in movies. An IFC Films release.

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  • THE FAVOURITE starring Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone To Open New York Film Festival

      The Favourite Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite starring Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone will make its New York premiere as the Opening Night film of the 56th New York Film Festival on Friday, September 28, 2018 at Alice Tully Hall.  The Favourite is a Fox Searchlight Pictures release and opens November 23, 2018. In Yorgos Lanthimos’s wildly intricate and very darkly funny new film, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and her servant Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) engage in a sexually charged fight to the death for the body and soul of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession. This trio of truly brilliant performances is the dynamo that powers Lanthimos’s top-to-bottom reimagining of the costume epic, in which the visual pageantry of court life in 18th-century England becomes not just a lushly appointed backdrop but an ironically heightened counterpoint to the primal conflict unreeling behind closed doors. The Favourite New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “The Favourite is a lot of things at once, each of them perfectly meshed: a historical epic; a visual feast; a wild, wild ride; a formidable display of the art of acting from Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, and Olivia Colman, abetted by a brilliant cast; a tour de force from Yorgos Lanthimos. And… it’s a blast. We’re very excited to have it as our opening night film.” “It’s a great privilege to be showing The Favourite for the opening night of the New York Film Festival, which is a very special place for the film,” said Lanthimos. “I had a wonderful experience screening The Lobster at this distinct festival and I’m looking forward to sharing The Favourite with audiences in New York. I was envisioning this film for many years and eventually had a lot of fun making it.” The 17-day New York Film Festival (September 28 – October 14) highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent.

    New York Film Festival Opening Night Films

    2017 Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater, US) 2016 13TH (Ava DuVernay, US) 2015 The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, US) 2014 Gone Girl (David Fincher, US) 2013 Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, US) 2012 Life of Pi (Ang Lee, US) 2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland) 2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, US) 2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France) 2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France) 2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US) 2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK) 2005 Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, US) 2004 Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, France) 2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US) 2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US) 2001 Va savoir (Jacques Rivette, France) 2000 Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark) 1999 All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain) 1998 Celebrity (Woody Allen, US) 1997 The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US) 1996 Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK) 1995 Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China) 1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US) 1993 Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US) 1992 Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France) 1991 The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France) 1990 Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, US) 1989 Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier, France) 1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain) 1987 Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union) 1986 Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, US) 1985 Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan) 1984 Country (Richard Pearce, US) 1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US) 1982 Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany) 1981 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK) 1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US) 1979 Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US) 1978 A Wedding (Robert Altman, US) 1977 One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, France) 1976 Small Change (François Truffaut, France) 1975 Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy) 1974 Don’t Cry with Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France) 1973 Day for Night (François Truffaut, France) 1972 Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France) 1971 The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union) 1970 The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France) 1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, US) 1968 Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia) 1967 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria) 1966 Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia) 1965 Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France) 1964 Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, USSR) 1963 The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)

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