The omission made the news in 1966 when the New York Film Festival failed to screen a single major Hollywood film. Major U.S. film companies were allergic to the festival and reluctant to get on the slate, including United Artists, which refused to submit Billy Wilder’s “Fortune Cookie” for consideration. told The New York Times about his teapot debacle, wondering if the studio was afraid of the “pretentious, intelligent” types who attended the festival, saying, “My photos were made in Czechoslovakia. No,” he joked.
The New York Film Festival, which is 60 years old this year, has managed to outlast Czechoslovakia and most of the old Hollywood studios that once dictated how audiences thought about cinema. The festival has also fostered new talent, supported established filmmakers, and served as an ongoing discussion of cinema as an art, while certainly frustrating all conceivable stakeholders. Among my dearest festival memories, between Jane Campion’s gloriously irreverent ‘Sweetie’ (1989) and Lars von Trier’s brutal provocation ‘Dancer in the Dark’ (2000) A viewer has made a loud, jarring noise towards the exit.
I’m sure the scene in Ruben Ostlund’s empty satirical film The Triangle of Sorrows, in which a seasick cruise ship passenger vomiting up vomit, turned your stomach upside down, but this year’s highly engaging and carefully balanced A taken main slate is unlikely to scandalize anyone. Like Todd Field’s self-deprecating drama “Tár” about an imploding orchestral conductor (Cate Blanchett), “Triangle of Sadness” looks interesting enough and at the same time manages to be mainstream throughout. It’s a respectable example of an arthouse release that isn’t challenging enough to grab attention. A long way to the next Oscar. Both films are released on Friday.
Like many film festivals, New York packs the most flashy and high-profile attractions into the first tier, but there’s still plenty of good stuff on offer until the event wraps up on October 16th. Laura Poitras’ moving portrait of art activist Nan Goldin, Margaret Brown’s Descendants, a sensitive reflection on American race. Told through the Chronicles of the Clotilda, the last slave ship on record, her last voyage was her 1860 voyage to Alabama.
In the 2022 edition, the festival will screen 120 films. 73 of them consist of different programs. The custom is to scoop buckets of cream (some curdled) from Cannes and other famous festivals. Most of the main slate’s 32 features have domestic theatrical distribution. One notable exception (which I suspect will change soon) is writer-director Paul Schrader’s The Master Gardener. Starring Joel Edgerton, Quintessa Swindell, and Sigourney Weaver, it’s a classic Schrader joint. A grim, beautiful, romantic, verbal, and incredibly moving utopian tale of love, loneliness, violence, and redemption.
Like Cannes, the New York Film Festival is dedicated to championing the work of popular authors such as Schroeder.and like that 2021, this year’s event showcases two compelling productions from another beloved Korean director, Hong Sang-soo. The relatively straightforward ‘Novelist’s Film’ and the more formal and playful ‘Walk Up’. In “Novelist,” an encounter with an actress sparks the imagination of an itinerant writer. The story unfolds linearly and takes beautiful turns at a delay. In “Walk Up,” Hong tells her three related stories that take place on different floors of the same cozy building.
Other upcoming highlights include Jerzy Skolimowski’s poignant, brilliant, and formally daring donkey tale “EO” (animal lovers, this is an essential but difficult thing to watch). must be known). “Return to Seoul” is a slow knockout song by Davy Chou about a French Korean woman visiting her hometown. Cyril Schäublin’s “Unrest” is a visually striking and quirky tale set in the 1870s, in which the anarchist Pyotr his Kropotkin visits a Swiss town where time is money and workers tick. I’m here. Elegance Bratton’s “The Inspection” is a moving and authentic autobiographical drama about a gay black man enlisting in the Marine Corps. and Joao Pedro Rodriguez’s delightfully silly, furiously political “Will-o’-the-Wisp.”
Also, don’t miss No Bears, a haunting and sad tale of existence and belonging, place and movement, from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. A frequent target of the Iranian government, Panahi has operated under extremely difficult conditions for more than a decade. In 2010, he was formally banned from both making films and deporting for criticizing the government. In July he was sentenced to his six years in prison. In “No Bears,” he plays himself (or a version of it). He is a director struggling to make a film in Turkey while temporarily camping near a small Iranian village that quickly becomes embroiled in turmoil. Here, borders are imagined and frighteningly real.
Buying festival tickets is not a form of political protest, but supporting the arts is an expression of soulful, spirit-expanding human effort and hope, and in this case, a form of solidarity. It is also a sign. Of the remaining screenings of “No Bears” ended up being sold out. One of the dumbest and dumbest complaints regularly leveled against the festival is its ostensible loftiness. It goes without saying that events like the New York Film Festival are exclusive by their selective design (and ticket prices), but for years festivals have been unconventional, dusty, and irrelevant. has been routinely ridiculed for its presumed It has paid attention to its mission of presenting works of cinematic art.
In 1965 he wrote in this paper, Amos Vogel, who helped found the festival, explained its mission while enjoying the festival’s successful first few years. wrote Vogel. He went on to say that the purpose of the New York Film Festival is to “reflect international trends in the most interesting cross-section of new work, not the biggest and most commercial.” Freed from the shackles of box office revenue, the festival has acted as a “catalyst and witness” as it revealed a new wave and artists to audiences who may wait years for foreign films to come out before home video. It worked.
One of the most fascinating chapters in the history of cinema is how festivals like New York not only managed to weather cataclysmic changes in the industry, including streaming, but they also succeeded in growing and nurturing new audiences. . New York did so despite a particularly eventful year for both New York and its parent film, Lincoln Center. A bastion of serious, non-academic film culture — dead at 92. Further changes will come later this month when the festival’s current executive and former director, Eugene Hernandez, leaves to become Sundance’s director.
Hernandez officially assumed the leadership position of the festival in February 2020. —so his tenure was too short to make a strong impression. ), continued the show through the toughest days of the pandemic.In 2020, it adopted a hybrid model (via virtual offerings and drive-ins) that increased its audience. This year’s event will again be in-person, but smartly expanded its reach by showing in all five of his boroughs of New York. It’s more democratic, and with his 17 days, six more than Cannes, it’s a veritable marathon.
Put on your sneakers and grab your mask. requirement Indoor spaces at your event — and let’s get started. There are plenty of tickets available, including $10 Rush. A mysterious world awaits.
The New York Film Festival runs through October 16th. For more information, filmlinc.org.