The Close-up

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, join a conversation with Wong Kar Wai, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and actress Brigitte Lin from the 46th NYFF in 2008, moderated by J. Hoberman. Watch Ashes of Time Redux in our Wong Kar Wai retrospective, available nationwide: filmlinc.org/wong A film whose complicated production took such a toll on Wong that he wrote and shot Chungking Express during its editing process, Ashes of Time Redux is a hallucinatory wuxia like no other. First released in 1994 and then re-edited and re-scored in 2008, Wong’s time-slipping picaresque takes loose inspiration from Jin Yong’s novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes, focusing on a lovesick, embittered mercenary (Leslie Cheung), who acts as an agent for other swordsmen of fortune. Working with regular production designer William Chang, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and a superb ensemble (Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, and Jacky Cheung), Wong constructs an intricate, enigmatic vision of ancient warrior

Join director Steve McQueen, cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, actors Shaun Parkes and Letitia Wright, and co-writers Courttia Newland and Alastair Siddons in a conversation about Small Axe, an anthology of five films. This talk was moderated by NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim, following the premiere of three films at NYFF58. All five films in the anthology are now available digitally nationwide, courtesy of Amazon Studios. Film at Lincoln Center Talks are presented by HBO.

Join a conversation with your favorite critics in anticipation of New Directors/New Films, a festival that has celebrated filmmakers who represent the present and anticipate the future of cinema, and whose daring work pushes the envelope in unexpected ways. Get tickets to this year’s NDNF, now playing through 12/20 in our Virtual Cinema, at filmlinc.org/ndnf The New Directors/New Films festival offers yearly proof of cinema's long and bright future—and this year's edition, arriving in virtual form at a fraught time in film culture, is no exception. Dig into the highlights of the 2020 lineup in this critics' preview led by Devika Girish, Assistant Editor of Film Comment and Film at Lincoln Center, featuring Clinton Krute (Digital Editor, Film Comment), Chloe Lizotte (freelance film critic), Vadim Rizov (Managing Editor, Filmmaker Magazine), and Lucía Salas (critic, curator, and filmmaker). This Film at Lincoln Center Talk is presented by HBO.

Join director Sean Durkin and actress Carrie Coon in a conversation about their latest film, The Nest, with fellow filmmaker Alex Ross Perry. The Nest stars Jude Law and Carrie Coon, who play Rory, an ambitious entrepreneur, and Allison, his American wife. In the film, Rory persuades his wife and their children to leave the comforts of suburban America and return to his native England during the 1980s. Sensing opportunity, Rory rejoins his former firm and leases a centuries-old country manor, with grounds for Allison’s horses and plans to build a stable. Soon the promise of a lucrative new beginning starts to unravel, the couple has to face the unwelcome truths lying beneath the surface of their marriage. The Nest is now available nationwide courtesy of IFC Films.

A New Directors/New Films 2020 selection and the Romanian entry for the Best International Feature Film at next year's Academy Awards, Collective begins as a seeming exposé into a tragic accident and gradually turns into something deeper and more shocking in this revelatory documentary about state neglect. As Collective continues its run in our Virtual Cinema, director Alexander Nanau sat down with FLC's Deputy Executive Director, Eugene Hernandez, to discuss the nonfiction thriller that uncovers the depths of governmental corruption. Watch Collective in our Virtual Cinema now at filmlinc.org/collective Film at Lincoln Center Talks are presented by HBO.

This week we’re featuring a preview in anticipation of Art of the Real 2020, an essential showcase for the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking, rescheduled from its original dates in April for November 13-26. Join the co-programmers of Art of the Real, FLC Director of Programming Dennis Lim, FLC Programmer-at-Large Rachael Rakes and program advisor Almudena Escobar Lopez, along with FLC programmer Dan Sullivan for an in-depth preview of this year's edition, discussing all the envelope-pushing highlights, under-the-radar sleepers, and much more. Art of the Real is proud to continue its collaboration with curated streaming service MUBI for the fifth consecutive year. This Film at Lincoln Center Talk is presented by HBO. Get the most out of the festival with an unbeatable offer: access the entire slate for just $50! Start discovering with your All-Access Pass here: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/bundle/aotr-all-access/

