Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present two conversations, the first a Programmers Preview with the team behind the New York African Film Festival, currently taking place in our theaters through May 16, followed by a Q&A with writer/director Ari Aster from a recent screening of his latest feature, the Joaquin Phoenix-starring Beau Is Afraid. Launched in 1993, the New York African Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the United States to reflect on the myriad ways African and diaspora filmmakers have used the moving image to tell complex nuanced stories of cultural and aesthetic significance. Under the banner title, Freeforms, the festival will present over 50 films from more than 25 countries that explore and embrace the visionary, probing, and fearless spirit of African film and diaspora storytelling. Listen to our discussion with New York African Film Festival's Founder and Executive Director, Mahen Bonetti, Program Manager, Dara Ojugbele, and Curator and Office Manager, Farima Kone Kito. To view the lineup and get tickets to this year’s festival, please visit filmlinc.org/african. On the occasion of the release of his latest feature, Beau Is Afraid, Film at Lincoln Center recently presented a curated selection of films handpicked by Ari Aster to complement the director’s highly anticipated new film. This eclectic and unexpected collection of masterworks drawn from seven decades of film history across a range of genres and production contexts shed light on the inspirations and influences behind one of the most compelling directorial voices in Hollywood today. Following a screening of Beau Is Afraid, Aster joined us to speak with FLC Assistant Programmer Maddie Whittle about his inspirations for making the film.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present a special episode featuring the star-studded speeches from our recent 48th Chaplin Award Gala honoring Viola Davis. Having taken place on April 24 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Gala encompassed a joyful celebration of the actor and producer’s incredible body of work, featuring notable speakers and film clips, and culminating in the presentation of the Chaplin Award, an annual honor bestowed upon cinema’s most outstanding talents. The evening’s guest speakers included, in order of appearance, Jayme Lawson, who starred in THE WOMAN KING, George C. Wolfe, who directed Davis in NIGHTS IN RODANTHE and MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, Meryl Streep, who co-starred in DOUBT, Gina Prince-Bythewood, who directed THE WOMAN KING, Jessica Chastain, who co-starred in THE HELP and THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY with Davis, and, presenting Davis with the Chaplin Award, Steve McQueen, who directed the actor in WIDOWS.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present two Q&As: the first from Chile '76, a 2023 New Directors/New Films selection, and Unrest, a Main Slate selection of the 60th New York Film Festival. Both Chile '76 and Unrest open in our theaters on May 5 with filmmaker Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. In Chile '76, Manuela Martelli places the viewer in a historical moment fraught with anxiety: the early years of Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile. Her narrative presents Pinochet’s oppressive reign from the unusual and surprising perspective of Carmen (a superb Aline Küppenheim), an upper-middle-class woman whose life begins to unravel after local priest Father Sánchez (Hugo Medina) implores her to use her summer beach house, under renovation, to hide an injured young man (Nicolás Sepúlveda) whom she comes to suspect is a victim of political persecution. As Carmen descends into danger, she experiences a gradual moral awakening. Martelli’s film is a taut, evocative, and impressively assured depiction of the inescapable, ever-tightening noose of patriarchal, governmental dictatorship and how its effects gradually bleed into our everyday experiences. A Kino Lorber release. A film of immense delicacy and precision, Cyril Schäublin’s complexly woven timepiece, Unrest, is set in the hushed environs of the Swiss watchmaking town of Saint-Imier in the 1870s. In this unlikely place, a youthful Pyotr Kropotkin, who would become a noted anarchist and socialist philosopher, experiences a quiet revolution, finding himself inspired by the buzzing activity of the town’s denizens, from the photographers and cartographers surveying its people and land to the growing anarchist collective at the local watermill raising funds for strikes abroad, to the organizing workers at the watch factory, whose craft is depicted with exacting detail and devotion. Schäublin’s abstracted, geometric visual approach reinforces the singularly contemplative nature of his project: this is a film about time—its tyranny as well as its comforts—and how it relates to work, leisure, and the larger processes that shape history. An NYFF60 Main Slate selection. A KimStim release with support from Swiss Films. Enjoy these conversations with Martelli & producer Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo & New Directors/New Films Co-chair Florence Almozini and Schäublin & actress Clara Gostynski & NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Don't miss Chile '76 and Unrest, opening in our theaters on May 5.