Good Time[/caption]
Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time took the top spot among films released in 2017 on Film Comment magazine’s annual end-of-year list. Other top ranking films include Terence Davies’s A Quiet Passion, and Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper.
Of the films that screened at festivals worldwide but have not announced stateside distribution, Pedro Pinho’s The Nothing Factory, Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature, and Heinz Emigholz’s Streetscapes [Dialogue] received the top rankings.
Published since 1962, Film Comment magazine features in-depth reviews, critical analysis, and feature coverage of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world.
Tonsler Park
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GOOD TIME Tops Film Comment Magazine’s 2017 Best-of-Year LISTS
[caption id="attachment_22877" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Good Time[/caption]
Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time took the top spot among films released in 2017 on Film Comment magazine’s annual end-of-year list. Other top ranking films include Terence Davies’s A Quiet Passion, and Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper.
Of the films that screened at festivals worldwide but have not announced stateside distribution, Pedro Pinho’s The Nothing Factory, Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature, and Heinz Emigholz’s Streetscapes [Dialogue] received the top rankings.
Published since 1962, Film Comment magazine features in-depth reviews, critical analysis, and feature coverage of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world.
Qatar 9. 3/4 Ilian Metev, Bulgaria 10. The Venerable W. Barbet Schroeder, France/Switzerland “Out of the hundreds of movies released in 2017, our esteemed contributors have distilled the year into an energized and energizing lineup of essential films,” said Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold. “This selection reflects Film Comment’s love for the art and craft of cinema in its many forms, ranging from first-time filmmakers to 43rd-timers. Not to mention film’s many seasons: the top five all opened before the traditional fall frenzy of releases. Read all about it in Film Comment.” Qatar 9. 3/4 Ilian Metev, Bulgaria 10. The Venerable W. Barbet Schroeder, France/Switzerland Rankings #11-20 11. Golden Exits Alex Ross Perry, USA 12. Mrs. Hyde Serge Bozon, France 13. The Wandering Soap Opera Raúl Ruiz & Valeria Sarmiento, Chile 14. Life and Nothing More Antonio Méndez Esparza, Spain/USA 15. Until the Birds Return Karim Moussaoui, France/Algeria/Germany 16. Good Luck Ben Russell, France/Germany 17. Distant Constellation Shevaun Mizrahi, Turkey/USA 18. The Quartet (Elohim, Abaton, Coda, Ode) Nathaniel Dorsky, USA 19. Drift Helena Wittmann, Germany 20. Untitled Matthew Glawogger & Monika Willi, Austria
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More Films -THE LEARS, Trudie Styler’s FREAK SHOW, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Added to Virginia Film Festival
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The Lears[/caption]
The 2017 Virginia Film Festival has added more films and special guests including actor Anthony Michael Hall, who will come in for a screening of his film The Lears. Other highlighted guests include director Trudie Styler, who will discuss her film Freak Show; actor Noel Fisher, who will take part in a panel discussion about the acclaimed new National Geographic Channel Iraq War series The Long Road Home; and actor Nick Robinson, who joins writer/director/actor William H. Macy for a screening of Macy’s new film Krystal. The Festival’s Closing Night Film will be Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age love story Call Me by Your Name.
The Lears is a quirky black comedy that stars Bruce Dern as Davenport Lear, a world-renowned architect who summons his dysfunctional children to a weekend family retreat to test their love in a modern-day derivative of Shakespeare’s classic King Lear. Actor, producer, and director Anthony Michael Hall, who plays Davenport’s son Glenn Lear in the film, first burst on the film scene in the 1980s with a string of unforgettable turns in the John Hughes classics including Sixteen Candles, National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. His other film credits include Out of Bounds, Edward Scissorhands, and Six Degrees of Separation. Hall also played the lead role in the popular USA Network series The Dead Zone from 2002-2007.
Noted actor and producer Trudie Styler makes her directorial debut with Freak Show, based on the 2007 New York Times bestselling Young Adult novel by James St. James about a gay and eccentric teenage boy who reacts to an incident of insidious bullying by deciding to run for homecoming queen. The campaign draws wide attention to Billy’s advocacy for all teenagers letting their freak flag fly. The film, which features a stellar cast including Abigail Breslin, Alex Lawther, and Bette Midler, recently had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Trudie Styler has a long and successful track record as a producer, including Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch from director Guy Ritchie; Girl Most Likely, which stars Kristen Wiig; Filth, starring James McAvoy; Ten Thousand Saints, starring Ethan Hawke; and American Honey, which stars Shia LaBeouf and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Styler will be joined by the film’s producer Celine Rattray for a post-screening discussion.
Nick Robinson, known to many for his role as Zach in Jurassic World, most recently starred in the Warner Bros. and MGM drama Everything, Everything. He also just wrapped production on Strange But True, where he leads an all-star cast including Amy Ryan, Brian Cox, and Greg Kinnear. Other credits include Kings of Summer and an unforgettable guest spot on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. He will attend the Festival for a post-screening discussion for his role in William H. Macy’s Krystal.
The Virginia Film Festival also announced Call Me by Your Name as its Closing Night Film. Based on the acclaimed novel by André Aciman, this transcendent story of first love, set against the backdrop of northern Italy in the summer of 1983, follows Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a highly-cultured teenager whose sophistication about music and literature is juxtaposed with his naivety about love. Upon meeting American scholar Oliver (Armie Hammer), his father’s charming intern, the two form an undeniable bond that grows vulnerably and passionately toward young, new love. The film by director Luca Guadagnino displays a raw portrait of a kind of love and sexual awakening that blossoms without fear or consequences.
