#291 - Steve McQueen on Mangrove & Tsai Ming-liang on Days

Welcome to a special 58th New York Film Festival edition of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. Today, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by director Steve McQueen to discuss Mangrove, making its world premiere at the festival. An epic piece of McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, Mangrove tells the true story of Frank Crichlow, the Trinidad-born owner of a café in Notting Hill who was arrested for protesting the police’s intimidation and brutality. This is a vivid and gripping dramatization of these events and the resulting landmark 1970 court case of Crichlow and the other defendants, who came to be known as the Mangrove Nine. Small Axe at the 58th NYFF is presented by Campari. Then, Lim is joined by Tsai Ming-liang to discuss one of the Taiwanese director’s best and sparest works, Days. In the film, Lee Kang-sheng plays a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok goes about his daily routine. The lives of these two solitary men eventually converge. Get free tickets for tonight’s community screening of Mangrove at the Queens drive-in or nationwide virtual tickets. Days premieres tonight at sold-out screenings at the Brooklyn Drive-In and virtually nationwide.