MARGARET: A TYGER'S HEART - AT RED BULL THEATER - IN THE RAW

Margaret of Anjou, whom the English still (550 years later - they do take a while to accept a French woman as English) call "Margaret of Anjou" (rather than Queen Margaret), was Queen (or "queen consort") of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471.

Shakespeare gave Margaret some of the best scenes, and one of the most enduring, sustained character arcs, of any of his characters (certainly the most important for any female character).

She first appears as a captive of the English in Henry VI Part 1, when the Earl Of Suffolk, her captor, falls immediately and passionately in love with her.

In Henry VI Part 2 she is Queen, but Suffolk is out of favor and must flee. His goodbye is one of Shakespeare's most poetic, passionate, and heartbreaking scenes.

In Henry VI Part 3, Margaret, in the midst of wars, speaks one of the most bitter, cruel vengeful speeches in Shakespeare, mocking and then killing her enemy, York, who addresses her, saying: "O tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!".

In Richard III, Margaret, now an old woman, stands up to Richard III with curses, and decries the evils that have been done.

The Red Bull Theater has just held a two week "lab" developing a play that encompasses the sway of her appearance in all the plays. The result is the play -- which will be presented Friday (2/25) through Sunday (2/27), together with a benefit on Saturday evening -- Margaret: The Tyger's Heart (the title coming, as above, from York's description in Henry VI Part 3 -- "O tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!" actually, one of several references to Margaret as a tyger).

The play was developed in collaboration with The Shakespeare Society.

See below for more about Margaret of Anjou. First, here's some information about this production from the Red Bull Theater:



In the Raw
Developing the Classics of the Future.

February 25-27, 2011
Shakespeare's MARGARET: A Tyger's Heart
Adapted from Henry VI and Richard III
Directed by Michael Sexton

An In the Raw Developmental Lab Production
In collaboration with The Shakespeare Society
Featuring Michael Stewart Allen, Craig Baldwin, Jacob Fishel, Kate Forbes, Jason Butler Harner, Randy Harrison, Robert Stanton, David Townsend

Focusing on Margaret of Anjou from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Pts 1, 2 and 3, and Richard III, this workshop will explore the journey of one of Shakespeare’s most remarkable characters, a woman of astonishing variety with an extraordinary arc over four history plays.

The aim of the two-week Lab is to create an evening-length theatrical work for nine actors that tells the riveting story of Margaret’s progress from young woman to queen, lover, wife, mother, political operator and battlefield commander, exploring the comic, macabre, as well as the human and loving sides of Shakespeare’s Margaret.

Produced by Red Bull Theater in collaboration with The Shakespeare Society, the workshop offers four public presentations.

PERFORMANCES
Friday Feb 25, 8pm
Saturday Feb 26, 2pm
Saturday Feb 26, 8pm* Benefit
Sunday Feb 27, 3pm

LOCATION
Theater at St. Clement's
423 West 46th Street

TICKETS - ON SALE NOW
$40 Regular
$60 Premium
$30 Under 30/Shakespeare Society Members
$20 Students/Industry

BENEFIT PERFORMANCE - Sat Feb 26, 8pm
$100 Regular
$150 Premium
*Benefit features private party with actors, special guests Kathleen Chalfant, Michael Stuhlbarg, and others following the performance

Seating Limited!

TICKETS:
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/795735

RED BULL THEATER
http://www.redbulltheater.com/

ABOUT IN THE RAW
A new work laboratory series, IN THE RAW creates an artistic bridge between Revelation Readings and Full Productions, providing space, time, and support for projects ready to move beyond a staged reading, but that require further development and exploration prior to full production.

Each IN THE RAW project receives a workshop with a director, top-notch actors and designers, and includes public presentations. We are pleased to share this part of the creative process with our audience.


Margaret of Anjou lived for 52 years, from March 23, 1430 to Aug 25 1482. She was born in the Duchess of Lorraine, the second eldest daughter of René I of Naples, Duke of Anjou and Bar, King of Naples and Sicily... and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.

On April 23, 1445, at the age of 15, she married King Henry VI of England, who was 23. She was described (by Shakespeare, his sources, and others) as beautiful and strong willed.

She entered the English political scene as strife between warring factions in England escalated. In May 1455, a Great Council solidified the split and enmity with the Yorkists, which initiated thirty years of the War of the Roses.

Many of the wars were fought in and over French territory. Even the terms of Henry's marriage to Margaret were seen by some as too favorable to the French. This may be one cause, or one result, (or both), of the fact that Margaret, a French woman, was not popular among some factions of the English court. The father of Henry VI, Henry V, had conquered most of France. Henry VI fought many wars to hold France, much of the war unsuccessful. Indeed, Margaret's campaigns on behalf of Henry may well be considered more successful than his.

Although allies of Margaret managed to defeat Richard Plantagenet, the Duke of York, in 1460, and Margaret had him beheaded (described in the famous scene in Henry VI part 3 above), the Yorkists managed to depose Henry VI in 1461. He regained the throne briefly in 1470. Though Henry VI was imprisoned, and then killed (by the future Richard III) in 1471, Margaret, after being imprisoned, was ransomed by the French king, and lived until 1482.

During the quieter period of her reign, between 1445 and 1455, Margaret was a champion of education, and founded Queens' College in Cambridge.

Floating past Queens' College on the river Cam is like travelling 550 years back in time.

QUEENS' COLLEGE - Cambridge
Founded by Margaret of Anjou 1448
View from the river Cam
Photo by Eric Roffman

Here is Queens' College's chronology of its creation:

before 1446 - Andrew Dokett was already Principal of St Bernard's Hostel on a site now occupied by the New Court of Corpus Christi College. He was also Rector of St Botolph's, the church of the parish within which Queens' College lies.