’63 Boycott – The latest from famed documentarian Gordon Quinn about the 1963 boycott of Chicago schools by more than 200,000 students in protest of racial segregation.
Beetlejuice – Award-winning cinematographer Tom Ackerman will discuss his work on this groundbreaking Tim Burton film.
The Last Stop – Director Todd Nilssen’s exposé on the troubled teen reform industry.
Mood and Memory – In a series of eleven photo films, young authors, media artists, and media specialists from Austria and Germany approach a variety of stories and themes ranging from a young girl in Aleppo, a Somali farmer, and more.
My Art – Artist Laurie Simmons’ makes her feature film debut, also starring alongside daughters Lena and Grace Dunham in the story of an artist with a stable job and life, but an endless yearning for respectability in the art world. Simmons will participate in a post-screening discussion.
Roll With Me – A paraplegic former drug addict sets out to become the first person to push an ordinary wheelchair from California to New York.
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me – The first major documentary about one of the most fascinating careers in the history of entertainment, this film follows the legendary singer, dancer, and actor’s rise to stardom, and a life lived across flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.
The Science of Pixar – Masterclass senior scientist and lead of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios Tony DeRose will work in tandem with Sara Maloni (Department of Mathematics), Earl Mark (School of Architecture), and Light House Studio to offer a free masterclass for their students and the general public. The workshop will focus on physical simulation and the mathematics of surface modeling that DeRose developed at Pixar, as well as a discussion of his career path.
Short Films – More than 50 short films screened before feature screenings and in different packages based on similar themes and genres, including narrative, documentary, experimental, and animated.
Thelma (from Norway) – Rounding out the list of now ten spotlight films recently submitted by their countries for consideration in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category at the 2018 Academy Awards, Thelma is about a college student who starts to experience seizures as a result of supernatural abilities.
Tonsler Park – Internationally renowned artist and UVA cinematography professor Kevin Everson uses 16mm black-and-white film to observe the democratic process at Charlottesville voting precincts on November 8th, 2016, providing a portrait of the working-class African-American public officials who ran the polls, while enabling citizens to vote in a democracy that has systematically abused them.
Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems From the Murder Capital of the World – Rescued from the streets of Pedro Sula, Honduras, seventy girls at Our Little Roses orphanage find their voices in poetry about love, family, and betrayal as they heal from the traumas of their past, while transitioning into an uncertain future.
Wild Honey – An offbeat, romantic comedy about an unsuccessful phone-sex operator who is unhappy, aimless, and living at home with her mother until she hits it off with a mysterious caller and impulsively flies across the country to meet him.
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2017 London Film Festival Unveils Lineup of 242 Feature Films + 128 Shorts
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The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)[/caption]
The 61st BFI London Film Festival today announced its full program, featuring a diverse selection of 242 feature films including 46 documentaries, 6 animations, 14 archive restorations and 16 artists’ moving image features. The program also includes 128 short films, and 67 countries are represented across short film and features.
Alongside the Galas, Special Presentations and films in Competitions, the Festival will show a range of new cinema in sections aka strands titled Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Experimenta and Family. In 2017, the LFF debuts a new strand, Create, featuring films that celebrate artistic practice in all its channels and forms the electricity of the creative process, reflecting London’s position as one of the world’s leading creative cities.
Audiences will have the opportunity to hear some of the world’s creative leaders through the Festival’s acclaimed talks’ series LFF Connects, which features artists working at the intersection of film and other creative industries, and Screen Talks, a series of in-depth interviews with leaders in contemporary cinema. Participants this year include Julian Rosefeldt & Cate Blanchett, David Fincher, Demis Hassabis, Nitin Sawhney, Johan Knattrup Jensen, Ian McEwan and Takashi Miike.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Robin Campillo, 120 BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) Vivian Qu, ANGELS WEAR WHITE Majid Majidi, BEYOND THE CLOUDS (World Premiere) Nora Twomey, THE BREADWINNER (European Premiere) Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra, GOOD MANNERS Xavier Beauvois, THE GUARDIANS (European Premiere) Andrew Haigh, LEAN ON PETE Andrey Zvyagintsev, LOVELESS Azazel Jacobs, THE LOVERS (European Premiere) Warwick Thornton, SWEET COUNTRY Cory Finley, THOROUGHBRED (International Premiere) Annemarie Jacir, WAJIBFIRST FEATURE COMPETITION
Daniel Kokotajlo, APOSTASY Léa Mysius, AVA Michael Pearce, BEAST (European Premiere) Ofir Raul Graizer, THE CAKEMAKER Gilles Coulier, CARGO Kogonada, COLUMBUS Rungano Nyoni, I AM NOT A WITCH Léonor Serraille, JEUNE FEMME Ana Asensio, MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND Carla Simón, SUMMER 1993 Hlynur Pálmason, WINTER BROTHERS John Trengove, THE WOUNDDOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Maryam Goormaghtigh, BEFORE SUMMER ENDS Elvira Lind, BOBBI JENE Arash Kamali Sarvestani, Behrouz Boochani, CHAUKA, PLEASE TELL US THE TIME (International Premiere) Radu Jude, THE DEAD NATION Shevaun Mizrahi, DISTANT CONSTELLATION Frederick Wiseman, EX LIBRIS – THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Agnès Varda, JR, FACES PLACES Austin Lynch, Matthew Booth, GRAY HOUSE Brett Morgen, JANE (European Premiere) Lucy Cohen, KINGDOM OF US (World Premiere) Emmanuel Gras, MAKALA Sonia Kronlund, THE PRINCE OF NOTHINGWOODSHORT FILM AWARD
