SPIKE JONZE's "HER" WILL CLOSE NYFF 2013

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
51st NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013

Closing Night Gala Selection
World Premiere of Spike Jonze’s

HER
Spike Jonze’s HER, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde and Scarlett Johansson will make its World Premiere as the Closing Night Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13).

Joaquin Phoenix in HER

New York Film Festival 2013

Written and directed by Jonze, HER is set in Los Angeles, in the near future and follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice (Scarlett Johansson), who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other. HER is an original love story that explores the evolving nature—and the risks—of intimacy in the modern world.






A brief note on human-computer conversations
Almost since computers were invented, there have been computer programs that respond in one way or another to user input with output that (dynamically) simulates response from an intelligent creature. 

Similarly, in films, these interactions themselves have been simulated with scripts that portray interaction between humans and computer programs.

Naturally, scripts can portray a more sophisticated interaction than actual programs can (at least for now). (It's easier to write a single scripted dialog for a movie than multiple scripts from which the dialog must be extracted dynamically by a program.)

In movies, the interaction is usually between one person talking and the computer responding vocally. Sometimes the conversation is not just with a voice from a program in a desktop or mainframe computer, but a program embodied in a robot – which is essentially a computer with a physical body. Of course, the interaction is fixed by the script. (Everytime you watch the film, the dialog is the same; as compared with a program for which every time you talk to it the dialog can be different.)

One early and very famous example of human computer dialog in movies is HAL_9000 from Kubrick’s SPACE ODYSSEY 2001 (1968), where HAL was a major villain.

A nice robot who interacted with humans was Number 5 from SHORT CIRCUIT (1986).

STAR WARS of course introduced R2D2 AND C-3PO.


Computer programs can interact with humans dynamically, to create a real-life human-computer dialog that can evolve in real time. It can use either voice input, with voice recognition to convert the speech into words, or just words themselves entered as text. Similarly the computer can respond with text or vocally, by converting its text response to speech.

The most significant current examples of real-life dynamic person-computer voice interaction are SIRI from APPLE and voice recognition programs on ANDROID devices. There is also a voice recognition program available for anyone to use or develop with called DRAGON from a company called NUANCE.

In the real world, a very famous early automated chat program was ELIZA, (specifically an algorithm called “DOCTOR”). The program simply picked a key word in an input sentence and constructed a new sentence from it in a very general way, based on a simple set of rules. But it could still produce an impressive conversation (kind of a parody of a psychiatrist talking with a patient). 

For example, it could respond to “My name is Mary” with “Hello, Mary. My name is ELIZA.” (note that here, the RULE is: REPLACE “My name is NAME” with “Hello, NAME. My name is ELIZA.”) Or it could respond to “My head hurts” with “Do you know why your head hurts?” (RULE: REPLACE “My ‘WORDS’” with "Do you know why your ‘WORDS’?”) Early versions of ELIZA were chat based: that is, text input, text output.

More sophisticated, current AI (Artificial Intelligence) chats can use voice recognition for input, text to speech for voice output, and can use rule-based logic, statistical big-data correlations, and other techniques to create sophisticated computer-human interactions.

TRANSMEDIA projects are more and more using robots, as well as just disembodied voices, to interact with humans in the real world. Giving computer programs a “personality” which becomes part of the way the response is formulated is a developing field.

Artificial Life, or AL is the branch of AI that instantiates some form of “life” along with intelligence as part of the program – for example an intelligent voice or robot is endowed with a unique personality. One of the earliest problems that was acknowledged in early studies of Artificial Life is the question: when does an Artificial Life creation become sufficiently alive that turning off the computer, or stopping a computer program, becomes the “killing” of the AL creation. A similar question, which is at the heart of HER is “what happens when a human and an AL creation develop a relationship?”

Some comments about the film

NYFF’s Director of Programming and Selection Committee Chair, Kent Jones said of HER, “The tone is magical, the freedom of the narrative is breathtaking, Joaquin Phoenix continues to be one of the most adventurous actors in movies, Rooney Mara and Amy Adams are unforgettable, Scarlett Johansson’s voice will break your heart, and so will this impossibly delicate, funny, daring movie.”

Rooney Mara in 2009.

Rooney plays Catherine in HER.

Photo by Eric Roffman

Spike Jonze said, “I’m very excited that it’s a premiere in the city. The New York Film Festival is where we premiered our first movie and that’s really special. It was our first U.S. premiere of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and we had all our friends there and it feels so nice to come back to NYFF.”

Rose Kuo, the Executive Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, said, "In dealing with tragi-comic puppeteers, renegade orchid growers, an island of wild things, or a man's unique love affair, visionary film-maker Spike Jonze has shown himself to be the poet-laureate of our increasingly post-human world. Jonze’s extraordinary new film, HER, features Joaquin Phoenix who delivers an unforgettable, emotionally nuanced performance."

FilmLinc Daily Managing Editor Brian Brooks spoke with Jonze about HER, looking ahead to the debut of the film. That interview can be found at

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2013/blog/interview-spike-jonze-her-joaquin-phoenix-scarlett-johansson-nyff

 TICKETS

General Public tickets will be available September 8th. Subscription Packages and VIP Passes for the New York Film Festival are on sale now. There also will be an opportunity for Members to purchase single screening tickets in advance of the General Public. For more information about becoming a Film Society Member visit 

Filmlinc.com/support/home

More ticket information for the New York Film Festival will be available on 

Filmlinc.com/NYFF

CREDITS

Written and directed by Spike Jonze,

HER stars
> Joaquin Phoenix (“The Master,” “Walk the Line”),
> Amy Adams (“The Master,” “Doubt”),
> Rooney Mara (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”),
> Olivia Wilde ("Tron", "House", the upcoming “Rush”) and
> Scarlett Johansson (“Lost in Translation”).

It is produced by Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay. Daniel Lupi, Natalie Farrey and Chelsea Barnard serve as executive producers.

The film reunites many of Jonze’s longtime creative collaborators, including production designer KK Barrett, editor Eric Zumbrunnen and costume designer Casey Storm, who worked together on “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Adaptation.” and “Being John Malkovich.” Joining them is director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) and editor Jeff Buchanan (HBO’s “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak,” which Jonze co-directed). The music is composed by Arcade Fire.

