Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

On today’s episode of our daily NYFF59 podcasts, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by Bergman Island director Mia Hansen-Løve and two of her lead actors, Vicky Krieps and Anders Danielson Lie, to discuss their Main Slate selection of this year’s festival. Bergman Island opens at Film at Lincoln Center on October 15th. A masterful blend of the personal and the meta-cinematic, Mia Hansen-Løve’s meditation on the reconciliation of love and the creative process is also delightful cinephile catnip. Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth star as Chris and Tony, married filmmakers who venture to the remote Swedish island of Fårö—where director Ingmar Bergman lived and made many of his masterpieces—as a writing retreat for their new projects. Both inspired and troubled by the isolation and history of the place, Chris gets lost in the lives of her new fictional creations (realized on screen by Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie) while also reckoning with the lines between reality and fantasy. A tribute to a film artist that never crosses over into idolatry, and a sneakily emotional portrait of an artist finding her individual voice, Bergman Island is one of Hansen-Løve’s most gently profound films. Explore what's playing at NYFF59 and get tickets at filmlinc.org/tix

On today’s episode of our daily NYFF59 podcasts, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by Joachim Trier, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Renate Reinsve. Trier's latest film, The Worst Person in the World, is a Main Slate selection of this year’s festival. As proven in such exacting stories of lives on the edge as Reprise and Oslo, August 31, Norwegian director Joachim Trier is singularly adept at giving an invigorating modern twist to classically constructed character portraits. Trier catapults the viewer into the world of his most spellbinding protagonist yet: Julie, played by Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve, who’s the magnetic center of nearly every scene. After dropping out of pre-med, Julie must find new professional and romantic avenues as she navigates her twenties, juggling emotionally heavy relationships with two very different men (Trier regular Anders Danielsen Lie and engaging newcomer Herbert Nordrum). Fluidly told in 12 discrete chapters, Trier’s film elegantly depicts the precarity of identity and the mutability of happiness in our runaway contemporary world. Explore what's playing at NYFF and get tickets at filmlinc.org/nyff.