Gabriel Abrantes, THE ARTIFICIAL HUMORS Phil Collins, DELETE BEACH Billie Pleffer, FYSH (International Premiere) Anna Cazenave Cambet, GABBER LOVER Karishma Dube, GODDESS Aegina Brahim, LAWS OF THE GAME Jonathan Vinel, MARTIN CRIES Patrick Bresnan THE RABBIT HUNT Moin Hussain, REAL GODS REQUIRE BLOOD Kibwe Tavares, ROBOT & SCARECROW Kazik Radwanski, SCAFFOLD Harry Lighton, WREN BOYS (World Premiere) The Festival program is organized in strands: Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Family, Treasures and Experimenta.LOVE
The Love Gala is the European Premiere of Dominic Cooke’s quietly heart-breaking film debut ON CHESIL BEACH. Saoirse Ronan and rising actor Billy Howle star as a young couple in the early 1960s struggling to physically connect on their honeymoon, impeccably adapted for the big screen by Ian McEwan from his own Man Booker-shortlisted novela. Other highlights in this section include: CLOSE-KNIT, Naoko Ogigami’s quietly subversive and emotionally rich portrait of a transwoman whose maternal feelings are stirred by the arrival of her boyfriend’s 11-year-old niece; THE GROWN-UPS, Maïte Alberdi’s tender and bittersweet documentary portrait of Chileans Anita and Andres, who have Down’s syndrome and are very much in love; the World Premiere of Carlos Marques Marcet’s ANCHOR AND HOPE, a London-set story about modern love and family featuring Oona Chaplin; John Cameron Mitchell’s cosmic ride HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES, sees aliens have landed in 1970s Croydon in a funny, energetic love story starring Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp and Nicole Kidman; the World Premiere of JOURNEYMAN, features Paddy Considine following up his acclaimed debut Tyrannosaur with the story of a boxer who must rebuild his life after a near-fatal injury; GOING WEST, a World Premiere from Norwegian newcomer Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken who delivers a sweetly delicious road movie; LET THE SUNSHINE IN, Claire Denis’ darkly witty drama starring Juliette Binoche as an artist caught up in a series of unsatisfying affairs, and David Gordon Green’s rousing yet devastating true-story drama STRONGER featuring a remarkable performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing.DEBATE
This year’s Debate Gala is Samuel Maoz’s FOXTROT, a film that combines thrilling cinematography with superb performances, and highlights the absurdities of conscripted service. Debate also includes: BIRDS ARE SINGING IN KIGALI, Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze’s hard-hitting drama about the intertwined lives of two refugee survivors reeling from the impact of the Rwandan genocide and containing powerful central performances; the World Premiere of THE CLIMB, Michael Woodward’s debut documentary that charts Greenpeace’s daring all-female team that illegally ascended The Shard in protest against petroleum giant Shell’s plans to dig for oil in the Arctic; the World Premiere of THE FORGIVEN, Roland Joffé’s political drama starring Forest Whitaker as Desmond Tutu and Eric Bana as Piet Blomfeld, asking how far we can go in forgiving past crimes; the World Premiere of ISLAND, Steven Eastwood’s haunting and deeply moving documentary combining observational footage with contemplative shots of the costal landscapes of the Isle of Wight, and set among terminally ill cancer patients, and THE VENERABLE W., Barbet Schroeder’s disturbingly illuminating portrait of Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, who was known for espousing anti-Muslim hatred.LAUGH
This year’s Laugh Gala is Noah Baumbach’s THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED). A stellar cast give uniformly excellent performances, including Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Elizabeth Marvel and Emma Thompson. Through the madcap antics of a neurotic, failure-obsessed clan, Baumbach surfaces bigger questions about how to value family and the meaning of success. Laugh also includes: the World Premiere of Adrian Shergold’s FUNNY COW, which contains a formidable performance from Maxine Peake as an aspiring stand-up comic confronting her violent husband and the sexist Northern England club circuit; INGRID GOES WEST, Matt Spicer’s jet-black stalker comedy brilliantly skewers dangerous obsession and the sham of Instagrammed perfection with wicked and fearless performances from Elizabeth Olsen and Aubrey Plaza; joy and grace flow out of Dustin Guy Defa’s observational comedy drama PERSON TO PERSON, starring Michael Cera as a reporter keen on quoting (his own) heavy metal lyrics; Daan Bakker’s QUALITY TIME is perfect for lovers of experimental and irreverent cinema offering a portmanteau selection of stories of male arrested development; and Henrik Ruben Genz’s WORD OF GOD is set months after the Chernobyl disaster and provides dark and dirty humour where pretty much nothing is off limits.DARE
The Dare Gala is François Ozon’s frisky new thriller, AMANT DOUBLE, a deliciously duplicitous tale of psychoanalysis and seduction that channels the spirits of Hitchcock and De Palma at their naughtiest and stars Jérémie Renier, Marine Vacth and Jacqueline Bisset. Other highlights in the strand include: Eliza Hittman’s BEACH RATS, a gripping investigation of repressed sexual desire in a hyper-masculine environment; Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi’s touching drama GIANT, set in 19th century Spain and based on the true story of Mikel Jokin Eleizegi, allegedly the tallest man of his time; Semih Kaplanoğlu’s spellbinding dystopian sci-fi, GRAIN in which climate change has caused the nearextinction of human life; Liu Jian’s adult animé HAVE A NICE DAY, a biting, bone-dry satire on contemporary Chinese social mores and featuring plenty of bloodthirsty Tarantino-esque genre thrills; the European Premiere of Bornila Chatterjee’s THE HUNGRY, which reworks Shakespeare’s bloody Titus Andronicus into a macabre modern tragedy set in Northern India; Barbara Albert’s resplendent drama MADEMOISELLE PARADIS, based on the true story of Maria Theresia ‘Resi’ von Paradis, a gifted blind musician and contemporary of Mozart, paraded through Vienna’s courts to perform; Jean Libon and Yves Hinant’s jawdropping and extraordinary documentary SO HELP ME GOD, which details the work of an unorthodox Belgian judge Anne Gruwez as she tackles gruesome crimes, domestic violence and other sordid cases; and WESTERN, director Valeska Grisebach’s contemporary western in which tensions mount between German construction workers and Bulgarian villagers in a small rural town.THRILL
