The Film Society of Lincoln has just announced its main slate for the 53rd New York Film Festival, and once again, it's bringing the cream of the crop from directors around the world. Besides the big world premieres of the Philippe Petit-walks-between-the-Twin Towers "thriller" The Walk (opening night) and the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead, the festival will be where Steven Spielberg's Cold War drama Bridge of Spies and the Robert Frank documentary, Don't Blink from Laura Israel, have their first screenings.
You can check out the whole lineup, which also includes Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs in the Centerpiece selection, Steve Jobs, and many selections from other film festivals, including high-profile Cannes premieres. Here are a few of the films we're most excited for:
Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin
I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the 2000 New York Film Festival, so any wuxia film at the festival is welcome. And one by the brilliant Hou Hsiao-Hsien? I'm DEFINITELY there. The Guardian's review from Cannes is titled: "Enigmatically refined martial arts tale baffles beautifully."
Todd Haynes' Carol
While I'd love there to be more female filmmakers, I'll make do with more films about women. And Haynes, who has established himself as a keen portrayer of "women's stories," brings Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara together as unexpected lovers in the 1950s drama Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel, The Price of Salt. Mara won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her role.
Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart
One of China's "Sixth Generation", Jia Zhangke's latest examination of Chinese life takes places in the 1990s, present day and in 2025 and features an apparently standout performance from Zhao Tao (Jia's wife). Variety called it an "enormously touching... polymorphous snapshot of 21st-century capitalism and its discontents."
Rebecca Miller's Maggie's Plan
Ever since Personal Velocity, I always look forward to work from Rebecca Miller. And so it's exciting that this film stars Greta Gerwig, who is wonderful in just about everything she does. Gerwig plays an administrator at the New School who falls in love with a professor (Ethan Hawke) who is married to another successful academic (Julianna Moore).
Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig during the filming of Maggie's Plan (Pacific Coast News)
Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster
Colin Farrell's 2015 career resurgence (McConassiance) picked up steam with this well-received science fiction satire. How science fiction? Well, here's the premise: "Single people are rounded up and sent to a seaside compound—part resort and part minimum-security prison—where they are given a finite number of days to find a match. If they don’t succeed, they will be 'altered' and turned into an animal." John C. Reilly, Rachel Weisz and Léa Seydoux also star.
John Crowley's Brooklyn
Colm Toibin's novelBrooklyn was an aching look at a young Irish woman's journey to America and her new life—and now it's been adapted for the screen by author Nick Hornby and director John Crowley, with Saoirse Ronan.
Michael Moore's Where To Invade Next
Documentarian Michael Moore had been keeping his latest film a secret—until he revealed it was about America's "infinite war."
Where To Invade Next
Moore said last month, "I don't think there's any one trigger. We've all been living in this time, certainly post-9/11, and everything that's going on in this country, in this constant need to always have an enemy — where's our next enemy? — so we can keep this whole military industrial complex alive, and keep the companies that make a lot of money in business."
There are also films by Chantal Akerman, Arnaud Desplechin, Michael Gondry and Michael Almereyda. The 53rd New York Film Festival runs September 25 through October 11; tickets go on sale to the general public on September 13, but members can buy tickets earlier.