1446 Dec 3 - Andrew Dokett obtained a Charter from King Henry VI to found St Bernard's College on a site now part of St Catharine's College.

1447 Aug 21 - First Charter revoked. Andrew Dokett obtained a new charter from King Henry VI to found St Bernard's College on the present site of Old Court and Cloister Court.

1447-8? - Petition of Margaret of Anjou to her husband the King to have the foundation and naming of the new college. Second Charter returned to the King and the lands of StBernard's College surrendered to him.

1448 Mar 30 - Letters Patent from King Henry VI to Queen Margaret granting her the lands of St Bernard's College and licence to found a college.

1448 Apr 15 - Charter of Queen Margaret to found the Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard.

1448 Apr 15 - Sir John Wenlock, Chamberlain to Queen Margaret, lays the foundation stone at the south east corner of the chapel.

1448 - First part of Old Court completed: the Library, Chapel, E stairs, Gatehouse, A stairs and part of B stairs.

1449 - King Henry VI gives 200 for the buildings.

1449-50 - Old Court completed: remainder of B stairs, C stairs, Kitchens, Hall.

1454 - Chapel licensed for services.

QUEENS' COLLEGE - Cambridge
Founded by Margaret of Anjou - 1448
Courtyard view through the arch.
Photo by Eric Roffman

NYFF 2010 SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Here's some information from the 48th New York Film Festival 2010 (NYFF) about Special Screenings and programming.

It's a collection of film events that rivals even the main slate in its breadth and interest!

For the NYFF 2010 MAIN SLATE
see: http://qporit.blogspot.com/2010/08/48th-new-york-film-festival-2010.html
For the NYFF 2010 DIRECTORS DIALOGS
see: http://qporit.blogspot.com/2010/08/nyff-2010-dialogs-with-directors.html




48th NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2010
Sept. 24 - Oct. 10
MASTERWORKS, SPECIAL SCREENINGS, SPECIAL PROGRAMS
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUSESCU
Frederick Wiseman's BOXING GYM
A LETTER TO ELIA from Martin Scorsese & Kent Jones
In-person 11-film tribute to Japanese master director Masahiro Shinoda
Special appearances by Olivier Assayas, Mike Leigh and David Thomson
Views from the Avant-Garde

This fascinating breath of programming will include special screenings of Andrei Ujica's acclaimed essay film The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, the latest from documentary master Frederick Wiseman, and Martin Scorsese's personal homage to the late Elia Kazan.

Also included are two Masterworks programs, Elegant Elegies: The Films of Masahiro Shinoda and Fernando de Fuentes' Revolutionary Trilogy;

Returning to the festival stage is audience favorite, The Cinema Inside Me, this year featuring an in-depth, illustrated conversation with Olivier Assayas; as well as Views from the Avant-Garde making its fourteenth experimental journey to the screen.

Once again, the New York Film Festival will partner with HBO in hosting four HBO Directors Dialogues (see separate article: http://qporit.blogspot.com/2010/08/nyff-2010-dialogs-with-directors.html).

The Masterworks and Special event programs offer a plethora of special event screenings and discussions, exploring varying stories, storytelling-processes and filmmaking styles and allow audiences additional opportunities to sample what they have always loved about the New York Film Festival and perhaps try out what they have always been curious to explore further.


Masterworks Elegant Elegies: The Films of Masahiro Shinoda
Running Sept. 25 - Oct. 10

A spectacular filmmaker and key to the Japanese New Wave, Shinoda was fascinated by both traditional Japanese aesthetics and the modernity of cinema. Gamblers betting it all in games they can't win, samurais heading into their final battles, lovers realizing their bonds are no match for an uncaring destiny: This is the remarkable universe of Masahiro Shinoda.

This Masterworks program will showcase 12 of Shinoda's films, including such not to be missed titles as, Pale Flower, Double Suicide, and The Ballad of Orin.

We're honored to welcome Mr. Shinoda to this year's festival for this special tribute, presented as part of the 150th Anniversary Celebration of Japan-NYC Friendship.


Masterworks: Fernando de Fuentes' Mexican Revolution Trilogy
Running Sept 29-30

A foundational figure of Mexican cinema and a true jack-of-all trades, Fernando de Fuentes landed in the cinema in the early Thirties and made this remarkable trilogy of films on the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1918, the first major revolution of the twentieth century. All three films in this series deal with the intimate nature of the conflict -- how often it pitted friend against friend, brother against brother.

Of special interest is Let's Go with Pancho Villa, Latin America's first super-production, made in full collaboration with the Mexican government when they were trying to jump-start a national film industry.

Following the screening of Let's Go with Pancho Villa, there will be a panel discussion on the cinematic depiction of the Mexican revolution. Prints courtesy of La Cinemateca de la UNAM.


