Without a doubt, the 52nd New York film festival largely fulfills its mission (as stated on its website) to “introduce audiences to the most exciting, innovative and accomplished works of world cinema.” This holds true thanks to an impressive collection of films in its lineup, many of which caught programmers’ attention at Cannes and […]
The 51st New York Film Festival arrives with a touch of scandal, courtesy of two French films. As soon as it premiered at Cannes, Blue Is the Warmest Color was almost overshadowed by its extended lesbian sex scenes, but not enough to obscure the strong performances. It won the Palme d’Or, awarded to its director […]
With two extra screens at its disposal, the New York Film Festival has added more sidebars to its programming, which means additional events have been packed into its 17 days. It was once possible to see a generous slice of what the festival had to offer. Now it’s an uphill battle just to see many […]
At first glance, this year’s New York Film Festival is almost unrecognizable—a departure from its slimmer, more restrictive, and less glitzy programming of only a few years ago. What was once a small, curated festival has expanded, thanks to more screening space, but also perhaps due to an organizational objective to wedge itself as a […]
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan Produced by Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan Written by Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan & Nuri Bilge Ceylan Released by Cinema Guild Turkey. 157 min. Not Rated Turkish with English subtitles With Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Firat Tanis, Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan, Ercan Kesal, Burhan Yildiz & Gulnaz Toprak Over a long […]
Written, Produced & Directed by Asghar Farhadi Released by Sony Pictures Classics Iran. 123 min. Rated PG-13 Farsi with English subtitles With Leila Hatami, Peyman Moadi, Sarina Farhadi, Ali-Asghar Shahbazi, Sareh Bayat, & Shahab Hosseini A Separation opens with a marriage in crisis. Testifying testily, the wife explains to a judge that she wants to […]
Written & Directed by Wim Wenders Produced by Wenders & Gian-Piero Ringel Released by Sundance Selects Germany/France. 106 min. Rated PG English & German, Russian, Italian, French, Slovenian, Korean, Spanish & Portuguese with English subtitles Pina opens at the proscenium stage of the Wuppertal Theater in western Germany and then quickly plunges the audience into […]
Directed by Roman Polanski Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd Written by Yasmina Rexa & Polanski, based on the play God of Carnage by Reza Released by Sony Pictures Classics France/Germany/Poland/Spain. 80 min. Rated R With Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz & John C. Reilly In Carnage, the pursuit of normal behavior results in 79 […]
Directed by Steve McQueen Produced by Iain Canning & Emile Sherman Written by Steve McQueen & Abi Morgan Released by Fox Searchlight UK. 99 min. Rated NC-17 With Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale & Nicole Beharie Earnestly somber, Shame arrives with a lot of baggage, namely an envelope-pushing amount of sex and nudity. (The […]