Sunday, October 12-----Every generation deserves its own Rocky.....a reminder that guts can lead to glory. In 1976, Sylvester Stallone's sentimental tale of a past-his-prime boxer who finds love and redemption both in and out of the ring, was an unlikely hit and major Oscar winner. In the next 30 years, films about bucking the odds have become their own uniquely American genre.
This year's Rocky is also the comeback story of the year....both for its lead actor an...
Lucretia Martel (THE HEADLESS WOMAN)Matteo Garone (GOMORRAH)Clint Eastwood (The Changeling)Mike Leigh (Happy Go Lucky)Oliver Assayas (Summer Hours)Ari Folman (WALTZ WITH BASHIR)Benicio del Toro and Steven Soderbergh (CHE)Kiyoshi Kurosawa (TOKYO SONATA)
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HUNGER (Steve McQueen, UK)
Friday, October 10---------As it enters its final weekend, The New York Film Festival, which celebrated its 46th anniversary, has again been an extraordinary showcase of the pulse of contemporary European cinema. Over almost five decades, the Festival has introduced and cemented the reputations in the United States of such iconic filmmakers as Michaelangelo Antonioni, Jean Luc Godard, John Schlesinger, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodovar,...
Thursday, October 9-----Despite its simple story and subtle cinematic form, I cannot get the images of the film Tulpan out of my head. Perhaps because the film takes one to a truly exotic location (the vast emptiness of the Hunger Steppe plain in southern Kazakhstan) and brings you up-close-and-personal with the toughened people who inhabit that truly forlorn environment, that it has made an impression that is light years away from a National Geographic special (although its visuals are comparab...
Tuesday, October 7-----Agnes Jaoui's Let It Rain has been acquired by IFC Films for North American distribution. The French film has its North American premiere this week at the New York Film Festival. The company is planning a day-and-date release via its IFC In Theaters platform next year.
The film, set in the South of France, features Jaoui as a feminist novelist pondering politic...
Clint Eastwood
Brad Pitt and Angelina JolieMike LeighMickey Rourke, Darren Aronofsky and Marisa TomeiOliver Assayas
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A Movie (Bruce Conner)
Friday, October 3------One of the more intriguing traditions of the New York Film Festival is its commitment to showcase experimental work that often goes neglected in the go-go atmosphere of the film business. Now in its 11th year, Views From The Avant-Garde is a treasure trove of new ideas, new media and inspiration from visual artists looking to smash tradition and test the horizons of the new.
Most of the films and video pieces presen...
Thursday, October 2------When you have one of the most recognizable faces in film in the same room as you, there is undoubtedly a level of excitement. Clint Eastwood came to New York City today for a press conference for his new film Changeling, which serves as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival.
Being his affable, laconic self is easy for the still handsome Clint, whose directing career is even surpassing his accomplishments as an actor. With such recent films as M...
Wednesday, October 1------The effects of combat take on an added dimension, caught somewhere between nightmares and surrealism, in the celebrated Israeli animated epic Waltz With Bashir. The film, which had its US Premiere at the New York Film Festival tonight, brings the viewer in the furtive and fervent imagination of director Ari Folman.
Beginning with the startling image of wild dogs running straight towards the camera, the film exists between psychological turmoil and exi...
Tuesday, September 30--------The name Tony Manero may be familiar to you....it is the name of the character that John Travolta immortalized in the film Saturday Night Fever. The image of the strong but sensitive Italian guy from Brooklyn, who rebels against the restrictions of his life by dancing at the local disco is an iconic one, and not only in America.
In Tony Manero, a startling film from Chilean director Pablo Larrain, the film walks a fine line between c...
Monday, September 29-----One of the things that is most satisfying about the New York Film Festival is its loyalty to certain filmmakers and its interest ien rediscovering the films of cinema masters. This year, the Festival will screen a Max Ophuls romantic melodrama classic (Lola Montes, 1955), an Albert Lewin cult film (Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, 1951) and a Pakistani realist drama (The Day Shall Dawn, 1959). But its major retrospective program sidebar is devoted to the Japan...
HUNGER (Steve McQueen, UK)
Sunday, September 28--------I definitely do subscribe to the shitty weather theory for festival success. In short, the more dismal the weather, the better the attendance. And whether it was planned or not, this weekend's soggy, rather depressing weather has made people make a beeline for the screenings of the New York Film Festival in its first weekend. An added incentive is undoubtedly the use of the Ziegfield Theater as the Festival's main screen...
Saturday, September 27-----As newspapers drop local film critics and rely on syndicated national opionionmakers, what is the role of the film critic in today's go-go film culture? Can film critics help a more specialized film find its audience? Is the existence of film critics online and the notion that anyone with a blog receives instant critical entitlement dilute the discerning talents of the critical establishment?
These and other issues will be examined at the first of...
The Class (Entres Les Murs)
Friday, September 26-----The New York Film Festival, one of the oldest and most prestigious showcases of international cinema in the US, opens this evening with the US Premiere of the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, The Class by director Laurent Cantet. The film, a neo-realistic look at the crumbling standards of the French educational system, is one of several French films and co-productions that are highlighted at...
Festival Closing Night Gala
Saturday, October 14---The 44th edition of the New York Film Festival is drawing to a close, but not without one more weekend of film excitement and diversity. Saturday sees repeat screenings of two of the Festival's most anticipated and debated films, Sofia Coppola's post-modern take on the French Revolution, MARIE ANTOINETTE, and Emmanuel Bordieu's homo-erotic POISON FRIENDS.
Another film having its final screening on Saturday is the Turkish drama CLIMATES by d...
New York Film Festival Press Conference for:
VOLVER
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 15 2006]
Director: Pedro Almodóvar, Country: Spain, Release: 2006, Runtime: 120
Centerpiece
Over the last twenty years, the name Pedro Almodóvar has become virtually synonymous with cinematic pleasure. This latest movie (his seventh to screen at the NYFF) is sheer bliss, a supernatural tale of murder, adult ...
Press Conference New York Film Festival for:
THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 15 2006]
Director: Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, Country: Canada, Release: 2006, Runtime: 112
Between 1920 and 1924, the Danish/Inuit explorer and scientist Knud Rasmussen led five expeditions through Arctic North America from his trade station in Thule, Greenland. Along the way, he ...
Press Conference New York Film Festival for:
LITTLE CHILDREN
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 15 2006]
Director: Todd Field , Country: USA, Release: 2006, Runtime: 136
First with In the Bedroom and now with his haunting, sensual adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel, Todd Field proves himself to be one of the most perceptive and provocative filmmakers on the American scene. The restless adults ...
New York Film Festival Press Conference for:
MAFIOSO
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 15 2006]
Director: Alberto Lattuada, Country: Italy, Release: 1962, Runtime: 99
A long-lost comic classic from the Golden Age of Italian cinema, lovingly restored to its original glory. The incomparable Alberto Sordi gives one of his finest performances as Antonio Badalamenti, a punctilious factory supervisor ...
Press conference for the New York Film Festival film:
WOMAN ON THE BEACH
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 15 2006]
Director: Hong Sang-soo, Country: South Korea, Release: 2006, Runtime: 127
Even for those who already recognize Hong Sang-soo (Tale of Cinema NYFF ’05) as a filmmaker of great psychological sensitivity and refinement, his latest offering comes as an unexpected delight: It is the ...
New York Film Festival 
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