A Letter to Elia & America, America Sept. 27
6:15 (A Letter to Elia) +
7:45 (America, America)

A Letter to Elia
Martin Scorsese & Kent Jones, 2010, USA; 60m

A Letter to Elia is a heartfelt declaration from one great American filmmaker to another, as Scorsese speaks candidly and passionately about one of his formative filmmaking influences: the late Elia Kazan. Utilizing precisely chosen clips from Kazan's signature films, and interview footage of the director himself, Scorsese and Jones recount the director's tumultuous journey from the Group Theatre to the Hollywood A-list to the thicket of the blacklist. But most of all, they make a powerful case for Kazan as a profoundly personal artist working in a famously impersonal industry.
Mon Sep 27: 6:15

America, America
Elia Kazan, 1963, USA; 174m

Based on the life of Kazan's own uncle, the director's favorite among his 19 feature films is the unforgettable story of an impoverished and oppressed Greek Turk determined to escape, by any means necessary, to the land of the free. His perilous journey across mountains and oceans, through arranged marriages and crafty swindlers, rivals that of an earlier Greek voyager, Odysseus, in its epic emotional sweep. Rarely screened and never released on DVD.
Mon Sep 27: 7:45


Nuremberg [The Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration]
U.S. Premiere
Stuart Schulberg, 1948, USA; 78m

One of the greatest courtroom dramas in history, Nuremberg shows how the international prosecutors built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis' own films and records. The trial established the "Nuremberg principles" - the foundation for all subsequent trials for crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Though shown in Germany as part of the Allies' de-Nazification campaign, U.S. officials decided not to release Nuremberg in America for political reasons, nor was it shown in any other country. Over the years, the picture negative and sound elements were lost or destroyed. Sandra Schulberg and Josh Waletzky's restoration uses original audio from the trial, allowing you to hear the defendants' and prosecutors' voices for the first time. The film ends with Justice Robert H. Jackson's stirring words - "Let Nuremberg stand as a warning to all who plan and wage aggressive war" - words which leap the decades and make Nuremberg startlingly contemporary.

A panel discussion will follow the screening, featuring the following participants:
Benjamin Ferencz, chief prosecutor, Nuremberg trial of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen; first head of Claims Conference for Jewish restitution; advocate of the International Criminal Court; Aryeh Neier, human rights advocate; President, Open Society Institute; former director of ACLU and Human Rights Watch; Emilio DiPalma, one of the courtroom guards seen in the film; author of memoir Just a Kid: A Guard at the Nuremberg Trials; Sandra Schulberg, creator (with Josh Waletzky) of the restoration; daughter of the film's writer/director Stuart Schulberg.
Tue Sep 28: 6:15


The Cinema Inside Me: Olivier Assayas
Presented at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 3

Filmmaker turned film critic (at Cahiers du cinema) turned filmmaker, Olivier Assayas (Carlos) has become over the past two decades one of the most respected filmmakers working anywhere today. His critical writing on cinema was crucial for introducing the new Asian cinema into France, and he continues to maintain a strong interest in the avant-garde and experimental films. In conversation with NYFF Selection Committee Chairman Richard Peña, Mr. Assayas will offer a personal guided tour of some key moments in his own history of cinema-showing sequences from films and by filmmakers who powerfully influenced his thoughts on cinema as well as his filmmaking practice.


Views from the Avant-Garde
Sept. 30 - Oct. 3
Curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith.

For its 14th year, Views offers an expanded edition, presenting four nights of New York and world premieres from the frontiers of innovative moving image making. Highlights include:

Robert Beavers's The Suppliant,
James Benning's Ruhr,
Nathaniel Dorsky's Pastourelle,
a restoration of Manoel de Oliveira's Rite of Spring,
and Phil Solomon's three-screen American Falls.

Also expect new work by Thom Andersen, Ute Aurand, Stephanie Barber, Mati Diop, David Gatten, Janie Geiser, Lewis Klahr, Dani Leventhal, Jeanne Liotta, Matt McCormick, Tomonari Nishikawa, Michael Robinson, Fern Silva, Deborah Stratman, Peter Tscherkassky and many others, plus nightly special Furman Gallery projection performances by Paul Clipson and Bruce McClure.


Frederick Wiseman's Boxing Gym
Boxing Gym
Frederick Wiseman, 2010, USA; 91m

Master documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman returns to the Festival with his terrific 38th feature. Taking as his subject Lord's Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas, Wiseman observes men, women, and children as they train and interact in a lively and diverse environment. The irresistible portrait is marked by Wiseman's sensitive eye and adroit editing, and recalls his past meditations on bodies in motion (Ballet, La Danse) and on violence, people at play, and America in microcosm. Followed by a conversation and Q&A with Frederick Wiseman.
Oct. 4, 6:15


Mike Leigh: Shooting London

Acclaimed director Mike Leigh-at the NYFF with his newest film Another Year-is a quintessential chronicler and interpreter of London (past and present). London is the city he lives and works in, and a "character" all its own in the Leigh universe. Leigh will discuss the importance of London neighborhoods and sites in his films, and their integration into his films' themes. Moderated by Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and interspersed with a selection of film clips.
Oct. 6, 6:30


Biographical and Beyond: An Evening with David Thomson, Featuring Birth

Praised as the finest reference book ever written about movies, David Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is its author's idiosyncratic, indispensible, and deeply addictive indexing of the key players in the history of moving pictures, from Abbott and Costello to Catherine Zeta-Jones. On the eve of the publication of the revised and expanded Fifth Edition, we have invited Thomson (himself a former member of the NYFF selection committee) to discuss his work, his writing process, and to present a film of his choosing. His selection is Birth (2004), director Jonathan Glazer's metaphysical thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a woman who becomes convinced that a 10-year-old boy is the reincarnation of her late husband. Thomson has hailed the film as a neglected masterpiece. Post-screening discussion with David Thomson and Film Society Associate Program Director Scott Foundas, followed by book-signing in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery.
Oct. 7, 6:30


Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, with
A Matter of Life and Death
Oct. 8, 6:30 (Cameraman) & 8:45 (Matter)

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
Craig McCall, 2010, UK; 86m