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present a Q&A from the AppleTV+ documentary, Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues, with director Sacha Jenkins and Oscar-nominated composer Terence Blanchard. This event recently took place as part of See Me As I Am, Lincoln Center’s year-long celebration of Terence Blanchard in collaboration with seven arts organizations across campus: Film at Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.  A magisterial tribute to a founding father of jazz, Sacha Jenkins’s comprehensive documentary chronicles the life and times of legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong, from his role in the birth of the musical genre he’d come to epitomize on to his later adventures in Hollywood as an indelible onscreen presence. Working from a wealth of archival footage, Jenkins constructs a stirring ode to Armstrong that historically situates his achievements and public image, deftly tracing how the cultural figure cut by Armstrong was formulated against a backdrop of unapologetic, systemic racism. And, appropriately, the film is scored by none other than Terence Blanchard, himself a latter-day titan of the trumpet, and the result is an utterly absorbing and moving homage to a true icon of American music. Enjoy the conversation with Jenkins and Blanchard, moderated by writer Larry Blumenfeld.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present a Q&A from the 2023 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema premiere of Other People's Children, with director Rebecca Zlotowski and lead actress, Virginie Efira. Other People's Children opens in our theaters on Friday, April 21. Acclaimed writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski (An Easy Girl, 2020 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema) draws from her own life to depict the emotional trajectory of Rachel (Virginie Efira), a schoolteacher whose desire for a biological child seems increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled (as she’s informed by her gynecologist in a delightful cameo from Frederick Wiseman). When Rachel enters into a relationship with car designer Ali (Roschdy Zem), he’s slow to let her know that he’s a single father, but once she finds out she quickly grows to love his precocious daughter, Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves). The stresses and strains of close relationships between adults and children are thoughtfully examined in this drama that’s as romantic in its evocation of new love blossoming in Paris as it is clear-headed about the myriad pressures that societal expectations impose on the lives of middle-aged women. A 2023 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema selection. Enjoy the conversation with Zlotowski and Efira, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim, and don’t miss Other People's Children, opening in our theaters on Friday, April 21. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/children

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present a Q&A from Trenque Laquen, a Main Slate selection of the 60th New York Film Festival, opening in our theaters on April 21 from director Laura Citarella, with Q&As with Citarella and actor Ezequiel Pierri on April 21 at 6pm and April 22 at 12:15pm and an intro at 6pm. But first, listen to a special Q&A with the team behind Joyland, a selection of the 52nd edition of New Directors/New Films currently in progress through Sunday, April 9. Director Saim Sadiq and cast members Ali Junejo and Rasti Farooq discuss the film with New Directors/New Films co-chair Florence Almozini. Co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, tickets to New Directors/New Films are available at newdirectors.org Laura Citarella’s enormously pleasurable Trenque Lauquen takes viewers on a limitless journey through stories nested within stories set in and around the Argentinean city of Trenque Lauquen (“Round Lake”) and centered on the strange disappearance of a local academic named Laura (Laura Paredes). Through initial inquiries by two colleagues—older boyfriend Rafael and a driver named Ezequiel with whom Laura had grown secretly close—we learn about her recent discoveries, including a new, unclassified species of flower and a series of old love letters hidden at the local library, which may help track her down. Yet as flashbacks and anecdotes pile up, we—and the film’s intrepid investigators—begin to realize that this intricately structured tale is larger and stranger than we could have imagined. Citarella, a producer of the equally remarkable epic La Flor, has confidently crafted a series of interlocked romantic, biological, and ecological mysteries that create parallels between past lives and present dangers, invoke the rapture of obsessive pursuit, and salute the human need to find personal freedom and happiness. Enjoy the conversation with Citarella and NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim, and don’t miss Trenque Laquen, opening in our theaters on April 21. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/trenquelauquen.

