This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a conversation from the 60th New York Film Festival, moderated by Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish. This talk brought together the directors behind two stunning works of autofiction in the NYFF60 lineup. One Fine Morning by leading French filmmaker (and NYFF staple) Mia Hansen-Løve and Aftersun, the debut feature by Charlotte Wells, both center on father-daughter relationships drawn from the directors’ own lives, exploring tenderness and trauma, love and loss with formal ingenuity and emotional force. Both films also feature powerhouse performances—Paul Mescal in Aftersun and Léa Seydoux in One Fine Morning—that challenge and reinvigorate routine cinematic portrayals of femininity, masculinity, and intimacy.  Hansen-Løve and Wells partook in an extended conversation about the process of making art out of one’s life, giving filmic shape to the workings of memory and time, reimagining the contours of “women’s cinema,” and more. NYFF Talks were presented by HBO. Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun is now playing daily in our theaters. For showtimes and tickets, go to filmlinc.org/aftersun.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we're revisiting a special conversation from the 60th New York Film Festival with director Park Chan-wook and actor Park Hae-il on the season's biggest hit, Decision to Leave. Moderated by NYFF Executive Director Eugene Hernandez. Busan detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) finds that he’s increasingly obsessed with a puzzling new case: a middle-aged businessman has mysteriously fallen to his death during a rock climbing expedition. Upon discovering photos of his abused wife, a Chinese national named Seo-rae (Tang Wei), Hae-joon begins to suspect it wasn’t an accident, all the while becoming emotionally and erotically drawn to her. From this Hitchcockian situation, director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) weaves a swelling, expanding, ever more complex tale about a possible black widow and the investigator who just might be fashioning his own web. One of Park’s most enveloping and accomplished thrillers, which earned him the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Decision to Leave is a constantly surprising, elegantly constructed film that builds in power to a truly haunting denouement. Decision to Leave is now playing in our theaters! Get showtimes and tickets at filmlinc.org/decision

Director Elegance Bratton and cast members Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, and Raúl Castillo, and producers Effie Brown and Chester Algernal Gordon present and discuss The Inspection, the Closing Night selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Executive Director Eugene Hernandez. Known for his affecting and dynamic documentary Pier Kids, about homeless queer and transgender youth in New York, and the Viceland series My House, on underground competitive ballroom dancing, filmmaker and photographer Elegance Bratton has made his ambitious narrative debut with The Inspection, a knockout drama based on his own experiences as a gay man in Marine Corps basic training following a decade of living on the streets. In a breathtaking first cinematic starring role, Tony– and Emmy–nominated actor Jeremy Pope is run through an emotional and physical gauntlet as a young man dealing with the intimidation of a sadistic sergeant (Bokeem Woodbine), his desire for a sympathetic superior (Raúl Castillo), and his complicated feelings toward the mother who rejected him (a revelatory Gabrielle Union). Bratton’s film is a nuanced portrait of American masculinity and evocation of the military during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era, as well as a forceful, electric work of autobiography. An A24 release.

Director Maria Schrader, screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, cast members Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, and Ashley Judd, and New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey discuss She Said, a Spotlight selection and World Premiere at NYFF60, with NYFF Executive Director Eugene Hernandez. In 2017, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke a story that would change the world. Uncovering decades of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood, Kantor and Twohey boldly took on an establishment that had too long been allowed to systematically protect abusers. This thrilling new drama based on Kantor and Twohey’s best-selling book about their hard-fought investigation is directed by Maria Schrader (director of I’m Your Man and the acclaimed TV series Unorthodox) from a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida). She Said stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan in wonderful performances as the two intensely committed reporters whose efforts would ultimately help ignite the #MeToo movement. Schrader’s film, in the tradition of All the President’s Men and Spotlight, is a tribute to the art and importance of investigative journalism, as well as a moving portrait of two women whose personal lives couldn’t be put on hold even as they navigated a labyrinth of NDAs, legal double binds, and frightened witnesses. She Said’s remarkable supporting cast includes Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, and Jennifer Ehle. A Universal Pictures release. NYFF60 screenings of She Said were presented by Citi.

We welcomed director James Gray and cast members Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, and Jaylin Webb to present and discuss Armageddon Time, the 60th Anniversary Celebration and Main Slate selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. The most personal film yet from James Gray (The Immigrant, The Lost City of Z) is also one of his greatest, an exquisitely detailed and deeply emotional etching of a time and place: Queens, 1980. Set against the backdrop of a country on the cusp of ominous sociopolitical change, Armageddon Time follows Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), a sixth grader who dreams of becoming an artist. At the same time that Paul builds a friendship with classmate Johnny (Jaylin Webb), who’s mercilessly targeted by their racist teacher, he finds himself increasingly at odds with his parents (Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway), for whom financial success and assimilation are key to the family’s Jewish-American identity. Paul feels on firmest ground with his kind grandfather (a marvelous Anthony Hopkins), whose life experiences have granted him a weathered compassion. Rejecting easy nostalgia for a more difficult, painful form of recall, Gray’s film—shot with intimate naturalism by Darius Khondji—is a perceptive and humane coming of age story that does what only cinema can do, elevating the smallest moments into the greatest drama. A Focus Features release.