As wonderfully informative as it is delightfully entertaining, Cameraman traces the eight-decade career of cinematographer Jack Cardiff. A child actor who found his true calling on the other side of the camera, Cardiff was the first European to be trained in shooting Technicolor; a few years later, Michael Powell promoted the ace cameraman to full-scale cinematographer for A Matter of Life and Death. Soon, cinematic history would be made: together, Powell and Cardiff set the standard for the creative use of color in classics such as The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. Craig McCall traces the development of Cardiff's art on both sides of the Atlantic, detailing his constant interaction with the painters and paintings he admired while offering a treasure lode of Cardiff anecdotes about Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles, Marilyn Monroe and a host of other legends. A Strand release
Oct 8, 6:30

A Matter of Life and Death
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946, UK; 104m

In Cardiff's pioneering collaboration with Powell, a dashing young WWII airman (David Niven) chats up, then bares his soul to a beautiful radio operator (Kim Hunter) even as his planes dives to earth. It's not quite clear where precisely Niven comes down, because the movie takes a turn from Technicolor wartime melodrama into a meditation on the worth of a life and the righteousness of a death, as they're weighed in a chilly, monochrome Heaven and in an operating room where surgeons work to save Niven's damaged brain. No comfy allegory here; Powell's gem is made of harder-and more valuable-stuff. With Raymond Massey, Roger Livesey, Robert Coote, Marius Goring, and Richard Attenborough.
Oct. 8, 8:45


The Autobiography of Nikolae Ceaucescu
Andrei Ujică, 2010, Romania; 180m

An astonishing work of the sociopolitical imagination, Andrei Ujică's audacious essay film imagines the life of the controversial Romanian President as he himself might have recalled it on the eve of his 1989 execution. Working from a treasure trove of pristine archival footage (of official communist-era newsreels), enhanced by an ingenious sound design, Ujică spins a riveting first-person narrative that traces its subject's rapid rise through the political ranks, his efforts to unify the Communist East, and even his goodwill tour of the Americas-with little matters like the millions of ordinary Romanians denied basic human services consigned to Ceausescu's subconscious (and Ujică's cutting room floor). The pièce de résistance: a North Korean welcome ceremony that ranks with Busby Berkley at his most kaleidoscopic.
Oct. 9, 11:30am


Joe Dante's The Hole in 3D

The Hole
Joe Dante, 2009, USA; 92m

Like his Gremlins, Explorers and Small Soldiers, director Joe Dante's latest frightmare-and his first in 3D-takes place in one of those placid, Midwestern anytowns that, in the sci-fi classics of the 1950s, regularly played host to intergalactic blobs, body snatchers and other strange invaders. Here, the aberrations come from below rather than above-specifically, from a boarded-up pit in the basement of an ordinary suburban home, which gets reopened when a single mother and her two curious sons move in. Like a Freudian Pandora's box, the hole gives rise to the deepest fears of those who peer into it, from the purely abstract to the terrifyingly physical. All of which is mere prelude for our eventual plunge down the hole itself, which Dante turns into an ingenious, Caligarian funhouse of long shadows, exaggerated perspectives and things that go bump in the night (all, it should be noted, accomplished on a fraction of usual Hollywood budget). Winner of the Venice Film Festival's inaugural Persol 3D award.
Oct. 9, 6:00


Dracula
the Spanish-Language version, accompanied by Gary Lucas

The fascinating and more "full-blooded" 1931 Spanish-language version of the classic tale is freshly accompanied by an eerie live solo guitar performance by guitarist, composer, and Grammy-nominated songwriter Gary Lucas. Directed by George Melford, the movie was filmed at night in Hollywood on the same sets as the Bela Lugosi Dracula with a Spanish-speaking cast. Lucas's score has received great critical acclaim and, together with the immortal blood-sucker, promises to make for an unforgettable night.
Oct. 9, 9:30


The Marvelous World of Segundo de Chomón
Known as the "Spanish Méliès," Segundo de Chomón was a major film pioneer whose inventive special effects and optical processes influenced the cinema for years to come, and can be found in many silent classics, from Pastrone's Cabiria to Gance's Napoleon-not to mention his own extraordinary works. Through the generosity of the Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona, we're delighted to present a sampler of de Chomón's great achievements, including masterworks such as The Electric Hotel, The Witch's Cave, and The King of Dollars, with piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura.

Film scholar Tom Gunning will be on hand to discuss the importance of de Chomón's work.
Oct. 10, 12:30


Foreign Parts
Verena Paravel & J.P. Sniadecki, 2010, USA; 80m

Tucked between the new Citifield baseball stadium and the Van Wyck overpass lie a ramshackle collection of auto-body repair shops and other small businesses, staffed by an extraordinarily multicultural cast of characters. But New York City has other plans: the area has been targeted for development, complete with apartments, malls, and parks, and this commercial shantytown may soon be a memory. Filmmakers Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki have created a revealing and tender portrait of Willets Point, Queens,that captures the many roads the American dream has taken. Best First Feature, Locarno Film Festival
Oct 10, 3:30


Ticket Information:
General Public tickets will be available September 12th. For more information visit
www.FilmLinc.com/nyff
or call 212 875 5601.

NYFF 2010 DIALOGS WITH DIRECTORS

48th NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2010

HBO FILMS® Directors Dialogue
&
The Cinema Inside Me

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's 48th New York Film Festival will again partner with HBO FILMS® to host a variety of dialogues and filmmaker panels during the festival's September 24th through October 10th run.

The lineup this year is quite amazingly interesting:


On Saturday September 25th David Fincher discusses this year's Opening Night film, The Social Network with New York Film Festival Selection Committee Chairman Richard Peña.

On Sunday September 26th, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner) will take the stage to discuss his Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives with Selection Committee member Dennis Lim.