HER is a Warner Bros. Pictures presentation of an Annapurna Pictures Production. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

LINKS - CREDITS

HER - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/

SPIKE JONZE - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005069/

SPIKE JONZE - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Jonze

JOAQUIN PHOENIX - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001618/

SCARLETT JOHANNSON - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0424060/

OLIVIA WILDE - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1312575/

AMY ADAMS - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0010736/

ROONEY MARA - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1913734/

LINKS ABOUT CHATBOTS AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE

ARTIFICIAL LIFE - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

CHATTERBOTS AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chatterbots#Chatterbots

ATTITUDES TOWARD INTELLIGENT SERVICE ROBOTS
ftp://ftp.nada.kth.se/pub/documents/IPLab/TechReports/IPLab-154.pdf

SIRI - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri

ELIZA - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA 

DRAGON VOICE RECOGNITION - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking

HAL - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000

2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29

SHORT CIRCUIT (IMDB)(1986) - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/

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TOM HANKS STARS ON OPENING NIGHT AT THE 2013 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
51st NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013
 

Opening Night Gala selection:
 World Premiere of Paul Greengrass’s

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
starring Tom Hanks 

A SCENE FROM CAPTAIN PHILLIPSOpening Night NYFF 2013IMAGE #3 COURTESY  NYFF

Paul Greengrass’s CAPTAIN PHILLIPS will make its World Premiere as the Opening Night Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13).

TOM HANKS DETAIL FROM A SCENE (IMAGE #3)CAPTAIN PHILLIPSOpening Night NYFF 2013  IMAGE #3 COURTESY  NYFF
Starring two-time Academy Award® winner and 2009 Film Society Chaplin Award honoree Tom Hanks in the title role, the film is Academy Award®-nominated director Paul Greengrass’s multi-layered examination of the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama by a crew of Somali pirates.

NYFF’s Director of Programming and Selection Committee Chair, Kent Jones said, “Paul Greengrass has become a master of immersive reality-based narratives set along geopolitical fault lines – in this case, the 2009 seizure of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship by four Somali pirates. I’m excited that this tough, tense, real-life thriller, capped by the remarkable performances of Tom Hanks and four brilliant first-time Somali actors (Barkhad Abdi, Faysal Ahmed, Barkhad Abdirahman and Mahat M. Ali), is opening the 51^st edition of the festival.”

THE HIJACKERS

AS PORTRAYED IN A SCENE FROMCAPTAIN PHILLIPSOpening Night NYFF 2013  IMAGE #2 COURTESY  NYFF

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is—through Greengrass’s distinctive lens—simultaneously a pulse-pounding thriller and a complex portrait of the myriad effects of globalization.  The film focuses on the relationship between the Alabama’s commanding officer, Captain Richard Phillips (two-time Academy Award® winner Tom Hanks), and his Somali counterpart, Muse (Barkhad Abdi).  Set on an incontrovertible collision course off the coast of Somalia, both men will find themselves paying the human toll for economic forces outside of their control.  

From a screenplay by Billy Ray, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is based upon the book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty. The film is produced by Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, and Michael De Luca. The Sony Pictures release is due in theaters October 11.

Note: See below at the end of this story (after a list of NYFF Opening Night films) for links to more information about Tom Hanks, the Director Paul Greengrass, the film, the story of the hijacking, and Captain Richard Phillips!

The screening will mark Greengrass’s return to NYFF following his film BLOODY SUNDAY in 2002.
 
FilmLinc Daily Managing Editor Brian Brooks spoke with Greengrass about CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, the film’s selection for NYFF’s Opening Night Gala and looking ahead to the debut of the film. That interview can be found at www.Filmlinc.com


General Public tickets will be available September 8th.

Subscription Packages and VIP Passes for the New York Film Festival are on sale now to Film Society Members. There also will be an opportunity for Members to purchase single screening tickets in advance of the General Public.

For more information about becoming a Film Society Member visit 

www.Filmlinc.com/support/home

More ticket information for the New York Film Festival will be available mid-August on

www.Filmlinc.com/NYFF

New York Film Festival Opening Night Films

The Opening Night Films have come mostly from the US, next most often from France, and have been productions or co-productions from 12 other countries:

US - 18

France -  15

USSR / Soviet Union - 3

UK - 3

Italy - 3

Czechoslovakia - 2

Spain - 2

Poland - 2
Japan, China, Mexico, West Germany, Denmark, Algeria - 1

Truffaut had three Opening Night films.  Almodovar, Altman, Ang Lee and Greengrass have each had two.

Here's the list:

1963    The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)
1964    Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, USSR)
1965    Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1966    Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1967    The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1968    Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1969    Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, US)
1970    The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France)
1971    The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union)
1972    Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France)
1973    Day for Night (François Truffaut, France)
1974    Don't Cry With Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France)
1975    Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy)
1976    Small Change (François Truffaut, France)
1977    One Sings, The Other Doesn't (Agnès Varda, France)
1978    A Wedding (Robert Altman, US)
1979    Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US)
1980    Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US)
1981    Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK)
1982    Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1983    The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US)
1984    Country (Richard Pearce, US)
1985    Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1986    Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, US)
1987    Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union)
1988    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1989    Too Beautiful For You (Bertrand Blier, France)
1990    Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen, US)
1991    The Double Life of Veronique (Krysztof Kieslowski, Poland/France)
1992    Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1993    Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US)
1994    Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US)
1995    Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1996    Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK)
1997    The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US)
1998    Celebrity (Woody Allen, US)
1999    All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
2000    Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
2001    Va Savoir (Jacques Rivette, France)
2002    About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US)
2003    Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US)
2004    Look At Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2005    Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, US)
2006    The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)
2007    The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US)
2008    The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2009    Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2010    The Social Network (David Fincher, US)
2011    Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)
2012    Life of Pi (Ang Lee, US)

LINKS

TOM HANKS - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000158/

TOM HANKS - WIKIPEDIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hanks

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Phillips

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535109/

PAUL GREENGRASS - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0339030/

PAUL GREENGRASS - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Greengrass

MAERSK ALABAMA HIJACKING - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Alabama_hijacking

BOOK: A CAPTAIN'S DUTY: SOMALI PIRATES, NAVY SEALS, AND DANGEROUS DAYS AT SEA - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Captain%27s_Duty

 AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

BOOK: 

A CAPTAIN'S DUTY: SOMALI PIRATES, 

NAVY SEALS, AND DANGEROUS DAYS AT SEA

 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS - PREVIEW  (DVD NOT YET AVAILABLE)


 TOM HANKS


THE TERMINAL - TOM HANKS(Does this film suggest Edward Snowden's current residence?)

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FRANCES HA

Frances Ha, starring Greta Gerwig, directed by Noah Baumbach, and written by both of them together, was one of the highlights of the 50th New York Film Festival in September 2012.

It's a delightful madcap diary of Frances, a charming young woman who is not quite anything she tries to be, but who is charming all the same.  It's a picture of Generation-C (Confused).

I was surprised the film did not appear in theaters anytime soon after its screening at the Festival, but it seems to be that the filmmakers were going after some big time publicity for a "little" indie film. And they got some: In the last month or so the film has received

• A great profile story -- in the New Yorker; 
• A story with a breakdown of the work that went into creating Scene 42 -- in The New York Times; 
• And a cover story -- in Filmmaker magazine.

NEW YORKER -- April 29, 2013
"Happiness" Profile by Ian Parker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/04/29/130429fa_fact_parker

(Trivia note from IMDB: Noah "Briefly worked as a messenger at Manhattan's The New Yorker magazine.")