NYFF58 Revivals highlight Smooth Talk (1985) features the work of three powerhouse women: director Joyce Chopra; actress Laura Dern, in one of her first starring roles; and author Joyce Carol Oates, whose 1966 short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” provided the inspiration for the film. To celebrate the festival premiere of the film’s new restoration, Chopra, Dern, and Oates joined Turner Classic Movies host Alicia Malone for a talk about the creative work of adaptation and the perennially resonant subject matter of a young woman’s early encounter with the powers and perils of her sexuality. Watch the new restoration of Smooth Talk, starting November 6 in our Virtual Cinema at filmlinc.org/smoothtalk This Film at Lincoln Center Talk is presented by HBO and sponsored by TCM.

As part of their nationwide virtual retrospective, directors Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman joined FLC programmer Dan Sullivan for a career-spanning conversation. Watch their essential work, featuring new restorations, through November 5 in our Virtual Cinema at filmlinc.org/tellingpics For more than 30 years, Oscar-winning directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have borne powerful witness to gay life, creativity, and activism — documenting lost aspects of LGBTQ+ history and chronicling unfolding events with humor, compassion, and fierce urgency. In their films, extraordinary interviews make the political personal and unforgettable. With Paragraph 175 and The Celluloid Closet, Epstein and Friedman examined the persecution of gay men in Nazi Germany and Hollywood’s history of hidden homophobia. Their documentaries The AIDS Show, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Times of Harvey Milk, and Where Are We? have both chronicled and helped change history. Starting October 23, we look at their essential

For the 58th New York Film Festival’s final week, a group of critics gathered together for a spirited discussion with Devika Girish, Assistant Editor of Film Comment and Talks programmer for the NYFF, about the movies they saw in this year's lineup and their tales from the trenches of the pandemic-era festival. Participants included Molly Haskell (author, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies), Eric Hynes (curator of film, Museum of the Moving Image), Ela Bittencourt (freelance critic & curator), Monica Castillo (arts and culture reporter, CPR News), and Clinton Krute (digital editor, Film Comment). Their discussion covered a wide selection of films, including Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock and Mangrove, Hong Sang-soo's The Woman Who Ran, Victor Kossakovsky's Gunda, Marie-Claude Treilhou's Simone Barbes or Virtue, Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning, Chloé Zhao's Nomadland, Philippe Garrel's The Salt of Tears, and many others. All NYFF58 Free Talks are presented by HBO.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, we're featuring a conversation with Pietro Marcello, whose NYFF favorite Martin Eden opens in our Virtual Cinema today along with a weeklong four-film retrospective. This Q&A is from the 57th New York Film Festival, featuring Marcello in conversation with programmer Florence Almozini and interpretation by Michael Moore. Get tickets for Martin Eden and our retrospective here: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/ One of world cinema’s most exciting working directors, he has spent the last 15 years crafting a filmography that straddles past and present, documentary and fiction, folklore and political intervention. His idiosyncratic use of archival materials paired with his penchant for capturing, enlarging, and exalting the sensuous details of the physical world yields films that have distinguished themselves within today’s Italian cinema, or indeed, world cinema at large. In Marcello’s work, history, mythology, and the political situation of today

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Programmer Florence Almozini is joined by director Azazel Jacobs and actors Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges to discuss French Exit. In the Closing Night selection, Pfeiffer is entirely bewitching as an imperious, widowed New York socialite who, facing financial insolvency, relocates to a friend’s empty apartment in Paris with her dyspeptic son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), and their mercurial cat, and begins to grimly plan for an impossible future. Azazel Jacobs’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Patrick deWitt is a rare American film of genuine eccentricity, with a brilliant central performance. French Exit is sponsored by Campari. There's only a few virtual nationwide tickets remaining for tonight's premiere at 8pm ET. Get yours here: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim connects with director Christian Petzold to discuss Undine, the latest from the filmmaker behind Phoenix and Transit, among others. In his new film, the German director injects a mythological element into a lush melodrama about a pair of star-crossed lovers—Undine (Paula Beer), a historian and museum tour guide specializing in urban development, and Christoph, an industrial diver—linked by an affinity for the water. Get nationwide virtual tickets, premiering tonight at 8pm ET: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/undine/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF programmer Tyler Wilson is joined by co-directors Paul Felten & Joe DeNardo and star Stephanie Hayes of the funny and alluring Slow Machine. Featuring an intriguingly eclectic cast—including experimental theater performers Hayes and Scott Shepherd, the musician Eleanor Friedberger, and Chloë Sevigny—Slow Machine follows an actress whose intimate relationship with a shadowy NYPD-affiliated operative ends abruptly and disastrously, leading her to hide out in a country house otherwise occupied by a band preparing their new record. The film explodes and reassembles the thriller genre, producing a work on paranoia, surveillance, and performance. Get nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/slow-machine/