On Sunday October 3rd, Julie Taymor and Columbia University's James Shapiro, a Shakespeare, medieval and early modern drama specialist and author, will be discussing Taymor's Centerpiece selection The Tempest.

James Shapiro, a Professor at Columbia University's Department of English and Comparative Literature, is the author of Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare (1991); Shakespeare and the Jews (1995), which was awarded the Bainton Prize for best book on sixteenth-century literature; Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play (2000); and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005), winner of the Theatre Book Prize as well as the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, awarded to the best nonfiction book published in the UK. Shapiro's most recent book is Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010). He has co-edited the Columbia Anthology of British Poetry and served as the associate editor of the Columbia History of British Poetry. He has also taught as a Fulbright lecturer at Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEH, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and the Huntington Library. James is currently at work on another book, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606.

On Saturday October 9th, Kelly Reichardt who has Meek's Cutoff in this year's festival will have her discussion with Selection Committee member, Melissa Anderson.

Each conversation will be followed by an audience inclusive Q&A.

The Cinema Inside Me, Sponsored By HBO FILMS®, will take place at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 3rd:

This year, feature filmmaker, turned film critic (at Cahiers du cinema), turned filmmaker, Olivier Assayas will highlight his current project, Carlos. Assayas, over the past two decades, has become one of the most respected filmmakers working anywhere today. His critical writing on cinema was crucial for introducing the new Asian cinema into France, and he continues to maintain a strong interest in avant-garde and experimental films. In conversation with New York Film Festival Selection Committee Chairman Richard Peña, Mr. Assayas will offer a personal guided tour of some key moments in his own history of cinema -- showing sequences from films and by filmmakers who powerfully influenced his thoughts on cinema as well as his filmmaking practice.

The David Fincher, Apichatpong Weerasethakal and Kelly Reichardt HBO FILMS® Directors Dialogues will be held at the Walter Reade Theater.

The Julie Taymor HBO FILMS® Directors Dialogue will be held in the J Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, on the 10th floor of Lincoln Center's Samuel B. & David Rose Building, just adjacent to the Walter Reade Theater.

Ticket Information:
There will be an advance ticketing opportunity for Film Society of Lincoln Center Patrons and Members beginning August 30th through September 11th.

General Public tickets will be available September 12th. For more information visit

www.FilmLinc.com/nyff or

call 212 875 5601.

48TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL - 2010

Clint Eastwood
Directing HEREAFTER
The CLOSING NIGHT FILM
At the 48th NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL - 2010

The 48th New York Film Festival (NYFF 2010) will host 28 feature films from fourteen countries when it runs Sept. 24-Oct. 10 at Alice Tully Hall and The Walter Reade Theater.

NYFF is one of the most distinguished film festivals in the world, choosing the best and most imoportant films from around the world, shown in a beautiful theater, and frequently presenting their directors and cast for audience questions. It's not a competition, it's a festival.

Here, from the Film Society (with a few added editorial comments by QPORIT) is a description of this year's festival:

The festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center will also feature a unique blend of programming to complement the main-slate of films, including:

- two Masterworks programs,

- 1 - Elegant Elegies: The Films of Masahiro Shinoda and

- 2 - Fernando de Fuentes' Revolutionary Trilogy,

in addition to

- The Cinema Inside Me: Olivier Assayas,

- Views from the Avant-Garde, and

- 10 special event screenings, all of which will be announced in more detail shortly.

The Opening and Closing Night films, and the Centerpiece are directed by three of America's most important current film directors, David Fincher, Julie Taymor, and Clint Eastwood.

The Opening Night film is David Fincher's The Social Network. (David Fincher has just started work on the highly anticipated American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.)

The Centerpiece is Julie Taymor's version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. (Julie Taymor is currently developing the spectacular production of Spiderman -- "Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark" -- on Broadway. Currently scheduled -- it's been delayed before because it may be the most elaborate $50M++ show ever mounted on Broadway -- it's supposed to open on Dec 21, 2010.)

The Closing Night film is Clint Eastwood's Hereafter. (Clint Eastwood was just the subject of an extensive retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.)

"As so beautifully evident in Hereafter, Clint Eastwood continues to make the most daring, provocative films in America. With his returned appearance here in the New York Film Festival, the director has showcased an Opening Night film, a Centerpiece film and now this year's Closing Night with Hereafter, a "hat trick" of which we are especially proud," says Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Clint Eastwood's Hereafter thus marks the filmmaker's 4th visit to the New York Film Festival; previous Eastwood titles presented were The Changeling (Centerpiece 2008), Mystic River (Opening Night 2003) and Bird (1988). Hereafter stars Matt Damon, Cécile de France, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, George McLaren and Frankie McLaren. The film is written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) and produced by Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy and Robert Lorenz. The executive producers are Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Tim Moore and Peter Morgan.

Hereafter tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. Matt Damon stars as George, a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might-or must-exist in the hereafter.

Fincher and Taymor will be making their New York Film Festival debuts in this year's program. Returning international veterans for this year's festival will include: Jean-Luc Godard's (27th NYFF visit); Manoel de Oliveira (10th); Mike Leigh (9th); Raul Ruiz (8th); and Abbas Kiarostami & Hong Sang-soo (5th time each).

Added Peña, "My colleagues and I were especially impressed with the fearlessness of the filmmakers selected for this year's program. To see both the veterans and the newcomers moving into bold new areas, experimenting with narrative or pushing the limits of genre, emphasizes the undying vitality of a medium that sadly is so often reduced to formula and repetition."