We welcomed director Chris Smith and producers Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Kevin Ford to present and discuss "Sr.", a Spotlight selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Artistic Director, Dennis Lim. Rarely do films about artists allow the kind of poignant intimacy seen in this tender yet fittingly irreverent portrait of the life and career of Robert Downey Sr., the fearless, visionary American director who set the standard for counterculture comedy in the sixties and seventies. An inspired collaboration between celebrated documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie); the subject’s son, Robert Downey Jr.; and the man himself, who’s occasionally shown working on his own version of the movie we’re watching, “Sr.” functions both as an elegy for the rule-flouting underground icon, who passed away at age 85 in July 2021, and as a testament to his tireless creative spirit. Capturing its subjects’ refreshing candor about aging, past struggles with addiction, and the ups and downs of working in Hollywood, Smith’s film is an emotional depiction of a father-son bond that remained strong, pragmatic, and deeply loving to the end. A Netflix release. All NYFF60 Documentaries are presented by HBO.

We welcomed director Sarah Polley, cast members Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, & Liv McNeil, and producer Dede Gardner to present and discuss Women Talking, a Spotlight selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Executive Director, Eugene Hernandez. Sarah Polley brings ferocious honesty and restrained urgency to her screen adaptation of Miriam Toews’s acclaimed novel about of a group of women from a remote religious community dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault perpetrated by the colony’s men. A film of ideas brought to life by Polley’s imaginative direction and a superb, fine-tuned ensemble cast—including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Frances McDormand, Ben Whishaw, and Judith Ivey—Women Talking is a deep and searching exploration of self-determination, group responsibility, faith and forgiveness, philosophically engaging and emotionally rich in equal measure. A United Artists release.

On today’s episode of our daily NYFF60 edition, director Elvis Mitchell and executive producer Steven Soderbergh discuss Is That Black Enough For You?!?, a Spotlight selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Executive Director Eugene Hernandez. American film critic Elvis Mitchell’s kaleidoscopic documentary creates a definitive narrative of the Black revolution in 1970s cinema, from genre films to social realism, from the making of new superstars to the craft of rising auteurs. With Is That Black Enough for You?!? (the title referencing a recurring line from Ossie Davis’s 1970 benchmark Cotton Comes to Harlem), Mitchell takes a personal and panoramic approach, expressing his own experiences as a viewer while detailing the cinematic and political histories that led to this extraordinary flowering of a newly ascendant Black heroism. The Learning Tree, Watermelon Man, Shaft, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Cool Breeze, Sounder, Super Fly, Coffy, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Claudine, Uptown Saturday Night, Cornbread, Earl and Me, Killer of Sheep, and dozens more are analyzed with Mitchell’s customary verve and perspicacity. This is a work of painstaking scholarship that’s also thoroughly entertaining, an essential archival document and testament to a period of American film history unlikely to be repeated. Featuring interviews with Margaret Avery, Harry Belafonte, Charles Burnett, Laurence Fishburne, Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Suzanne de Passe, Glynn Turman, Billy Dee Williams, Zendaya, and more. A Netflix release. To learn more and get tickets for this year's NYFF, taking place through October 16 in all five boroughs of NYC, visit filmlinc.org/tix.

We welcomed director Charlotte Wells and actress Frankie Corio to NYFF60 to present and discuss Aftersun, a Main Slate selection of this year’s festival, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director, Dennis Lim. In one of the most assured and spellbinding feature debuts in years, Scottish director Charlotte Wells has fashioned a textured memory piece inspired by her relationship with her dad, taking place over the course of a brooding weekend at a coastal resort in Turkey. The charismatic Paul Mescal and naturalistic newcomer Francesca Corio fully inhabit Calum and Sophie, a divorced father and his daughter often mistaken for brother and sister, who share a close and loving bond that creates an entire world unto itself. Wells employs an unusual and gorgeous aesthetic that brings us into the interior space of this parent and child, even as she judiciously withholds details, an approach that finally grants the film a singular emotional wallop. Aftersun reimagines the coming-of-age narrative as a poignant, ultimately ungraspable chimera, informed by the present as much as the past. Winner of the French Touch Prize of the Jury at this year’s Cannes Festival. An A24 release. Aftersun opens at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, October 21st. Tickets are now on sale.

We welcomed director Luca Guadagnino and actors Taylor Russell and Chloë Sevigny to NYFF60 to present and discuss Bones and All, a Spotlight selection of this year’s festival, moderated by NYFF Executive Director, Eugene Hernandez. In a startling, star-making performance, Taylor Russell plays Maren, a teenager who has just moved to a small town in Virginia with her father (André Holland). However, it’s only a matter of time before the frightening secret Maren harbors is revealed and she must hit the road again—on her own. Soon, she meets another young drifter, Lee (Timothée Chalamet), who understands her more than anyone she’s ever met, and the two set out on a cross-country journey, satiating their dangerous desires and reckoning with their tragic pasts. Adapting a novel by Camille DeAngelis, director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) has crafted a work of both tender fragility and feral intensity, setting corporeal horror and runaway romance against a vividly textured Americana, and featuring fully inhabited supporting turns from Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jessica Harper, Chloë Sevigny, and Anna Cobb. A United Artists release.