This year’s Thrill Gala is Takashi Miike’s savage and inventive action thriller, BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL, based on the famous manga series by Hiroaki Samurai about a samurai cursed with immortal life and has the distinction of being Miike’s 100th feature film. Thrill also features: the European Premiere of Nattawut Poonpiriya’s Thai teen thriller BAD GENIUS, in which young brainiac Lynn uses a very special set of skills to cheat on behalf of her classmates in the high-stakes world of entrance exams for elite international universities; the European Premiere of Anurag Kashyap’s THE BRAWLER in which a young and talented Indian boxer dreams of being champion, but is knocked sideways when he falls for the niece of the man blocking his road to success; Aaron Katz’s GEMINI in which a heinous crime tests the complex relationship between a tenacious personal assistant, Jill played by Lola Kirke and her Hollywood movie star boss Heather played by Zoë Kravitz; the Safdie brothers’ latest film GOOD TIME features Robert Pattinson as a small-time New York criminal, who after a bank robbery goes seriously wrong, devises a plan to spring his injured accomplice from police custody; Jennifer Peedom’s spectacular documentary MOUNTAIN, is a mind-blowing symphony of images and sound chronicling the powerful attraction mountains hold over us; love, crime and action combine in a taut and twisty thriller-cum-romance in Michaël R. Roskam’s RACER AND THE JAILBIRD starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as Bibi, a young racing driver and Matthias Schoenaerts as Gigi the Jailbird, a dashing playboy with, it seems, time and money to burn; Ian Nelms and Eshom Nelms’ blackly comic, crime noir, SMALL TOWN CRIME (European Premiere) stars John Hawkes as alcoholic former cop Mike, channelling a drunk Columbo who embarks on his own unofficial crime investigation while Octavia Spencer plays his supportive sister Kelly who is starting to lose patience with Mike’s lying, drifting and drinking; and the International Premiere of Xin Yukun’s sophisticated arthouse thriller, WRATH OF SILENCE featuring martial arts maestro Song Yang, as a mute bruiser who returns to his home, a remote farming village, following the disappearance of his son. With tight plotting, memorable characters and an unforgettable climax, director Xin Yukun establishes himself as a new international filmmaker you need to know.CULT
The Cult Gala is Joachim Trier’s subtle shocker THELMA, a supernaturally-tinged tale of a young woman’s macabre coming of age. Other titles in the strand include: S. Craig Zahler’s genre-bending, bone-crunching exercise in slow-burn suspense, BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, starring Vince Vaughn as a former boxer-turned mechanic involved in a drug deal that goes wrong that sees him behind bars; the walking dead get a second chance at life in David Freyne’s debut THE CURED starring Ellen Page in an inventive and surprising post-zombie era drama where a cure has been found for the infected and the rehabilitated are transitioned back into society; the World Premiere of Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s GHOST STORIES in which they bring their hit London stage play to the big screen, with suitably chilling results. Nyman plays Phillip Goodman, an academic and professional sceptic out to debunk claims of the supernatural , but when he stumbles across a long lost file containing three unsolved cases of the Occult, his whole belief system – not to mention his sanity – is thrown into question; LET THE CORPSES TAN is directing duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s adaptation of JeanPatrick Manchette’s influential 1971 crime novel and the result is a sun-drenched Western-tinged, crimecaper; MY FRIEND DAHMER is director Marc Meyers’ adaptation of John Backderf’s revered graphic novel and is an unnerving portrait of one of America’s most prolific murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer; and Paco Plaza’s much-anticipated new horror film, VERONICA, inspired by an actual unsolved case in Spain and a no-holds barred supernatural shocker.JOURNEY
This year’s Journey Gala is Todd Haynes’ new film WONDERSTRUCK, an enthralling adaptation of Brian Selznick’s acclaimed young adult novel. Featuring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams in supporting roles alongside a gifted young cast, Oakes Fegley and newcomer Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress making her film debut, it is both a whimsical children’s film for adults and a refreshingly grown-up film for children. Other Journey titles include: Arshad Khan’s ABU, a compelling documentary about a young Pakistani man’s difficulties in coping with migration and the resultant cultural change, his emerging sexuality and an increasingly orthodox father; Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji’s THE JOURNEY, a taut, thoughtprovoking thriller that tackles what might just be the final moments of a potential suicide bomber’s life; David Batty’s stylish documentary MY GENERATION, presented and narrated by Michael Caine, playfully explores the impact of Britain’s working class cultural revolution in the 1960s and features a wealth of archive footage and a spot-on soundtrack from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, which makes for an exhilarating journey back in time; the European Premiere of Egyptian director Amr Salama’s SHEIKH JACKSON, a bittersweet and poignant tale of an Islamist preacher experiencing a crisis of faith following the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson; Marc J. Francis and Max Pugh’s fascinating and immersive exploration of mindfulness, WALK WITH ME, featuring narration by Benedict Cumberbatch, follows the daily rituals and routine of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and offers a rare insight into life within a monastic community; and the World Premiere of THE WHITE GIRL, where debut director Jenny Suen collaborates with legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle on an intoxicating and textually rich film.CREATE