THE NEW YORK TIMES -- May 9, 2013
"One Scene, 42 Takes and 2 Hours in a Bathroom Stall" -- A "Take Journal" by Greta Gerwig
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/magazine/one-scene-42-takes-and-2-hours-in-a-bathroom-stall.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

SCENE 42 clip:
http://vimeo.com/65738337 - Scene 42: BRUNCH FRIEND 


FILMMAKER MAGAZINE - Spring 2013 vol 21 #3 p 28
"Funny Girl"


VIMEO VIDEO CLIPS

http://vimeo.com/65738337 - Scene 42: BRUNCH FRIEND  
http://vimeo.com/63613887 - PATCH
http://vimeo.com/63613736 - DO I LOOK OLD
http://vimeo.com/63427679 - OFFICIAL TRAILER



The film, with an unsympathetic/sympathetic main character, has an original, non-Hollywood-formula style construction, and a casual, almost improvised feel to it. But, as described in the article above from the NYT, the film actually was carefully scripted, and painstakingly shot, with a 50 day schedule (almost twice as long as most indie films) and an average of 45 takes per scene (more than twice the norm).

Despite Frances' travails and floundering, the film has an irrepressible humor and sense of joy.

Greta Gerwig Noah Baumbach and Mickey Sumner
On the Red Carpet for FRANCES HA
50th NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013
Photo by Eric Roffman
SOME PEOPLE NOTES:

Noah Baumbach is 43, was married to Jennifer Jason Leigh, and is now reportedly in a relationship, personal as well as professional, with Greta Gerwig.

His directing history includes

2010 Greenberg
2007 Margot at the Wedding
2005 The Squid and the Whale
1995 Kicking and Screaming 


Greta Gerwig is 29, a tall 5'9", and known for her original personality and style, her work with "Mumblecore" films and for films including...

2012 To Rome with Love
2011 Damsels in Distress
2011/I No Strings Attached
2010 Northern Comfort
2010 Art House
2010 Greenberg

More cast notes:

Mickey Sumner plays Sophie, Frances' close friend; she played Francesca on a series of episodes of The Borgias. 

Adam Driver had roles (not that different) in both Frances Ha and Girls. He was a "Breakthrough Performer" at last year's Hamptons International Film Festival.

Name drop alert: Grace Gummer, who plays Rachel, is Meryl Streep's daughter; Mickey Sumner is the daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler; and Christine Gerwig, who plays Frances' mom is Greta's mom.

FRANCES HA - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2347569/

I rather like the tagline on IMDB:

Frances Ha: A story that follows a New York woman (who doesn't really have an apartment), apprentices for a dance company (though she's not really a dancer), and throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. 



NOAH BAUMBACH - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000876/

NOAH BAUMBACH - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Baumbach


GRETA GERWIG - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1950086/

GRETA GERWIG - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Gerwig


MICKEY SUMNER - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2316017/

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NYFF-51 2013 SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN

 Film Society of Lincoln Center

 51^st NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013

September 27-October 13

SUBMISSIONS

 

The Film Society of Lincoln Center (aka FSLC or FilmLinc)  is accepting submissions for the 51^st New York Film Festival (NYFF). The festival will take place September 27-October 13, 2013.



The festival hosts an average of 28 feature films in the main slate and 16 short films selected each year. 

Rounding out the festival each year are 

• Documentaries, 
• Special Event screenings and 
• Views from the Avant-Garde, which premieres non-narrative, experimental film and video.

 Selections are made by a five-person selection committee chaired by 

• Kent Jones. Director of Programming for the New York Film Festival; with
• Dennis Lim, Director of Programming, Cinematheque; 
• Gavin Smith/Editor of Film Comment and Senior Programmer; 
• Marian Masone, Associate Director of Programming and 
• Amy Taubin, Contributor: Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Artforum.

 

Founded in 1963, as auteur theory and European cinematic modernism were crashing on to the shores of American film culture, the New York Film Festival stands as the second-oldest film festival in North America, and one of the oldest in the world. 

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has been a pioneer for discovering and introducing American audiences to critically-acclaimed works by François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, and more during New York’s brightest and boldest annual cinematic showcase. 

For its 51^st New York Film Festival, filmmakers are invited to submit their shorts, feature films, and Views from the Avant-Garde films for 

early submission until May 27, 
regular submission by June 24 and 
late submission by July 13. 

For detailed information, fees and rules, please see: 

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2013/pages/submissions2013.

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LIFE OF PI

Ang Lee's LIFE OF PI, which was the Opening Night selection for the 50th Anniversary New York Film Festival (NYFF 50) contains a great action/fantasy philosophical film, the story of a young man and a tiger adrift at sea alone, together on a lifeboat.

LIFE OF PIOPENING NIGHT
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2012

For the story of the boy and the tiger, this film is entertaining... indeed, amazing and worth seeing.


As a film, however, there is a problem...Ang Lee puts LIFE OF PI's central story, this great action/fantasy philosophical film, inside a frame that diminishes the brilliance of the conceit by saying too much and saying it unconvincingly.

The frame sets the story in a spiritual patina that does not ring true either as philosophy or as character, then goes on to further weaken the story by undermining the suspension of disbelief that gives every story its essential truth, without replacing it with a higher truth. (The spirituality may work well and be an essential part of the best-selling book LIFE OF PI, by Yann Martel, from which the film derives, but it does not, IMHO, work in this film as it was done.)

Alas! That's too bad. Because the inside, the story of the tiger and the man on the boat, is brilliantly conceived, brilliantly told, and brilliantly executed.

The film is beautifully shot in a "gentle" 3D that enhances the image without calling attention to itself.  It simply makes everything seem just a little more real.

The Indian actor (Suraj Sharma, in his only film role) who plays Pi (the name is explained near the beginning of the film)  is terrific.  The (real!) tigers that play The Tiger are terrific (as are the digital effects that also contribute to The Tiger). The story of how the film was put together would be a great addition to the Blu-Ray disc or the Official Website.

Ang Lee
Director LIFE OF PI
Talking with the press
On the plaza outside Walter Reade Theater
At Lincoln Center
Photo By Eric Roffman
Ang Lee, the director has had quite an interesting career.  His films range from Crouching Tiger  Hidden Dragon, to Brokeback Mountain (for which he won the Oscar for Best Director), to Sense and Sensibility.  Eat Drink Man Woman was perhaps the first film that brought him to the attention of the American critics.

He was born in Taiwan about 58 years ago and went to college there, and then studied theater and film at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NYU.

This is a film I can highly recommend! Just (don't take the beginning too seriously,  ignore the end, and) enjoy the middle! 