Here's a list of the 48th New York Film Festival main-slate (see below for descriptions of the films):

Opening Night
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, David Fincher, 2010, USA, 120 min

Centerpiece
THE TEMPEST, Julie Taymor, 2010, USA, 110 min

Closing Night
HEREAFTER, Clint Eastwood, 2010, USA, 126 min


ANOTHER YEAR, Mike Leigh, 2010, UK, 129 min

AURORA, Cristi Puiu, 2010, Romania, 181 min

BLACK VENUS, (Venus noire), Abdellatif Kechiche, France, 166 min

CARLOS, Olivier Assayas, 2010, France, 319 min

CERTIFIED COPY (Copie conformé), Abbas Kiarostami, 2010, France/Italy, 106 min

FILM SOCIALISME, Jean-Luc Godard, 2010, Switzerland, 101 min

INSIDE JOB, Charles Ferguson, 2010, USA, 120 min

LE QUATTRO VOLTE, Michelangelo Frammartino, 2010, Italy, 88 min

LENNON NYC, Michael Epstein, 2010, USA, 115 min

MEEK'S CUTOFF, Kelly Reichardt, 2010, USA, 104 min

MY JOY (Schastye moe), Sergei Loznitsa, 2010, Ukraine/Germany, 127 min

MYSTERIES OF LISBON (Misterios de Lisboa), Raul Ruiz, Portugal/France, 272 min

OF GODS AND MEN (Des homes et des dieux), Xavier Beauvois, 2010,
France, 120 min

OKI'S MOVIE (Ok hui ui yeonghwa), Hong Sang-soo, 2010, South Korea, 80 min

OLD CATS (Gatos viejos), Sebastian Silva, 2010, Chile, 88 min

POETRY (Shi), Lee Chang-dong, 2010, South Korea, 139 min

POST MORTEM, Pablo Larrain, 2010, Chile/Mexico/Germany, 98 min

REVOLUCION, Mariana Chenillo, Fernando Embecke, Amat Escalante, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rodrigo Garcia, Diego Luna, Gerardo Naranjo, Rodrigo Plá, Carlos Reygadas, Patricia Riggen, 2010, Mexico, 110 min

THE ROBBER (Der Räuber), Benjamin Heisenberg, Austria/Germany, 90 min

ROBINSON IN RUINS, Patrick Keiller, 2010, UK, 101 min

SILENT SOULS (Ovsyanki), Alexei Fedorchenko, Russia, 75 min

THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA (O estranho caso de Angélica), Manoel de Oliveira,
Portugal, 97 min

TUESDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS (Marti, dupa craciun), Radu Muntean,
Romania, 99 min

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL PAST LIVES (Lung Boonmee raluek chat),
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010, UK/Thailand, 113 min

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (Somos lo que hay), Jorge Michel Grau, Mexico, 90 min



The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring top films from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Peña also includes: Melissa Anderson, contributor The Village Voice; Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center; Dennis Lim, Editor, Moving Image Source & Freelance Critic; and Todd McCarthy, Critic indieWire.

Ticket Information:

There will be an advance ticketing opportunity for Film Society of Lincoln Center Patrons and Members beginning August 30th through September 11th. General Public tickets will be available September 12th. For more information visit

www.FilmLinc.com/nyff or

Call 212 875 5601.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from 42BELOW, Audi, American Airlines, GRAFF, The New York Times, Stella Artois, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts. Additionally, The 2010 New York Film Festival is supported by HBO, Illy Caffe, Kodak, Dolby and WABC-TV. (Note that film festivals could not exist without sponsors!)


48th New York Film Festival,

Sept. 24 - Oct. 10

OPENING NIGHT
The Social Network
David Fincher, 2010, USA, 120m
Brilliantly directed by David Fincher from a razor sharp script by Aaron Sorkin (one of my favorite writers), The Social Network is a scintillating play-by-play of the meteoric rise and acrimonious fall of the founders of Facebook-Harvard undergrads who developed their zeitgeist-altering phenomenon out of their dorm rooms...and ended up suing each other for millions. Jesse Eisenberg turns in a mesmerizing performance as the genius but socially maladroit CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose flash of social-networking inspiration occurs during a drunken act of internet revenge on an ex-girlfriend (played by future tattoo girl, Rooney Mara), with Spiderman-to-be Andrew Garfield as nice-guy CFO Eduaordo Saverin and scene stealing Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder Sean Parker. Much more than a ripped-from-the-headlines docudrama, The Social Network is a timeless study of unchecked ambition, status and privilege in America, and those other, more precious things money can't buy. World Premiere. A Columbia Pictures release.

CENTERPIECE
The Tempest
Julie Taymor, 2010, USA, 110m
Renowned for her wonderfully inventive works for both stage and screen, Julie Taymor has applied her considerable talents to this fascinating rendering of Shakespeare's late, great mystical romance. Exiled on a remote island, Prospera (Helen Mirren), the duchess of Milan, conjures up a storm to lure a bevy of characters from her past to shore, revealing in the process a skate of human frailties, illusions, kindness and nobility. Ms. Mirren is ably aided by a terrific cast, including Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Djimon Hounsou, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Ben Whishaw, Tom Conti, Reeve Carney and Felicity Jones. North American Premiere. A Touchstone Pictures release.

CLOSING NIGHT
Hereafter
Clint Eastwood, 2010, USA, 126m
Another entirely surprising film from a director who, at 80, remains at the peak of his powers, Clint Eastwood's Hereafter explores the possibility of establishing connections with loved ones who have passed on-an enterprise marked by skepticism as well an adventurous sense of hope. An engrossing, nuanced ensemble piece with a cast headed by the excellent Matt Damon and Cécile de France, the script by Peter Morgan (The Queen, NYFF 2006) unfolds three intersecting stories as it entertains the idea that alternate realms of consciousness might exist apart from the life we all know. Filmed in France, England, San Francisco and Hawaii, Hereafter is made with the consummate skill and confident grace one expects from Hollywood's most enduring and honored veteran. But it also exhibits the energy and curiosity of an ever-young mind still striving to tackle the eternal mysteries of life and death. U.S. Premiere. A Warner Bros. release.