On today’s episode of our daily NYFF59 podcasts, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim is joined by Paul Verhoeven, whose latest film, Benedetta, is a Main Slate selection of this year’s festival and will be opening at the Film at Lincoln Center on December 3rd. Based on true events, Benedetta unearths the story of Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century nun in Tuscany who believed she saw visions of Christ and engaged in a sexual relationship with a fellow sister at her abbey. Because this is a film by genre auteur par excellence Paul Verhoeven (whose movies include Robocop, Basic Instinct, and NYFF54 selection Elle), the result is anything but a reverent treatment of an odd footnote in Catholic European history. Forgoing the hallmarks of prestige cinema, this delirious, erotic, and violent melodrama is told with a boundless spirit for scandal, and unabashedly courts blasphemy as it unfolds its tale of religious hypocrisy. Wildly entertaining, and featuring standout performances from Virginie Efira as the title character and Charlotte Rampling as the stoic, conflicted Mother Abbess, Benedetta maintains both a feverish pitch and a fascinating ambiguity in its depiction of the miraculous and the mundane, the sacred and the profane. To learn more and get tickets for this year's NYFF, taking place through October 10 indoors and outdoors throughout NYC, visit filmlinc.org/nyff.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a special preview in anticipation of the 59th New York Film Festival, taking place September 24 – October 10, 2021. An annual bellwether of the state of cinema that has shaped film culture since 1963, the festival continues a long-standing tradition of introducing audiences to bold and remarkable works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. Join NYFF Director Eugene Hernandez, NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim, and the programmers of NYFF59 as they discuss their top picks from this year’s festival. Explore the full lineup, see the festival schedule, and get tickets at filmlinc.org/nyff. This talk was first available to FLC members, who play such a vital role in all we do. If you're interested in supporting FLC by becoming a member and exploring member benefits, visit filmlinc.org/members for more information.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we're featuring a Q&A from the 50th New Directors/New Films with Andreas Fontana on his feature debut, Azor. Swiss director Andreas Fontana brings an astonishingly assured eye to this gripping debut feature set in the cloistered world of high finance in Argentina in the 1970s. With a finely tuned sense of impassive anxiety, Fabrizio Rongione plays a banker who has traveled from Geneva to Buenos Aires with his wife to disentangle the complicated threads left behind by a colleague who has mysteriously disappeared. Once there, he finds himself descending ever deeper into a sinister inner circle, connecting the country’s upper classes to the military junta’s ongoing “Dirty War.” Azor is now playing daily in our theaters. For tickets and showtimes, go to filmlinc.org/azor.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a Q&A from the 50th New Directors/New Films with Jessica Beshir on her hypnotic documentary feature, Faya Dayi. In Faya Dayi, Beshir returns to her hometown of Harar and explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents in the city, its rural Oromo community of farmers, and the harvesting of the country’s most sought-after export (the euphoria-inducing khat plant). Faya Dayi is neither a straightforward work of nostalgia nor an issue-oriented doc about a particular drug culture. Rather, she has constructed something dreamlike: a film that uses light, texture, and sound to illuminate the spiritual lives of people whose experiences often become fodder for ripped-from-the-headlines tales of migration. Faya Dayi is now playing daily in our theaters. For tickets and showtimes, go to filmlinc.org/faya.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center Podcast, we’re featuring a Q&A on Liesl Tommy’s Respect with screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson, moderated by Emil Wilbekin, former editor of Vibe, Essence and founder of Native Son, a platform created to inspire and empower Black Gay Men. Following the rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom, Respect is the remarkable true story of the music icon’s journey to find her voice, starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Mary J Blige, and more. This talk was first available to FLC patrons and members, who play such a vital role in all we do. If you're interested in supporting FLC by becoming a member and exploring member benefits, visit filmlinc.org/members for more information. Respect is now playing in theaters.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a conversation from the 58th New York Film Festival with filmmakers Matías Piñeiro and Nicolás Pereda. In Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella and Nicolás Pereda’s Fauna, one never knows where performance ends and life begins. The two films meditate in poignant ways on storytelling as both an artistic and an everyday act: Isabella continues Piñeiro’s wryly quotidian takes on Shakespearean dramas, while Fauna unearths the violence haunting a Mexican village beneath a veneer of fabrications and arch comedy. In a sprawling conversation moderated by NYFF program advisor Gina Telaroli, the two filmmakers chatted about their shared affinities, inimitable idiosyncrasies, and respective approaches to collaboration, color, structure, and more. Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella opens in our theaters on August 27. For showtimes and tickets visit filmlinc.org/isabella.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring an incredibly special conversation from the opening weekend of Annette. Director Leos Carax sat down with Film Comment’s Co-Deputy Editor Devika Girish, to discuss the making of his much-anticipated follow-up to 2012’s Holy Motors. A years-spanning musical melodrama drenched in greens and yellows, scored by oddball art-pop duo Sparks and based on their original story, Annette marks the French director’s first English-language film, which revolves around a celebrity couple in present-day Los Angeles. Henry (Adam Driver), a towering stand-up comedian, and Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-famous singer, are living life happily in the spotlight until their world is upended after the birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with a peculiar talent. Annette is now playing daily in our theaters. For tickets and showtimes, go to filmlinc.org/annette.

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a talk from the 58th New York Film Festival with Tsai Ming-liang, the director of Days, moderated by NYFF Director of Programming Dennis Lim and interpreted by Vincent Cheng. The great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang has been directing exquisite examinations of alienation, isolation, and the fleeting beauty of human connection featuring his muse Lee Kang-sheng for decades. His latest film, Days will undoubtedly stand as one of his best, sparest, and most intimate works. Lee once again stars as a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment in Hong Kong for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok, goes about his daily routine. These two solitary men eventually come together in a moment of healing, tenderness, and sexual release. Among the most cathartic entries in Tsai’s filmography, Days is a work of longing, constructed with the director’s customary brilliance at visual composition and shot through with profound empathy. Days opens in our theaters on August 13th. For tickets and showtimes, visit filmling.org/days