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From Chilling Documentaries to Serious Thrillers
The 47th New York Film Festival selects stunning independent films
Precious, this year’s New York Film Festival centerpiece
The New York Film Festival once again screens the most exciting of this year’s international and domestic independent films alongside an original line-up of repertory. Presented by the Lincoln Center Film Society from September 25 to October 11, the two-week festival includes a global roster of evocative films, compelling special events, and a spotlight on the Avant-Garde. In its forty-seventh year, the NYFF still selects something for every cinema lover.
The Main Slate showcases feature films. Two domestic directorial darlings, Todd Solondz and Harmony Korine, have new features in the fest. Fans of Korean cinema can marvel at the country’s oldest cinematic contribution, Crossroads of Youth (Cheongchun’s Sipjaro). For followers of thrillers, Antichrist from Denmark continues Scandinavian filmmakers’ production of the best in contemporary creep. After a screening of footage from the Rolling Stones in their prime comes a feature from centenarian Manoel de Oliveira, Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (Singularidades de uma rapariga loura). The Main Slate reaches into all arenas of independent film.
At this year’s many special events, learn about filmmaking from the inside. An illustrated panel goes inside the life of Raymond Chandler, the creator of modern noir and writer of The Big Sleep and other masterful private eye tales of treachery and corruption, followed by a screening of The Blue Dahlia. Pedro Almodóvar, Spanish auteur and colorful personality, discusses his personal history of cinema, showing clips of the films that informed his craft. Watch the BBC’s The Red Riding Trilogy, in which three filmmakers (some of Britain’s best with Michael Winterbottom producing) chillingly recreate the murderous tale of the Yorkshire ripper.
And for those seeking cutting-edge, experimental filmmaking, Views from the Avant-Garde screens 60 short films over the course of 11 showcases.
More 2009 NYFF Main Slate Highlights
The Art of the Steal: Don Argott’s domestic documentary explores clashes concerning ownership of art by looking at the history of The Barnes Collection, a trove of masterworks from Picasso, Matisse, and others. The collection’s trustees are trying to increase the public’s access to these assets against the original owner’s wishes.
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire: NYFF chose this, the most talked about domestic picture this season, as the festival’s centerpiece. The story follows an abused urban teen’s struggle to escape her circumstances.
A Room and a Half (Poltory komnaty ili sentimentalnoe puteshestvie na rodinu): Russian director Andrey Khrzhanovsky uses old footage, animation, and traditional filmmaking to create a portrait of Nobel Prize winner Josef Brodsky, a post-Soviet poet.
Sweetgrass: This documentary goes on the trail and into the lives of modern cowboys herding sheep in Montana.
The White Ribbon (Das weiße band): Set in a small German town just before WWI, Michael Haneke’s meditation on an isolated community’s reaction to disturbing events took a Palm d’Or at Cannes this year.
Wild Grass (Les herbes folles): After 50 years of filmmaking, French auteur Alain Resnais gives us his best art house film yet.
The Wizard of Oz: Newly restored for its 70th Anniversary, Victor Fleming’s classic morality tale never betrays its age.