Another Year
Mike Leigh, 2010, UK, 129m
Brimming with joy and tragedy, old wounds and new beginnings, the latest from British master Mike Leigh observes four seasons in the lives of longtime married couple Tom and Gerri (the marvelous Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), their 30-year-old bachelor son Joe, and Gerri's spinster work colleague Mary (Lesley Manville). A houseguest so frequent she's practically family, Mary at first seems a harmless sad sack, drinking too much and bemoaning her failures in life and love. But as time passes, and summer gives way to fall, Mary's depression grows, and her behavior becomes ever more erratic. A typically wry, wise, carefully observed portrait of the human experience, Another Year finds Leigh at the top of his game, and Manville-in her seventh collaboration with the director-at the top of hers. By turns abrasive and fragile, hilarious and finally heartbreaking, Mary emerges as one of Leigh's most complex and memorable characters-a rare gift to an actress and an audience. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Aurora
Cristi Puiu, 2010, Romania/France/Switzerland Germany, 181m
Five years after The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (NYFF 2005), Romanian writer-director Cristi Puiu returns with another singular, uncompromising character study, this time casting himself in the demanding lead role. That man, named Viorel, is a metallurgical engineer whose life seems to have spun loose from its axis, leaving him to solemnly stalk the streets of Bucharest, encountering former colleagues, a mistress, his mother, and his former in-laws, all the while harboring a secret plan designed to restore order to the whole. In a series of long, methodical takes, Puiu plunges us directly into Viorel's world, making us both voyeur and accomplice to his actions, as we gradually come to understand just who this man is and the inevitability of where he's going.

BLACK VENUS
Black Venus/Vénus noire
Abdellatif Kechiche, 2010, France, 166m
In his unforgettable telling of the short, deplorable existence of the "Hottentot Venus"-née Saartjie Baartman, a slave from Cape Town who was exhibited as a freak-show attraction in early nineteenth-century Europe-Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain) delivers a riveting examination of racism. Gawked at and groped in grimy carnivals in London and, later, high-society Parisian salons, Baartman soon becomes the object of prurient fascination of French scientists, obsessed with calibrating every part of her anatomy-particularly her enlarged buttocks and genitals. Though Baartman's life was unspeakably grim, Yahima Torres's remarkably complex portrayal of the title character reveals not just a mute symbol of victimhood but also a woman capable of fierce defiance. North American Premiere.

Carlos
Olivier Assayas, 2010, France/Germany, 319m
An astonishment in every respect, Carlos is a dynamic, intelligent and revelatory account of the career of the notorious revolutionary terrorist popularly known as Carlos the Jackal. A sensation at Cannes, it also packs every one of its 319 minutes with real movie-movie excitement, action, sex and suspense, creating a nerve-jangling, you-are-there verisimilitude, most of all in its breathless recreation of Carlos' audacious 1975 kidnapping of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna. Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with the arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime, while director Olivier Assayas takes great artistic, political and historical risks-fluidly staging sequences set in at least 16 countries and spoken in all the appropriate languages-to emerge with the best film of his career to date. An IFC Films release.

Certified Copy/Copie conforme
Abbas Kiarostami, 2010, France/Italy, 106m
On paper, Abbas Kiarostami's return to narrative filmmaking after a decade of experimental video projects seems a risky proposition: a French production, filmed on location in Tuscany, with a European cast speaking in a mixture of English, French and Italian. But in fact, this close-up study of a relationship is a dazzling return to form. An antiques dealer (Juliette Binoche) and a philosopher (British opera star William Shimmell) appear to meet for the first time following one of his lectures, but soon we begin to suspect that there is more to this couple than meets the eye. Are they in fact husband and wife engaging in an elaborate charade? Or is Kiarostami showing us the beginning, middle and end of a marriage in something other than chronological order? Nimbly juggling reality with cinematic illusion, and anchored by Binoche's emotionally naked performance (Best Actress, Cannes), Certified Copy is a stimulating and provocative Kiarostami coup. North American Premiere. An IFC Films release.

The Cinema Inside Me: Olivier Assayas
Filmmaker turned film critic (at Cahiers du cinema) turned filmmaker, Olivier Assayas (Carlos) has become over the past two decades one of the most respected filmmakers working anywhere today. His critical writing on cinema was crucial for introducing the new Asian cinema into France, and he continues to maintain a strong interest in the avant-garde and experimental films. In conversation with NYFF Selection Committee Chairman Richard Peña, Mr. Assayas will offer a personal guided tour of some key moments in his own history of cinema-showing sequences from films and by filmmakers who powerfully influenced his thoughts on cinema as well as his filmmaking practice.

Film Socialisme
Jean-Luc Godard, 2010, Switzerland, 101m
At 80, Jean-Luc Godard shows no sign of slowing down or easing up; his latest work is one of his most formally audacious, as well as one of his most resonant. A visual and aural collage that moves through discussions of nature, art, politics, atrocities, and film history (among other topics), shot in a dizzying variety of formats, Film Socialisme is never simply an intellectual exercise. There's a passion behind this torrent of words and images, a sense of the vital importance of the issues addressed and the need to find new ways for cinema to discuss them-plus, as always in Godard, the sheer beauty of much of the film. Following our September 29 screening, New Yorker film critic Richard Brody, former Cahiers du cinema editor Jean-Michel Frodon and celebrated film scholar Annette Michelson will discuss the film, putting it in the context of Godard's career as well as that of contemporary cinema.