LINKS

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
www.filmlinc.com

LIFE OF PI - OFFICIAL FILM SITE
http://www.lifeofpimovie.com/

LIFE OF PI - THE FILM - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi_(film)

LIFE OF PI - THE BOOK - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi

ANG LEE - WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang_Lee

ANG LEE - IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000487

ANG LEE ON AMAZON

 



AND MORE...

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2012 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL -- NYFF50!

 
THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

2012 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

NYFF 50

September 28-October 14

MAIN SLATE

The main slate of selections for the 50th New York Film Festival (September 28-October 14) comprises 32 feature films, including films by such notable directors as Olivier Assayas, Noah Baumbach, Leos Carax, Brian De Palma, Michael Haneke, Abbas Kiarostami, Ang Lee, Cristian Mungiu, Sally Potter, Alain Resnais, Raul Ruiz and Robert Zemeckis.

The festival will open with Ang Lee's LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PIOPENING NIGHT
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2012
and close with Zemeckis' FLIGHT starring Denzel Washington.

FLIGHT
CLOSING NIGHT
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2012

The selections include major award winners at major prize-awarding festivals (NYFF itself does not award prizes... other than being accepted), films by important new directors and major returning directors, and films of many styles, from straight-forward narrative, to absurdist, surrealist cinema.  The oldest filmmaker is 90 year old Alain Renais, who challenges with YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET.  Renais is a returning filmmaker: his film MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN screened at the very first New York Film Festival! 

A quartet of World Premieres among the main slate lineup include Alan Berliner’s unflinching essay on the fragility of being human, FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED, joining the Opening Night, Centerpiece and Closing Night Gala trio of Ang Lee’s LIFE OF PI, (Opening Night), David Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY (Centerpiece) and Robert Zemeckis’s FLIGHT (Closing Night).

Films that have won awards earlier this year at major festivals and are coming to NY for the first time include: 

• The universally acclaimed winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, AMOUR, Michael Haneke’s portrait of a couple dealing with the ravages of old age, with Haneke returning to NYFF following the presentation of THE WHITE RIBBON in 2009; 
• Christian Petzold’s Cold War thriller, BARBARA, a winner of the SIlver Bear for Best Director at this year’s Berlin Film Festival; 
• Cristian Mungiu’s BEYOND THE HILLS, a portrait of dogma at odds with personal liberty in a society still emerging from the shadow of Communism, featuring screen newcomers Flutur and Stratan who shared the Best Actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Mungiu also received the Best Screenplay award. The presentation will also mark a return to the film festival by Mungiu (4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, NYFF 2007).
• Two debut features include Antonio Mendez Esparza’s film about the US/Mexican border experience, HERE AND THERE, the winner of the Grand Prize at this year’s Critics Week in Cannes, and Song Fang’s film about a woman that travels from Beijing to Nanjing for a visit with her family, MEMORIES LOOK AT ME, the winner of the Best First Feature prize at this year’s Locarno Film Festival. 
• Pablo Larrain’s engrossing political thriller NO, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, was the winner of the top prize in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, and 
• Miguel Gomes’s surrealist drama TABU was the winner of the Alfred Bauer Prize (for a work of particular innovation) and FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

Additional returning NYFF filmmakers are; João Pedro Rodrigues (TO DIE LIKE A MAN, NYFF 2009) with THE LAST TIME I SAW MACAO; Olivier Assayas (CARLOS, NYFF 2010), with SOMETHING IN THE AIR; Lucien Castaing-Taylor (SWEETGRASS, NYFF 2009) and Véréna Paravel (FOREIGN PARTS, NYFF 2010), with LEVIATHAN; Abbas Kiarostami (CERTIFIED COPY, NYFF 2010), with LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE; and -- as mentioned -- the 90-year-old Alain Resnais, whose MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN screened at the very first New York Film Festival, returns with YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET.

AMOUR
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2012

Founded in 1963, the New York Film Festival is North America’s second oldest film festival, launching just as the auteur theory and European cinematic modernism were crashing upon the shores of American film culture. 50 years later, NYFF continues to introduce audiences to the most exciting, innovative and accomplished works of world cinema.

Additional special events, sidebars, panels and first–time programs will be announced in subsequent weeks as well as additional programming to complement the main-slate of films, including NYFF’s Masterworks programs and Views from the Avant-Garde, which will include additional works by Main Slate filmmakers João Pedro Rodrigues and Raul Ruiz.

The 50th New York Film Festival main-slate:

Opening Night Gala Selection

LIFE OF PI

Director: Ang Lee

Centerpiece Gala Selection

NOT FADE AWAY

Director: David Chase

Closing Night Gala Selection

FLIGHT

Director: Robert Zemeckis

AMOUR

Director: Michael Haneke

ARAF – SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

Director: Yeşim Ustaoğlu

BARBARA

Director: Christian Petzold

BEYOND THE HILLS (După dealuri)

Director: Cristian Mungiu

BWAKAW

Director: Jun Robles Lana

CAESAR MUST DIE (Cesare deve morire)

Directors: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

CAMILLE REWINDS (Camille redouble)

Director: Noémie Lvovsky

THE DEAD MAN AND BEING HAPPY (El muerto y ser feliz)

Director: Javier Rebello

FILL THE VOID (Lemale et ha'halal)

Director: Rama Burshtein

FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED

Director: Alan Berliner

FRANCES HA

Director: Noah Baumbach

THE GATEKEEPERS (Shomerei Ha’saf)

Director: Dror Moreh

GINGER AND ROSA

Director: Sally Potter

HERE AND THERE (Aquí y Allá)

Director: Antonio Mendez Esparza

HOLY MOTORS

Director: Leos Carax

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON

Director: Roger Michell

KINSHASA KIDS

Director: Marc-Henri Wajnberg

THE LAST TIME I SAW MACAO (A Última Vez Que Vi Macau)

Director: João Pedro Rodrigues

LEVIATHAN

Directors: Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

LINES OF WELLINGTON (Linhas de Wellington)

Director: Valeria Sarmiento

MEMORIES LOOK AT ME (Ji Yi Wang Zhe Wo)

Director: Song Fang

NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET (La Noche de enfrente)

Director: Raul Ruiz

NO

Director: Pablo Larrain

OUR CHILDREN (À perdre la raison)

Director: Joachim Lafosse

PASSION

Director: Brian De Palma

SOMETHING IN THE AIR (Après Mai)

Director: Olivier Assayas

TABU

Director: Miguel Gomes

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET (Vous n'avez encore rien vu)

Director: Alain Resnais

The selection committee, chaired by Peña also includes: Melissa Anderson, Contributor, Village Voice; Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center; Todd McCarthy, Chief Film Critic, The Hollywood Reporter; and Amy Taubin, Contributing Editor, Film Comment and Sight and Sound.

General Public tickets will be available September 9th. There will be an advance ticketing opportunity for Film Society of Lincoln Center Patrons and Members prior to that date. For more information visit www.Filmlinc.com/NYFF or call 212 875 5601.

50TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

Films & Descriptions

AMOUR (2012) 127min

Director: Michael Haneke

Country: Austria/France/Germany

The universally acclaimed winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, AMOUR is arguably Michael Haneke’s crowning achievement to date, a portrait of a couple dealing with the ravages of old age that is as compassionate as it is merciless. The great veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are staggering as Georges and Anne, long-married music teachers living out their final years surrounded by the comforts of books and music in their warm Paris apartment. After Anne suffers a stroke, Georges attends to her with firmness shot through with love. The underlying unease, as well as some abrupt surprises, are hardly unexpected from Haneke, who challenges the viewer to confront the experience of his characters as directly as he does. But he rewards the effort with a film that is all the more moving for its complete avoidance of sentimentality. An unquestionable masterpiece. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

ARAF – SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN (2012) 124min

Director: Yeşim Ustaoğlu

Country: Turkey/France/Germany

The title refers as much to the film’s main location—a tiny Turkish town comprised of no more than a few houses and a large motorway rest stop where the locals work impossibly long hours—as it does to adolescence, the way station where the child transforms into an adult. What seems at first like a piece of low-key realism comes into dramatic focus when an adolescent girl begins an obsessive sexual relationship with a middle-aged trucker, fueling the fury of the teen-aged boy who hoped to marry her. Yesim Ustaoglu, whose debut feature JOURNEY TO THE SUN is one of the treasures of the New Turkish cinema, is not only a visual poet of her country’s harshly beautiful landscapes; she also depicts with great empathy and uncompromising honesty the heart’s desires and the body’s needs.

BARBARA (2012) 105min

Director: Christian Petzold

Country: Germany

Set in 1980, Christian Petzold’s latest masterfully controlled, absorbing work centers around a doctor—played by the incomparable Nina Hoss, in her fifth film with the director—exiled to a small town from East Berlin as punishment for applying for an exit visa from the GDR. Planning to flee for Denmark with her boyfriend, Barbara remains icy and withdrawn around her colleagues, particularly with the lead physician (the excellent Ronald Zehrfeld), who is hiding a secret of his own. With her patients, however, the guarded doctor is kind, warm, and protective, even risking her own safety for one of her charges. This subtle, perfectly calibrated Cold War thriller expertly details the costs of telling and withholding the truth. Winner of the SIlver Bear for Best Director at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. An Adopt Films Release.

BEYOND THE HILLS (După dealuri) (2012) 150min

Director: Cristian Mungiu

Country: Romania

This harrowing, visually stunning new film from director Cristian Mungiu (4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS) unfolds in and around a remote monastery where pious young women toil dutifully under the ever-watchful eye of an austere priest known as Papa (the excellent Valeriu Andriuta). As the film opens, Alina (Cristina Flutur) arrives to visit her friend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), one of the nuns in training. As children, the two women lived together in an orphanage where the tough, short-tempered Alina served as a protector for her more delicate friend. Now, Alina wants Voichita to leave her cloistered life and return with her to Germany, but as the fateful hour draws near, Voichita seems disinclined to go, and so Alina stays on for a while, which is when the real trouble begins. Inspired by a case of alleged demonic possession that occurred in Romania’s Moldova region in 2005, BEYOND THE HILLS is not a supernatural film but rather an all too believable portrait of dogma at odds with personal liberty in a society still emerging from the shadow of Communism. For their remarkable lead performances, screen newcomers Flutur and Stratan shared the Best Actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Mungiu also received the Best Screenplay award. A Sundance Selects release.

BWAKAW (2012) 110min

Director: Jun Robles Lana

Country: Philippines

BWAKAW is the film you hope for at any festival, a work by an unknown director that comes out of nowhere to captivate and enthrall with its emotional truth, high humor and sage assessment of the human condition. Filipino cinema great Eddie Garcia gives a career-capping performance as Rene, a 70-plus single gent in a quiet provincial town who, having alienated almost everyone with his caustic comments, is resigned to seeing out his days alone, save for the company of his loyal canine companion (whose name gives the movie its title). Rene has his secrets but is disinclined to share them until he befriends a brawny tricycle taxi driver. Employing frequent outrageous humor, director Jun Robles Lana elegantly captures the quality of everyday life in this backwater while crafting a superior character study of a man who has allowed most of life to pass him by until an emotional jolt emboldens him to go where he's never dared venture before.

CAESAR MUST DIE (Cesare deve morire) (2012) 76min

Directors: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Country: Italy

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre Padrone, The Night of the Shooting Stars) triumphantly reasserted their eminence among modern Italian directors by winning the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival with CAESAR MUST DIE. The sight of inmates putting on a play in prison is not entirely new, but beginning with the brilliant opening scenes of convicts with wildly differing accents and backgrounds auditioning for the immortal roles of Brutus, Anthony, Cassius and, most impressively and menacingly, the title character in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, this approach resonates in ways that both Pirandello and Brecht would have appreciated. The play’s director must not only help guide these amateurs in their performances, but is also forced to police real-life rivalries and rages that threaten to derail the production before it can ever be seen. Vital, provocative and entirely engaging, CAESAR marks a wonderful late-career triumph for this still-formidable brother act. An Adopt Films release.

CAMILLE REWINDS (Camille redouble) (2012) 110min

Director: Noémie Lvovsky

Country: France

Noémie Lvovsky’s ebullient twist on the comedy of remarriage transposes Frances Ford Coppola’s PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED to present day France, which means that when the titular Camille—who’s in the throes of divorcing her husband of 25 years—passes out drunk, she wakes up as a high school senior in the mid-1980s (leg warmers, “Walking on Sunshine” on the turntable, and no cell phones in sight.) Lvovsky is hilarious and touchingly vulnerable as Camille. Hard as she tries to avoid the classmate (Samir Guesmi) who she knows will become her first love, her husband, and the father of her daughter, and who will ditch her after she turns 40, she nevertheless winds up in his arms. Her double take, just before their lips meet for a first kiss the second time around, is indescribably delicious. In the tiny role of a watchmaker who may have set Camille’s time travel in motion, New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud is perfect.

THE DEAD MAN AND BEING HAPPY (El muerto y ser feliz) (2012) 94min

Director: Javier Rebello

Country: Spain/Argentina

For his third feature, the gifted Spanish director Javier Rebollo (WOMAN WITHOUT PIANO) has decamped to Argentina and created a literate, screwball road movie that Borges surely would have loved. The “dead man” of the title is Santos (veteran Spanish screen star José Sacristán), a cancer-stricken hired killer who flees his Buenos Aires hospital bed and sets off on one last assignment. It is a journey that takes him through an interior Argentina rarely glimpsed in movies, from the Cordoba resort town of La Cumbrecita (with its disproportionate—and disconcerting—population of elderly Germans) to the northern province of Santiago del Estero. Along the way, Santos finds himself joined by Alejandra (the wonderful Roxana Blanco), an attractive middle-aged woman who impulsively jumps into his vintage Ford Falcon at a gas station and soon thwarts him from his intended path. At one point, our curious couple stops off at a decrepit beach town described by one of the film’s dueling voice-over narrators as “a strange mix of paradise and apocalypse”—which, as it happens, also perfectly sums up Rebollo’s playful and unexpectedly moving reverie on love, death and the open highway.