Director/actor/writer/producer Tim Robbins is proud to introduce Bobbo Supreme - originally conceived as a film and adapted for a new realm of aural entertainment in pandemic times. Bobbo Supreme is a hard-hitting, bitingly funny, no holds barred look at the hypocrisy, deception, and danger in the current American political landscape. A satirical fever dream in five parts. New York Film Festival Director Eugene Hernandez was delighted to welcome Tim Robbins and his all-star cast–including Jack Black, Haley Joel Osment, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Rita Brent, Ray Wise, and Ted Levine, along with composer David Robbins–for a special panel discussion, followed by the premiere of the first episode. The immersive aural entertainment experience debuts today on Patreon. Learn more at patreon.com/TimRobbinsPresents

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi joins NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim to discuss Notturno, Rosi’s latest immersive work of nonfiction. Shot over the course of three years along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon, Notturno is a nighttime ramble through a region rocked and shattered by catastrophe and violence.  All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/notturno/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen is joined by directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw to discuss their revelatory, earthy documentary The Truffle Hunters. This engaging and beautifully shot film immerses the viewer in the forests of Northern Italy where dogs, accompanied by their elderly and often irascible human owners of modest means, seek the precious white Alba truffle. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-truffle-hunters/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by director Spike Lee and musician David Byrne to discuss American Utopia, Lee’s concert film recording of Byrne’s acclaimed Broadway show. American Utopia is an exhilarating record of a seismic theater event as well as a momentous work of cinema in its own right. Both joyous and politically engaged, it’s a reckoning of these dark times through music and togetherness, with a galvanizing rendition of Janelle Monáe’s “Hell You Talmbout” that’s destined to be one of the year’s most talked-about screen moments. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for screenings of David Byrne’s American Utopia at the Brooklyn and Bronx drive-ins or nationwide virtual tickets here: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/david-byrnes-american-utopia/

In this special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim connects with director Steve McQueen to discuss Red, White, and Blue, one of the three entries in McQueen’s Small Axe anthology playing at this year’s NYFF. Red, White, and Blue is a vivid adaptation of a true story set in the early ’80s and features an impassioned yet nuanced performance from John Boyega as Leroy Logan, a member of the London Metropolitan Police force who both witnessed and experienced first-hand the organization’s fundamental racism. Get tickets for tonight’s screening at the Brooklyn drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets. Through Monday, we will also present virtual encore screenings of McQueen’s Lovers Rock and Mangrove. Learn more: https://virtual.filmlinc.org/page/small-axe-at-nyff-58/ Small Axe at the 58th NYFF is presented by Campari.

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez is joined by director Heidi Ewing, along with subjects Ivan Garcia & Gerardo Zabaleta, and actor Armando Espitia to discuss their film I Carry You With Me. Among the most emotionally resonant and innovatively conceived cinematic love stories in years, I Carry You With Me unexpectedly and brilliantly incorporates documentary elements into the tale of a burgeoning romance between two men who cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. Get nationwide virtual tickets, screening tonight only in a four-hour window beginning at 8pm ET: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/i-carry-you-with-me/

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF programmer K. Austin Collins is joined by director Jia Zhangke to discuss the filmmaker’s evocative new documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue. Jia Zhangke gathers three prominent authors—Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong—in Shanxi province, where he grew up, to create a tapestry of testimonies about the drastic changes in Chinese life and culture that began with the social revolution of the 1950s. Interpretation by Vincent Cheng. All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO. Get tickets for tonight’s premiere at the Brooklyn drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/swimming-out-till-the-sea-turns-blue/ All documentaries at the 58th New York Film Festival are presented by HBO.