The brand new Create strand channels the electricity of the act of creation, celebrating artistic expression in all its forms. The inaugural Create Gala is Michel Hazanavicius’ REDOUBTABLE, an audacious, multi-layered biopic of French cinema’s most notorious director, Jean-Luc Godard. Also in Create: Greg Kohs’ ALPHAGO the story of how Google’s DeepMind team took on Go world champion Lee Sedol, posing questions about whether computers can think creatively and whether there is an algorithm for intuition; the World Premiere of THE BALLAD OF SHIRLEY COLLINS, Rob Curry and Tim Plester’s portrait of one of the great British folks singers who mysteriously lost her voice in 1980; G-FUNK tells the story of how three childhood friends from East Long Beach Warren G, Snoop Dogg and the late great Nate Dogg, transformed hip-hop into a global phenomenon and changed the world; the World Premiere of William Badgely’s HERE TO BE HEARD: THE STORY OF THE SLITS is a riveting film about the game-changing and largely female feminist punk band; Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman’s LOVING VINCENT is a stunning, fully painted animated feature created in the style of Van Gogh’s paintings matching extraordinary style with richly satisfying storytelling, broadcast live from the National Gallery to cinemas nationwide; and Julian Rosefeldt’s MANIFESTO starring Cate Blanchett as thirteen different characters in this energetic tribute to artistic troublemakers.FAMILY
Showcasing films for the young, as well as the young at heart the Family Gala is THE BIG BAD FOX AND OTHER TALES, an outstanding, laugh-a-minute animation from Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert, the team behind Ernest & Celestine (LFF 2012, Family Gala) and is guaranteed to appeal to adults as much as it will to children. Other highlights include Chang-yong Moon and Jin Jeon’s beautifully made documentary BECOMING WHO I WAS about a young monk Padma Angdu, who is said to be the latest incarnation of a religious teacher, known as a Rinpoche, and his attempts to reach the home he had in a former life; Xuan Liang and Chun Zhang’s visually breath-taking Chinese animated fantasy, BIG FISH & BEGONIA is as near to the best of Studio Ghibli as you’re likely to find anywhere; Meikeminne Clinckspoor’s family adventure CLOUDBOY is about 12- year-old Niilas who is sent away against his wishes to spend the summer with his estranged mother in Swedish Lapland, among the indigenous reindeer herding Sami people; and winner of the top prize at this year’s Annecy Animation Film Festival, Masaaki Yuasa’s anime LU OVER THE WALL brings human and merfolk together with surprising outcomes. This funky, upbeat tale is full of energy, features cute ‘merdogs’, musical mermaids and a giant humanoid shark and has a really cool soundtrack. This section also includes a program of animated shorts for younger audiences which bring together eclectic, exciting and colourful films from all around the globe.TREASURES
The Treasures selection brings recently restored cinematic classics from archives around the world to the Festival in London. The Archive Gala is the World Premiere of the BFI National Archive restoration of the silent film SHIRAZ: A ROMANCE OF INDIA (1928), a ravishing, romantic tale based on the story of the 17th century Mughal ruler Shah Jahan, his queen and the building of the world’s most beautiful monument to love, the Taj Mahal. Directed by Franz Osten, based on a play by Niranjan Pal and starring and produced by Himansu Rai, the film was shot entirely in India and performed by an all-Indian cast. Other highlights include the World Premieres of the 4K restoration by Sony Pictures Entertainment of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946); the digitally remastered experimental documentary FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN WHITE MASK (1996), directed by artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, as well as the new 4K restoration, by The BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation, of Terry Gilliam’s first feature as a solo director, JABBERWOCKY (1977). The Festival will also screen the 4K restoration of Toshio Matsumoto’s FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969), a wild, kaleidoscopic vision of the underground scene in 1960s Japan and a significant influence on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and Italian genre-master Dario Argento’s eye-popping slice of technicolour terror, SUSPIRIA (1977) with stunning 4K restoration.EXPERIMENTA
Experimenta features films and videos by artists who transform our experience of seeing moving images. Highlights include: the World Premiere of Benedict Seymour’s DEAD THE ENDS, a politically urgent retelling of Chris Marker’s La Jetée bookended by the 2011 London riots; ERASE AND FORGET, Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s film is an excavation of the influence of fiction on truth in the American imagination of warfare and gun culture; the World Premiere of LEK AND THE DOGS, Andrew Kötting’s account of the ultimate outsider uses a range of visual styles derived from avant garde and genre cinema, and Kevin Jerome Everson’s TONSLER PARK uses an unobtrusive observational style to divulge the mechanisms behind the operation of Election Day at polling stations in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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New York Film Festival Unveils Projections Lineup of Daring and Experimental Films
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Good Luck[/caption]
This year’s lineup for the Projections section of the 55th New York Film Festival features 51 films, including eight features and eight programs of shorts, with eight world premieres, eight North American premieres, and 15 U.S. premieres. Among the highlights are the U.S. premiere of Caniba by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, whose feature Leviathan was presented in the Main Slate of NYFF50; Good Luck by Projections regular Ben Russell; and the North American premieres of two films by Kevin Jerome Everson, feature Tonsler Park and short IFO. The lineup also features the NYFF debuts of several acclaimed visual artists, including Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, winner of the International Critics Prize at the recent Locarno Film Festival; Neïl Beloufa’s Occidental; and mid-length works Rubber Coated Steel by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy by Duncan Campbell; the North American premiere of Zhou Tao’s The Worldly Cave, which was included in this year’s Venice Biennial; and the world premiere of Jaakko Pallasvuo’s Filter. Visual artists returning to Projections include Luke Fowler, whose Electro-Pythagoras (a Portrait of Martin Bartlett) screens in its U.S. premiere, and Rosalind Nashashibi, whose Vivian’s Garden is one of several works in this year’s lineup first presented at documenta 14 and will screen in its North American premiere.