FILL THE VOID (Lemale et ha'halal) (2012) 90min

Director: Rama Burshtein

Country: Israel

With her first dramatic feature, writer-director Rama Burshtein has created a work that is very likely unprecedented: a woman's view of Tel Aviv's ultra-orthodox Hasidic community from the inside. Typically, a story about a devout 18-year-old Israeli being pressured to marry the husband of her late sister, would include the option of the woman declaring her independence in the modern fashion. Such a choice is not even on the table in this cloistered, intimately rendered world where religious law, tradition and the rabbis' word are absolute. A graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem and Hassidic herself, Burshtein startlingly brings to life a world known to few in this provocative, undeniably talented debut from a most unlikely source.

WORLD PREMIERE

FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED (2012) 78min

Director: Alan Berliner

Country: USA

Sometime in the new millennium, Edwin Honig—the distinguished poet, translator, critic and university professor—began showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease, which gradually but inexorably brought on the loss of his memory, command of language and relation to the past. Filmmaker Alan Berliner—for whom Honig was a cousin, a friend and a mentor—documented their meetings over five years; his new film chronicles the steady decline of Honig’s mind and body, but also the strength and stamina of his spirit, as well as his innate charm and wonderfully playful way with words and sounds. Occasional moments of lucidity offer an insight as to the ways in which Honig attempts to make sense out of what is happening to him. FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED is an unflinching essay on the fragility of being human, and a stark reminder of the profound role that memory plays in all of our lives. An HBO Documentary Films release.

WORLD PREMIERE

FLIGHT (2012) 138min

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Country: USA

Triumphantly returning to live-action filmmaking for the first time since Cast Away 12 years ago, Robert Zemeckis teams with Denzel Washington on the tense and edgy thriller FLIGHT. In a brilliant, heart-stopping sequence, pilot Whip Whitacker (Washington), after an all-nighter of booze, sex and drugs, boldly guides a crippled airliner to a crash landing that nearly all the passengers survive. Although he is acclaimed as a hero, the legal, moral and ethical aspects of Whip’s behavior before and after the accident are much more ambiguous than initially meet the public eye. A study of addiction far more complex than the norm, FLIGHT is a compelling drama anchored by a great performance from one of our most distinguished actors. John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo and Kelly Reilly offer vibrant supporting turns in what is certain to be one of the most talked-about movies of the season. A Paramount Pictures release.

FRANCES HA (2012) 86min

Director: Noah Baumbach

Country: USA

Reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard’s celebration of the mystery and vulnerability of his muse Anna Karina in BANDE Á PART, Noah Baumbach’s love poem to Greta Gerwig is an effervescent, seeming effortless comedy about a young woman taking the first shaky, post-Ivy League steps in what will become her real life. Gerwig, who also co-wrote the script, proves herself far more articulate and funny than any of her former Mumblecore colleagues. Her Frances arrives in New York determined to become a post-modern dancer despite the fact that she’s constantly falling over her feet or putting one of them in her mouth. The movie is lightning-in-a-bottle–deft, sophisticated, and, in its myriad shades of digital gray, radiantly beautiful in a brand new way.

THE GATEKEEPERS (Shomerei Ha’saf) (2012) 90min

Director: Dror Moreh

Country: Israel

Since its stunning military victory in 1967, Israel has hoped to transform its battlefield success into the basis for long-lasting peace. Simply put, this hasn’t happened: 45 years later, violence continues unabated while the mistrust between both sides increases daily. In what can only be called an historic achievement, filmmaker Dror Moreh has brought together six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s Secret Service, who reflect on their successes and failures to maintain security while responding to the shifting politics and imperatives of the “peace process.” Each man weighs in on topics ranging from preemptive strikes to confronting terrorists both Palestinian and Israeli; their thoughts and responses are candid, well-informed and rarely short of remarkable. An insider’s guide—and what insiders!—to five decades of Israeli history, THE GATEKEEPERS will surely be one of the most widely and hotly discussed films of the year.

A Sony Pictures Classics release.

GINGER AND ROSA (2012) 89min

Director: Sally Potter

Country: UK

In 1962 London, two teenage girls, best friends since they were toddlers, are driven apart by a scandalous betrayal. Making her NYFF debut, writer-director Sally Potter (ORLANDO, ND/NF 1993) has crafted an intimate, riveting coming-of-age story—one made all the more powerful by a revelatory performance by Elle Fanning as the bright, anxious Ginger, increasingly affected by both the misery of her parents (deftly played by Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks) and the era’s all-too-real fears of nuclear destruction. As her private dramas unfold against the backdrop of broader historical terrors, Ginger proves to be one of cinema’s most fascinating and formidable young heroines. Talented newcomer Alice Englert, the daughter of filmmaker Jane Campion, makes her impressive feature film debut as the troubled Rosa.

HERE AND THERE (Aquí y Allá) (2012) 110min

Director: Antonio Mendez Esparza

Country: Spain/USA/Mexico

Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the U.S. His daughters feel more distant that he imagined, but his wife Teresa is delighted he’s back. With the money he’s earned he can create a better life for his family, and maybe even start the band with his cousins he’s dreamed about for years. But work back home remains scarce, and the temptation of heading back north of the border remains as strong as ever. Antonio Mendez Esparza has made a most remarkable debut; rarely, if ever, has a film about US/Mexican border experience felt so fresh or authentic. Using non-professionals, Mendez Esparza gets remarkably nuanced performances that gives a richness of nuance and detail to each of his characters that goes way beyond cliché and stereotype. Winner of the Grand Prize at this year’s Critics Week in Cannes.

HOLY MOTORS (2012) 115min

Director: Leos Carax

Country: France

This unclassifiable, expansive movie from Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge)—his first feature in 13 years—operates on the exhilarating logic of dreams and emotions. After a prologue in which Carax himself, clad in pajamas, walks through a corridor that leads to a theater full of silent spectators, HOLY MOTORS segues to actor Denis Lavant, Carax’s longtime collaborator, playing a mysterious man named Oscar who inhabits 11 different characters over the course of a single day. This shape-shifter is shuttled from appointment to appointment in Paris in a white-stretch limo driven by the soignée Edith Scob (EYES WITHOUT A FACE); not on the itinerary is an unplanned reunion with Kylie Minogue. To summarize the film any further would be to take away some of its magic; the most accurate précis comes from its own creator, who aptly described HOLY MOTORS after its world premiere in Cannes as “a film about a man and the experience of being alive.” An Indomina release.

