As we’ve mentioned ad nauseum this fall, cinema is different this year and so are film festivals. While the pandemic knocked Cannes, Telluride, and SXSW out of action, festivals with the benefit of more time have worked extremely hard to find a way to pull off a virtual film festival with drive-in screenings. Chief among them and so far, the only major American film festival to pull it off, the New York Film Festival, has done a remarkable job of pulling their festival together, using both virtual screenings, that expand all over North America and not just New York, and drive-in screenings around the five boroughs.
NYFF has a lot of great riches again this year, as per usual, new films by “Widows” filmmaker Steve McQueen, (three of them!), Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang, Sofia Coppola, Spike Lee, Pedro Almodovar, Chloe Zhao, Azazel Jacobs, Jia Zhangke, Frederick Wiseman, and many many more.
The 58th annual New York Film Festival runs September 17 to October 11. Below are 12 highlights and a little bit more that you need to watch at this always-terrific festival. – Rodrigo Perez
“City Hall”
Documentary legend, Frederick Wiseman, brings his latest communal tapestry “City Hall” to the New York fest, turning his questions and camera to the municipal duties and urban policies of the city of Boston. Not unlike his recent works “At Berkeley” and “In Jackson Heights,” Wiseman aims to capture backdoor conversations as well as public interactions, revealing what can both help and hinder civil reform and institutional changes on a society-wide scale, as our country continues to fight for inclusivity and belonging in these distressing times. Taking a top-down approach to presenting the ways in which government establishments form and function, “City Hall” places much of its focus on the necessity of multicultural businesses, shining a light on how immigrant sub-circles can shape and strengthen the commerce and culture of suburban neighborhoods but are often forestalled by a city’s inner-workings. In a year like 2020, when the American Dream is called into question more and more by the day, we’re lucky to have incisive filmmakers like Wiseman constantly willing to raise an eyebrow at the system and take a closer look at how nation-wide politics are being enacted. – Andrew Bundy
“Days”
Few can capture raw human vulnerability with a single camera move better than Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang. The voice behind some of the most singularly heart-wrenching works in the past few decades, Tsai hasn’t made a feature since 2013’s distressing “Stray Dogs,” which, like his latest film, “Days,” stars the filmmaker’s longtime artist muse, Lee Kang-sheng. Playing a kind of dramatized version of himself, as he has in almost all of Tsai’s works, Lee’s character embodies his typical variation on the dejected urban wanderer, now suffering from a chronic ailment in his older age. The movie simultaneously follows a Laotian immigrant who works in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy), the two men finding much-needed intimacy from each other in their time of need. One of the most compelling facet’s of Tsai’s career has been the number of ways in which his own maturation as an artist mirrors that of his leading man/character’s own forlorn but often purifying journey – the closest comparison one can make is probably the role of Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud in François Truffaut’s films, starting with “The 400 Blows.” A slow cinema auteur unlike any other, Tsai’s latest finds the director at his most emotionally bare, bringing his usual brand of queer sensitivity and unreal elegance to the screen. – AB
“French Exit”
If there’s any movie on this list that has the potential to be the fest’s audience-pleasing favorite, it’s the batshit crazy sounding “French Exit.” Starring the ever-radiant Michelle Pfeiffer as eccentric New York matriarch Frances Prince, a haughty elite who would rather flee from her soon-to-be-bankrupt existence by cruise ship (a good way to use up that dwindling expense account) than face the music. Absconding with her testy son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and their perhaps not-so-trustworthy cat (voiced by Tracy Letts) to an abandoned friend’s apartment, the newly fallen aristocrats wrestle over the uncertainty of their future while making strange and surprising new social connections along the way. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Azazel Jacobs and adapted from author Patrick deWitt’s best-selling novel, “French Exit” looks to be an absurd and lively star vehicle for one of Hollywood’s most bedazzling screen performers. – AB
“Small Axe“: “Lovers Rock”/ “Mangrove” / “Red, White and Blue”
Steve McQueen (“Shame,” “12 Years a Slave”) brings three projects to the festival as part of his experimental and ambitious “Small Axe” anthology, the first of which, “Lovers Rock” will kick off the opening of the fest. A group of decade-spanning films focusing on a series of lives in London’s West Indian community. ‘Lovers’ follows a blossoming romance between Martha (Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn) and a mysterious stranger she encounters at a house party. McQueen’s second project, “Mangrove” runs significantly longer, telling the true story of Trinidad-born, Notting Hill café owner, Frank Crichlow, a man unjustly arrested in the 1970s for speaking out against police brutality. The third piece in the anthology, “Red, White and Blue,” is set in the ‘80s, and stars John Boyega as Leroy London, a police officer entrenched in the rampant racism looming over his department, Boyega giving a fierce performance authentically enraged by the actor’s own subjective experiences working under the arm of systemic prejudice. The British filmmaker’s newest undertaking sounds prescient and fascinating; also, given his outspoken distaste for trying his hand at the whole TV-thing, we’re intrigued to see what an artist like McQueen is able to paint on a broader, episodic canvas. – AB