Welcome to a new episode of the Film at Lincoln Center podcast. This week we’re excited to present Q&A from Earth Mama, the opening night selection of the 52nd edition of New Directors/New Films. The conversation features writer/director Savanah Leaf and cast members Tia Nomore and Erika Alexander, and is moderated by New Directors/New Films co-chair, Florence Almozini. A devastating and evocative portrait of motherhood refracted through the prisms of race and class, Savanah Leaf’s auspicious, Bay Area–set debut feature follows a pregnant young African American woman (played with immense complexity by Oakland rapper Tia Nomore) as she grapples with whether to give her baby up for adoption amid utterly hostile socioeconomic conditions. Co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, the 52nd edition of New Directors/New Films runs through April 9th and is made up of 27 features and 11 shorts. We’re excited to announce that this year we are offering the chance to see 5 films for only $50. Simply visit newdirectors.org to add five films to your cart and your discount will automatically be applied. We look forward to seeing you at this year’s New Directors/New Films. Visit newdirectors.org to view the schedule and purchase your tickets.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a Q&A from the 60th New York Film Festival with Enys Men director Mark Jenkin and lead Mary Woodvine, moderated by FLC Senior Director of Programming Florence Almozini. In 1973, on an uninhabited, windswept, rocky island off the coast of Cornwall in southwest England, an isolated middle-aged woman spends her days in enigmatic environmental study. When she’s not tending to the moss-covered stone cottage in which she lodges, her central preoccupation is a cluster of wildflowers at a cliff’s edge, the blossoms’ subtle changes noted in a daily ledger. She’s also increasingly haunted by her own nightmarish visitations, which seem both summoned from her own past and brought up from the very soil and ceremonial history of this mysterious place. Shot on enveloping, period-evocative 16mm, this eerie, texturally rich experience from Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin conjures works of classic British folk horror but remains its own strange being, a genuine transmission from a weird other world. Enys Men opens next Friday, March 31, with a filmmaker Q&A at 6pm, along with Jenkin's debut feature Bait, which also opens next Friday with a Q&A at 8:45pm. Don’t miss Enys Men on 35mm—only during opening weekend and get tickets at filmlinc.org/enys

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a special Q&A from our recent screening of S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR with composer M.M. Keeravani, who recently won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Naatu Naatu." But first, listen to FLC programmers Maddie Whittle and Tyler Wilson preview our upcoming series, Unspeakable: The Films of Tod Browning, which kicks off tomorrow and runs through March 26. Explore the lineup, including new restorations, 35mm screenings, live musical accompaniment, and get tickets at filmlinc.org/browning. From an original story by V. Vijayendra Prasad, the historical action epic RRR (short for Rise, Roar, Revolt) follows the fictionalized paths of real-life freedom fighters Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rama Rao) as they come together in 1920s Delhi to battle the nefarious British Raj for the rescue of a kidnapped girl from Bheem’s tribe. Enjoy Academy Award-winning composer M.M. Keeravani’s conversation on working on the film’s score, his musical influences, and more.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a special Q&A from the 60th New York Film Festival with Drylongso director Cauleen Smith, moderated by Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Jacqueline Stewart. Cauleen Smith’s 1998 feature debut, a landmark in American independent cinema, follows Pica (Toby Smith), a woman in a photography class in Oakland, as she begins photographing the young Black men of her neighborhood, having witnessed so many of them fall victim to senseless murder and fearing the possibility of their becoming extinct altogether. This project serves as a point of departure for Smith to explore Pica’s relationship with her family, as well as her relationship with a friend (April Barnett) who becomes the victim of an enigmatic and elusive serial killer lurking in the background. An enduringly rich work of DIY filmmaking, Drylongso remains a resonant and visionary examination of violence (and its reverberations), friendship, and gender. An NYFF60 Revivals selection. The NYFF60 Revivals presentation of Drylongso was sponsored by Turner Classic Movies.  The new 4K restoration of Drylongso opens next Friday, March 17, in our theaters with a filmmaker Q&A with Smith on opening night. On the occasion of the theatrical release of the NYFF60 selection, we are also showing two Shorts Programs of Smith’s short films on Friday, March 17, with an intro from Smith, and Sunday, March 19. Get tickets to Drylongso and both shorts programs and receive an automatic discount package of $20 for the general public and $15 for FLC Members. Explore showtimes and get tickets at filmlinc.org/drylongso