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON (2012) 95min

Director: Roger Michell

Country: UK

Bill Murray provides a career-topping performance as President Franklin D. Roosevelt in this captivating, winningly acted comedy-drama that pulls back the curtain on the complicated domestic arrangements at FDR’s beautiful New York country estate. Told from the perspective of Roosevelt's little-known sixth cousin Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (Laura Linney), a member of the president's intimate inner circle of women, HYDE PARK ON HUDSON revolves around the royal visit of King George VI (yes, him again!) to the United States on the eve of World War II. In a film both buoyantly comic and inescapably serious, screenwriter Richard Nelson and director Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL, VENUS) subtly examine the tricky dynamics of the chief executive's relationships with his wife, mother and devoted female staff while also taking stock of his ego, shrewd manipulations and consummate ability to win people's favor and confidence—most notably in the case of the insecure young king. It's an entrancing peek at a time when the personal secrets of our leaders were well and truly kept. A Focus Features release.

KINSHASA KIDS (2012) 85min

Director: Marc-Henri Wajnberg

Country: Belgium/France

Perhaps the most ebullient “musical” you’ll see this year, Marc-Henri Wajnberg’s singular documentary/fiction hybrid follows a group of street kids—kicked out of their homes for being “witch children”—in the titular Congolese capital. These ever-resourceful youngsters decide to form a band and team up with Bebson, an eccentric impresario and one-time recording star; he’s just one of many unforgettable adults who, whether as informal instructors, fellow musicians, or menacing pursuers, impact the lives of these indefatigable tykes. Completely devoid of sentimentality and condescension, KINSASHA KIDS celebrates and honors both the resilience of its young protagonists and the chaotic city in which they live.

THE LAST TIME I SAW MACAO (A Última Vez Que Vi Macau) (2012) 82min

Director: João Pedro Rodrigues

Country: Portugal/France

This stunning amalgam of playful film noir and Chris Marker–like cine-essay from João Pedro Rodrigues (TO DIE LIKE A MAN, NYFF 2009) and João Rui Guerra da Mata explores the psychic pull of the titular former Portuguese colony. After a spectacular opening scene, in which actress Cindy Scrash lip-synchs, as tigers pace behind her, to Jane Russell’s “You Kill Me”—from Josef von Sternberg’s MACAO (1952), a key reference here—the film shifts to da Mata’s off-screen recollections of growing up in this gambling haven in the South China Sea. He’s come back to Macao to help a friend who later vanishes—a mystery that begets not only poetic ruminations on time, place, and memory but also magnificent compositions of flora, fauna, and cityscapes. Rodrigues will also have his work presented during NYFF’s soon-to-be-announced Views From the Avant-Garde schedule.

LEVIATHAN (2012) 87min

Directors: Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel

Country: USA

Having previously immersed us into the worlds of Montana sheep herding and Queens auto salvaging, respectively, NYFF alumni Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel (Foreign Parts) team for another singular anthropological excavation, this time set inside one of the world’s most dangerous professions: the commercial fishing industry. Taking to the high seas of the North Atlantic—Herman Melville territory—the filmmakers capture this harsh, unforgiving world in all of its visceral, haunting, cosmic detail, using an arsenal of cameras that pass freely from film crew to ship crew, and swoop from below sea level to literal bird’s-eye views. The result is a hallucinatory sensory experience quite unlike any other. To paraphrase Francis Coppola describing his Apocalypse Now, LEVIATHAN isn’t a movie about commercial fishing; it is commercial fishing.

WORLD PREMIERE

LIFE OF PI (2012)

Director: Ang Lee

Country: USA

Based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and spent years on the bestseller list, Academy Award winner Lee's LIFE OF PI takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years, and a wide world of imagination. Lee’s vision, coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, has turned a story long thought un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture. LIFE OF PI follows a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship¹s only other survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger. A Twentieth Century Fox release.

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (2012) 109min

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Country: Japan/Iran/France

Fresh from the triumph of his Tuscany-set CERTIFIED COPY (NYFF 2010), master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami travels even further afield from his native Iran for this mysteriously beautiful romantic drama filmed entirely in Japan. LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE revolves around the brief encounter between an elderly professor (the wonderful 81-year-old stage actor Tadashi Okuno, here playing his first leading role in a film) and a sociology student (Rin Takanashi) who moonlights as a high-end escort. Dispatched to the old man by her boss—one of the professor’s former students—the young woman finds her latest client less interested in sex than in cooking her soup, talking, and playing old Ella Fitzgerald records (like the one that gives the film its allusive title). Eventually, night gives way to day and a tense standoff with the student’s insanely jealous boyfriend (Ryō Kase); but as usual in Kiarostami, nothing is quite as it appears on the surface. Are these characters—who conjure in one another the specters of regret and roads not taken—meeting by chance, or is it fate? Is this love, or merely something like it? A Sundance Selects release.

LINES OF WELLINGTON (Linhas de Wellington) (2012) 151min

Director: Valeria Sarmiento

Country: France/Portugal

After conquering Spain, Napoleon Bonaparte sent a powerful army to invade Portugal in 1810. The French plowed through the resistance mounted against them until, as they approached Lisbon, they were met by a combined British and Portuguese army under the command of the Viscount Wellington. That’s the general historical outline for Valeria Sarmiento’s extraordinarily intimate epic of the Peninsular War. Along the way, we witness love affairs and treachery, noble action and selfish cruelty, from the highest social echelons to the most humble quarters. Prepared by the late Raul Ruiz from a screenplay by Carlos Saboga (Mysteries of Lisbon), LINES OF WELLINGTON was completed by Sarmiento—Ruiz’s longtime editor as well as his widow—who has created a revealing portrait of life during what has been called one of the first examples of “total war.” The all-star cast includes Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Elsa Zylberstein, Marisa Paredes, and John Malkovich as Wellington.

MEMORIES LOOK AT ME (Ji Yi Wang Zhe Wo) (2012) 91min

Director: Song Fang

Country: China

Song Fang’s remarkable directorial debut, in which she travels from Beijing to Nanjing for a visit with her family (many of whom play themselves), gracefully expounds on several poignant topics: how an adult child’s relationship with her parents changes as they grow older, and how to negotiate one’s place as a single woman in a world of married couples. Song, who many will remember for her wonderful performance as the nanny and aspiring filmmaker in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon (NYFF 2007), perfectly captures the rhythms of brief sojourns home, trips filled with reunions (both joyful and heart-wrenching), reminiscences, and moments of feeling painfully out of place. Winner of the Best First Feature prize at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET (La Noche de enfrente) (2012) 107min

Director: Raul Ruiz

Country: France/Chile

In August 2011, the cinema sadly lost one of its most magical artists, director Raul Ruiz—but, happily, not before he left us with one final masterpiece. Returning to his native Chile, Ruiz introduces us here to Don Celso, a bespectacled office worker heading into retirement. After an evening’s poetry class, Celso starts to narrate several tales from his childhood to his teacher, guiding the audience both within and outside the film through various levels of reality that mix the private and the public, the historical and the mythic, the here and the beyond. The journey is, of course, full of Ruizian flights of visual and verbal wit, where resonances between words and images form connections that at times defy traditional storytelling. NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET is both a moving meditation on one man’s mortality as well as an insightful summation of an artist’s brilliant career. A Cinema Guild release. Ruiz will also have his work presented during NYFF’s soon-to-be-announced Views From the Avant-Garde schedule.