Eighteen works will screen on 16mm, including all 13 of this year’s repertory selections, which showcase the work of experimental cinema pioneers Barbara Hammer and Mike Henderson, preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Projections also showcases returning filmmakers Ephraim Asili (Fluid Frontiers), Sky Hopinka (Dislocation Blues), Sara Magenheimer (Art and Theft), Jodie Mack (Wasteland No. 1: Ardent, Verdant), Takashi Makino (On Generation and Corruption), Steve Reinke (Semen Is the Piss of Dreams), Fern Silva (Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder), and 2012 Kazuko Trust Award winner Michael Robinson (Onward Lossless Follows). NYFF debut artists also include Pia Borg (Silica), Jorge Jácome (Flores), Peter Burr (Pattern Language), Nazli Dinçel (Shape of a Surface), Charlotte Prodger (BRIDGIT), Ayo Akingbade (Tower XYZ), Marta Mateus (Barbs, Wastelands), and a few Film Society of Lincoln Center alums—Benjamin Crotty (Division Movement to Vungtau), who was in New Directors/New Films in 2015, and Narimane Mari (Le fort des fous), whose work has screened in the Film Society’s Art of the Real festival.
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS Caniba Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, France, 2017, 90m U.S. Premiere The latest by the makers of Leviathan (NYFF50) is a harrowing engagement with the sheer presence of a man who did the unthinkable: Issei Sagawa, who became a tabloid magnet after killing and cannibalizing a woman in Paris in 1981. Caniba moves past sensationalism to immerse viewers in an unnervingly intimate encounter with Sagawa, who has since lived off his notoriety (as a sexploitation star and manga author), and his brother and primary caretaker. The filmmakers use this modern-day instance of cannibalism, long a subject of anthropological study, to raise questions about repulsion, desire, madness, and more. Audacious and unflinching, Caniba compels us to reckon with the most extreme limits of human behavior.Dragonfly Eyes Xu Bing, China, 2017, 81m U.S. Premiere Chinese visual artist Xu Bing’s ambitious debut feature follows an ill-fated romance through a frightening and faceless urban environment, using only closed-circuit surveillance footage. Constructing a fictitious narrative from real-world encounters and frequently spectacular images, Xu turns the story of a young man attempting to relocate his object of desire into a cogent analysis of postmodern identity and digitally mediated communication.
Electro-Pythagoras (a Portrait of Martin Bartlett) Luke Fowler, U.K./Canada, 2017, 45m U.S. Premiere The life and work of highly influential, yet little known, Canadian composer and microcomputer pioneer Martin Bartlett is resurrected in this lovingly constructed biographical essay. Archival footage finds Bartlett at home, at work, and onstage, while voiceover readings of the proudly out artist’s reflections on his place in the era’s gay community convey a sense of intimate, holistic personal history. Preceded by: Vivian’s Garden Rosalind Nashashibi, U.K., 2017, 30m North American Premiere Deep in the Guatemalan Highlands, Swiss-Austrian artists Vivian Suter and Elisabeth Wild live in a garden villa. Nashashibi captures the complexity of their unorthodox microcosm, which is dominated by their curiously intimate mother-daughter dynamic as well as the keen sense of dependency seen in their relationship with the Mayan domestic workers.
Le fort des fous Narimane Mari, France/Algeria/Greece/Germany/
Qatar, 2017, 140m In this shape-shifting hybrid feature, Algerian citizens’ memories of their country’s occupation are brought to life via resurrected military reports and re-enactments of France’s decades-long colonial project. As the film moves into a more dramatic mode, two characters from the first act join up with a small community that has sought refuge along the coast. But utopia proves fleeting, and the film, seeming to sense their fate, reinvents itself yet again as documentary. Good Luck Ben Russell, France/Germany, 2017, 143m U.S. Premiere In his first solo feature in eight years, Ben Russell takes us deep into the unforgiving copper mines of Serbia. When we emerge, we’re thousands of miles away, amongst an illegal band of gold miners in the Suriname jungle. The physical demands of labor, as well as the transformative power of music, connect these communities, each equally fortified by the realities of capital and a spirit of masculine camaraderie.
Occidental Neïl Beloufa, France, 2017, 74m U.S. Premiere In a boho Parisian hotel, two sexually and politically ambiguous Italians romp through a succession of blatantly artificial, anachronistically decorated set pieces, stoking the prejudices of staff members and fellow guests. Outside, riots rage and protesters march, threatening to spill into the increasingly feverish atmosphere gathering indoors. French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa’s second feature—reminiscent of films by Bertrand Bonello and the stage-derived works of Alain Resnais—confirms the arrival of a uniquely provocative, socially attuned filmmaker.