NO (2012) 110min

Director: Pablo Larrain

Country: Chile/USA/Mexico

In 1988, in an effort to extend and legitimize its rule, the Pinochet military junta announced it would hold a plebiscite to get the people’s permission to stay in power. Despite being given 15 minutes a day to plead its case on television, the anti-Pinochet opposition was divided and without a clear message. Enter Rene Saavedra (an excellent Gael Garcia Bernal), an ad man who, after a career pushing soft drinks and soap, sets out to sell Chileans on democracy and freedom. Winner of the top prize in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, NO is little short of a miracle: shooting on U-matic video tape to give the film the look of the Eighties, filmmaker Pablo Larrain (TONY MANERO, POST MORTEM) has created a smart, funny and totally engrossing political thriller with a powerful resonance for our times. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

WORLD PREMIERE

NOT FADE AWAY (2012) 112min

Director: David Chase

Country: USA

The time is the 1960s, on the cusp of the summer of love. The place, suburban New Jersey. The music, 100 percent pure rock and roll. For his feature filmmaking debut, The Sopranos creator David Chase has crafted a wise, tender and richly atmospheric portrait of a group of friends trying to do what so many awkward suburban kids of the time dreamed of doing: form their own rock band. And these guys are good, fronted by a preternaturally gifted singer-songwriter (terrific newcomer John Magaro) who’s a dead ringer for the young Bob Dylan, even if dad (James Gandolfini) doesn’t take kindly to seeing junior strut around in long hair and Cuban heels. Masterfully capturing the era’s conflicting attitudes and ideologies, all set to a killer soundtrack produced by the legendary Steven Van Zandt, NOT FADE AWAY just might be the best coming-of-age movie since Barry Levinson’s Diner—and one of the best rock movies ever. A Paramount Vantage release.

OUR CHILDREN (À perdre la raison) (2012) 111min

Director: Joachim Lafosse

Country: Belgium

How does it happen that a vibrant, capable young woman loses her sense of self-worth and ends up destroying what she most loves? Belgian director Joachim Lafosse structures an all too familiar contemporary story that was headline news in Europe as a classical tragedy. Émilie Dequenne more than fulfills the promise of her award-winning performance in the Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta with this portrait of a young school teacher who marries a Moroccan immigrant (Tahar Rahim) and has four children with him, while gradually becoming aware of how much he is in thrall to his mentor, a domineering doctor (Niels Arestrup). Rahim and Arestrup reprise their father/son relationship from Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet but with an even more corrupt twist. Lafosse’s direction of this perverse narrative of patriarchal power and female oppression is like steel wrapped in silk.

PASSION (2012) 94min

Director: Brian De palma

Country: USA

Brian De Palma exhibits great panache and a diabolical mastery of frequent, small surprises in his first fiction feature since his magical comedy-of-coincidences, FEMME FATALE. With tongue planted in cheek, or maybe not—it’s up to you to decide—De Palma turns French director Alain Corneau’s 2010 LOVE CRIME into a far more droll, erotic tale of female competition. Noomi Rapace more than matches her performance in the original GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO as the assistant to an unscrupulous advertising honcho (Rachel McAdams), who steals her ideas and acts as if it’s all good sport. It’s great fun until De Palma zeros in on the fury in Rapace’s eyes. The De Palma trademarks are all present and deployed with coolly calculated abandon: a brilliant use of split screen; a confusion of identical twins; dreams within dreams; and shoes to die for.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR (Après Mai) (2012) 122min

Director: Olivier Assayas

Country: France

In the months after the heady weeks of May ’68, a group of young people search for a way to continue the revolution believed to be just beginning. For Gilles (newcomer Clément Mettayer), this means having to balance his political commitments with his desire to explore painting and filmmaking; for his girlfriend Christine (GOODBYE, FIRST LOVE star Lola Créton), this means throwing herself wholeheartedly into the task of organizing. Olivier Assayas (CARLOS, SUMMER HOURS) here describes the sentimental education of a generation that was too young to have been on the barricades; he brilliantly captures its explorations of new lifestyles, the arguments about strategies and tactics, and above all its music, a constant presence that becomes something like the artistic unconscious of an era. The period details are perfect, but what makes this film so special is the sense it conveys of history as lived experience. A Sundance Selects release.

TABU (2012) 118min

Director: Miguel Gomes

Country: Portugal

The ghosts of F.W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell and Jack Smith hover above Miguel Gomes’s third feature—an exquisite, absurdist entry in the canon of surrealist cinema. Shot in ephemeral black-and-white celluloid, TABU is movie-as-dream—an evocation of irrational desires, extravagant coincidences, and cheesy nostalgia that nevertheless is grounded in serious feeling and beliefs, even anti-colonialist politics. There is a story, which is delightful to follow and in which the cart comes before the horse: the first half is set in contemporary Lisbon, the second, involving two of the same characters, in a Portuguese colony in the early 1960s. “Be My Baby” belted in Portuguese, a wandering crocodile, and a passionate, ill-advised coupling seen through gently moving mosquito netting make for addled movie magic. The winner of the Alfred Bauer Prize (for a work of particular innovation) and FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. An Adopt Films release.

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET (Vous n'avez encore rien vu) (2012) 115min

Director: Alain Resnais

Country: France

From its impish title to its vibrant formal experimentation, YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET proves that, at age 90, master French filmmaker Alain Resnais (HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, WILD GRASS) is indeed still full of surprises. Based on two works by the playwright Jean Anouilh, the film opens with a who’s-who of French acting royalty (including Mathieu Amalric, Michel Piccoli and frequent Resnais muse Sabine Azéma) being summoned to the reading of a late playwright’s last will and testament. Upon their arrival, the playwright (Denis Podalydès) appears on a TV screen from beyond the grave and asks his erstwhile collaborators to evaluate a recording of an experimental theater company performing his Eurydice—a play they themselves all appeared in over the years. But as the video unspools, something curious happens: instead of watching passively, these seasoned thespians begin acting out the text alongside their youthful avatars, looking back into the past rather like mythic Orpheus himself. Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier on stylized sets that recall the French poetic realism of the 1930s, YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET is an alternately wry and wistful valentine to actors and the art of performance from a director long fascinated by the intersection of life, theater and cinema.

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