Tonsler Park Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2017, 80m North American Premiere Election Day, 2016. Kevin Jerome Everson and his 16mm camera quietly observe a community of mostly African-American voters and volunteers at a local polling precinct in Charlottesville, Virginia. Emerson’s film captures everyday faces and the general optimistic atmosphere with a casual formal elegance.
The Worldly Cave Zhou Tao, China, 2017, 48m North American Premiere Anonymous figures are diminished against unforgiving environs, both natural and manmade, in Zhou’s expansive cross-continental diary, featuring monumental views of the Incheon Sea, the Balearic island of Menorca, and the Sonoran Desert that serve to visualize the infinitesimal stature of the human race.
Barbara Hammer Program TRT: 82m A pioneer of experimental cinema, Barbara Hammer has spent much of her five-decade career deconstructing gender and sexuality through material examinations of the celluloid image and representations of the female body onscreen. This program of 16mm films combines her surreal, sexualized 1970s fantasias with the forays into poetic nonfiction and the trailblazing experiments with optically printed visuals she helped popularize throughout the 1980s. Program includes Psychosynthesis, Women I Love, and Audience, preserved by Electronic Arts Intermix and the Academy Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation; and Still Point and No No Nooky T.V., preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Mike Henderson Program TRT: 75m A singular cinematic figure, San Francisco’s Mike Henderson became one of the first independent African-American artists to make inroads into experimental filmmaking in the 1960s. Henderson’s work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, from which this program of 16mm films is culled, thrums with a sociopolitical, humorous sensibility that lends his small-scale, often musically kissed portraits (which he later dubbed “blues cinema”) a personal, artisanal quality. Program includes MONEY, Dufus (aka Art), The Shape of Things, The Last Supper, When & Where, Down Hear, Mother’s Day, and Pitchfork and the Devil. All films preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Program 1: SPECULATIVE SPACES TRT: 76m
Division Movement to Vungtau Benjamin Crotty and Bertrand Dezoteux, France, 2016, 4m U.S. Premiere In Crotty and Dezoteux’s cheeky and damning political patchwork, a quartet of dancing, computer-animated fruits infiltrate amateur footage shot by soldiers during the Vietnam War.
Wherever You Go, There We Are Jesse McLean, USA, 2017, 12m North American Premiere Assisted by a buoyant electro-acoustic soundtrack, McLean maps an evocative cross-country travelogue through elegantly illustrated postcards and the strangely intoxicating language of junk emails.
IFO Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2017, 10m North American Premiere In Everson’s hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, multiple UFO sightings yield both passionate firsthand accounts and detailed reflections; meanwhile, suburban youths raise their arms toward the heavens in becalmed surrender.
Silica Pia Borg, Australia/U.K., 2017, 23m North American Premiere An unseen location scout explores an opal mining town in South Australia in Pia Borg’s sci-fi-laced essay film, which finds in this semi-deserted region both the traces of indigenous culture and remnants of cinema history.
Flores Jorge Jácome, Portugal, 2017, 26m U.S. Premiere Island life, love, and labor are captured in vivid detail in this speculative fiction, in which two soldiers speak in voiceover about the over-proliferation of hydrangea flowers on their isolated Portuguese island in the Azores.
Program 2: PRESENT TENSE TRT: 76m
Pattern Language Peter Burr, USA, 2017, 10m Architect Christopher Alexander’s design theories are applied towards a generative video game labyrinth, resulting in this rhythmic animation made of rippling, skipping, and strobing arrays of light infused with programmatic digital pixelation.
.TV G. Anthony Svatek, USA/Tuvalu/New Zealand/France, 2017, 22m World Premiere The much sought-after, two-letter web domain suffix of the title is examined as both a form of capital and an emblem of a country on the brink of a climate-induced catastrophe in this simultaneously humorous and illuminating essay film centered on the environmentally contentious Pacific Islands of Tuvalu.
disruption Belit Sağ, Netherlands, 2016, 5m World Premiere In the span of a short walk, images and information flow ceaselessly into view as our increasingly digitized lives absorb disparate movie and media moments, from the warmly humorous to the coldly clinical.
Dislocation Blues Sky Hopinka, USA, 2017, 17m The Standing Rock protests are the starting point for Ho-Chunk artist Sky Hopinka’s inquiry into identity, community, and mass media. Against twilit images of the Dakota landscape, the film frames present-day traumas through distinct first-person perspectives and reflects on the threatened environment and the complex social realities of the resistance camps.
Rubber Coated Steel Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 2016, 21m North American Premiere Abu Hamdan, an artist and Forensic Architecture researcher, made an audio analysis to ascertain whether Israeli soldiers used rubber or live bullets in the murder of two Palestinian teens. Through the frame of a speculative court proceeding, the video acts as a tribunal for the case, which includes audio testimony and onscreen forensic animations.
Program 3: THE SHAPES OF THINGS TRT: 78m
The Crack-Up Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 2017, 16mm, 18m World Premiere Schwartz’s poetic 16mm work meditates on the sights and sounds of slowly crumbling glaciers, charting an interior dance between desperation and hope. The carefully deployed superimpositions, strident soundtrack, and contrasting tones of intensity and tranquility suggest the unpredictable rhythms of metaphysical transformation.
Saint Bathans Repetitions Alexandre Larose, Canada, 2016, 16mm, 20m U.S. Premiere A series of cinematic portraits shot in domestic spaces in a former gold mining town in New Zealand expand into a tapestry of glistening natural light and vaporous movement, created via a painstaking process of in-camera layering effects.
Shape of a Surface Nazli Dinçel, Turkey, 2017, 16mm, 9m Shooting on 16mm amidst the Aphrodisias ruins in western Turkey, Dinçel refracts multiple epochs of religious history with mirrors and occluded space, finding figural as well as metaphorical power in the human body’s place within the landscape.
Wasteland No. 1: Ardent, Verdant Jodie Mack, USA, 2017, 16mm, 5m U.S. Premiere Jodie Mack’s bracing 16mm montage film juxtaposes gleaming close-ups of electrical circuit boards with hyper-saturated images of a flower-littered landscape. In its rapid-fire presentation, the film offers a swift metaphorical representation of technology’s inexorable march.
On Generation and Corruption Takashi Makino, Japan, 2017, 26m In this Aristotle-inspired audiovisual panorama, a fathomless void slowly accumulates rippling digital textures, and waves of watercolor pastels wash atop barely perceptible images of natural phenomena. When the darkness returns, only the droning soundscape is left to point the way forward.
Program 4: FIRST PERSON TRT: 76m
Art and Theft Sara Magenheimer, USA, 2017, 7m World Premiere Magenheimer’s video explores the bounds of narrative and the illusion of received wisdom in the seven minutes and twenty-two seconds it takes to rob a house. Here, images of medieval art, popular cinema, and “live” news reportage speak candidly to the constructedness of all storytelling traditions.
Filter Jaakko Pallasvuo, Finland/USA/Germany, 2017, 25m World Premiere Mixing crude animation, 3D modeling, and faux filmic textures in a self-reflexive essay on digitally abetted nostalgia, this playful work of fair use pastiche refracts all manner of postmodern touchstones (David Foster Wallace, Talking Heads, Reality Bites) into an aesthetic interrogation of its own methodology, resulting in, to paraphrase one onscreen subject, a critique of a critique of a critique.
Semen Is the Piss of Dreams Steve Reinke, USA/Canada, 2016, 7m In Reinke’s latest provocation, the words of author Hervé Guibert are made flesh through a montage of “human events” that work to collapse the boundaries between the private and public, the perverse and the prosaic.
Year Wojciech Bąkowski, Poland, 2017, 6m World Premiere Bąkowski’s strangely personal, nostalgia-laced video combines the Polish animator’s love of everyday domestic objects and geometric aesthetics with a flickering synth score out of an eighties urban crime film.
BRIDGIT Charlotte Prodger, U.K., 2016, 32m Prodger examines issues of gender, sexuality, and creativity in this first-person essay film, shot in and around the Scottish Highlands and named for the Neolithic goddess of springtime.
Program 5: URBAN RHAPSODIES TRT: 75m
Tower XYZ Ayo Akingbade, U.K., 2016, 3m U.S. Premiere A visual guide to the under-acknowledged multiethnicity of the London borough Hackney, Tower XYZ skips to the beat of the city’s vibrant youth culture and communal spirit, offering up a rebel cry for a new generation: “Let’s get rid of the ghetto!”
Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder Fern Silva, USA, 2017, 16mm, 9m North American Premiere Through softly textured 16mm photography and regional iconography, Silva offers a modernist reflection on two of upstate New York’s most storied 19th century touchstones—the landscape painters of the Hudson River School and the legend of Rip Van Winkle—nodding to a few musical heroes along the way.
Fluid Frontiers Ephraim Asili, USA, 2017, 23m U.S. Premiere Visually tracing the 19th-century Windsor-Detroit slave pass, with on-site readings of notable texts by many of Motor City’s most storied African-American poets, Asili deftly captures the city not simply as a repository of memory but as a landscape of living history.
Onward Lossless Follows Michael Robinson, USA, 2017, 17m U.S. Premiere Robinson’s latest work of cinematic excavation uncovers the darkness inherent even in life’s most banal images and encounters. It’s an unsettling study in duality—between the earthbound and the cosmic, the found and forgotten, the rural and domestic, the verbal and written.
Aliens Luis López Carrasco, Spain, 2017, 23m U.S. Premiere In this short nonfiction portrait, Tesa Arranz, one-time leader of pioneering Spanish new wave band Zombies, reminisces about her sexual and political conquests, while dozens of her recent paintings are examined by Carrasco’s inquisitive camera.
Program 6: THE FORGOTTEN TRT: 77m
Barbs, Wastelands Marta Mateus, Portugal, 2017, 25m North American Premiere In this accomplished debut, peasants of the Alentejo region of Portugal stand in stylized tableaux and speak to local youths of the Carnation Revolution, the postwar agrarian reform movement, and the ghosts of a postcolonial struggle that haunt the landscape to this day.
Fantasy Sentences Dane Komljen, Germany/Denmark, 2017, 17m U.S. Premiere In a serene meditation on image-making and the slippery nature of storytelling, Komljen ominously mingles anonymous home video footage with images of contemporary Ukraine’s desolate landscapes.
Missing In-Between the Physical Proper Olivia Ciummo, USA, 2017, 6m World Premiere A prismatic collection of re-photographed images––of deserts and oceans, plants and animals––are disrupted and transformed by an array of color filters, soft synth accompaniment, and familiarly boorish messages lifted from the online world.
The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy Duncan Campbell, U.K./Ireland, 2016, 31m U.S. Premiere Campbell’s fictional narrative, concerning a pair of American anthropologists en route to the Irish village of Dún Chaoin, expands into a reflective investigation of filmmaking ethics and a portrait of a small community forced to confront the changing tides of traditions.