Congressman Barney Frank
INSIDE JOB
Inside Job
Charles Ferguson, 2010, USA, 108m
There could scarcely be a film more timely or relevant to the contemporary economic crisis than Inside Job. Continuing in the meticulous, comprehensive and penetrating style that so well served his incisive analysis of the Iraq quagmire, No End in Sight, director Charles Ferguson enlists many key players to explain an often arcane and complicated subject in ways that everyone can comprehend. Placing recent developments on Wall Street and around the world in historical perspective dating back to the Great Depression, this concise documentary generates cumulative outrage as it systematically emphasizes how financial growth and industry deregulation fostered an environment of economic recklessness and criminality, as well as a willingness to look the other way as long as the good times rolled. Dealing in facts and figures rather than hyperbole and hysteria, Ferguson employs more than three dozen expert economists, executives, politicians and scholars to lay it all out in terms that are as illuminating as they are chilling. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

LennonNYC
Michael Epstein, 2010, USA, 115m
In 1971, John Lennon arrived in New York City and felt re-born: at last living in the country that had dominated his artistic imagination, Lennon and his new bride Yoko Ono found in the city the perfect blend of music, politics, culture and lifestyle. But those heady first years eventually gave way to a dark period in which both Lennon's musical career and his personal life almost ran aground-until once again New York City came to his rescue. Using remarkable, rarely seen footage and interviews with many who were close to John, filmmaker Michael Epstein has created a moving, revealing portrait of the music legend's New York years, detailing not only his triumphs but also some hard times over which he so beautifully recovered in the final years of his tragically curtailed life. World Premiere.

Michelle Williams
MEEK'S CUTOFF
Meek's Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt, 2010, USA, 104m
In 1845, three families hire the wild-eyed, bushy-bearded Meek (Bruce Greenwood) to lead them over Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Trekking through parched lands and running dangerously low on water, the group begins to lose faith in their tall-tale-telling guide, further questioning his instincts when they encounter a Native American wanderer. Like her earlier, incomparable Pacific Northwest-set films Old Joy (ND/NF 2006) and Wendy and Lucy (NYFF 2008), Kelly Reichardt's sublime Western explores American myths, precarious safety nets, and the kindness-and cruelty-of strangers. Magnificently shot by Chris Blauvelt, Meek's Cutoff reteams this essential director with deft screenwriter Jon Raymond and Wendy and Lucy star Michelle Williams, perhaps the toughest young bride in a calico dress you'll ever see.

My Joy/Schastye moe
Sergei Loznitsa, 2010, Ukraine/Germany/Netherlands, 127m
A most impressive feature debut, My Joy starts as the tale of Georgy, a driver who heads off from his home town with a truckload of goods for the market. A wrong turn leads him onto the back roads of the region and seemingly deeper into the area's hidden history. Weaving together several stories, Sergei Loznitsa creates an unsettling portrait of a world deceptively tranquil in appearance but harboring long festering resentments and violence that can surface without warning. The film beautifully moves between two modes-one decidedly contemporary, the other more historical or even mythic, as if these characters are always part of a larger, obscured reality of which they themselves are scarcely aware. My Joy is an encouraging example of the terrific work beginning to emerge again from the nations of the former Soviet Union.

Mysteries of Lisbon/Mistérios de Lisboa
Raúl Ruiz, 2010, Portugal/France, 272m
In 19th century Lisbon, a teenage boy raised by priests learns the secret of his aristocratic lineage; a French heiress (Clotilde Hesme) seeks revenge against the man who sullied her honor; and a kindly padre changes identities as it suits the occasion. These are among the characters who populate Raul Ruiz's breathtaking adaptation of one of the masterworks of Portuguese literature: Camilo Castelo Branco's Mysteries of Lisbon. Nothing-and nobody-is first as it/he appears in this intoxicating spiral of stories within stories within stories, filmed by Ruiz with gorgeous period design, a fluid, pirouetting camera, and a peerless French and Portuguese cast. A companion film to his magnificent Proust adaptation, Time Regained (NYFF 1999), Mysteries of Lisbon is the crowning achievement of a great director's career.

Of Gods and Men/Des hommes et des dieux
Xavier Beauvois, 2010, France, 120m
In this year's winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, director Xavier Beauvois recounts the harrowing true story of a brotherhood of French monks in the highlands of North Africa who find themselves threatened by Islamic extremists during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. Starring a gifted ensemble cast led by the empathic Lambert Wilson (as resident religious scholar Brother Christian), the film begins as a bucolic chronicle of these simple men of God and their gentle relationship with their Muslim neighbors, to whom they provide much needed medical care and other services. When the insurgents arrive, they find themselves faced with an impossible decision: to flee, or to stand their ground and fulfill their spiritual mission. Magnificently photographed by cinematographer Caroline Champetier in compositions that suggest Renaissance paintings, Of Gods and Men is a poetic, austerely beautiful triumph.

Oki's Movie/Ok hui ui yeonghwa
Hong Sang-soo, 2010, South Korea, 80m
NYFF perennial Hong Sang-soo's latest may be his wittiest-and his most deeply felt-work to date. Toggling between the present and the past, reality and fiction, and divided into four chapters (and different points of view), Oki's Movie recounts the amorous and artistic adventures of talented young director Jin-gu (Lee Sun-kyun), his middle-aged cinema instructor, Professor Song (Moon Sung-keun), and Oki (Jung Yumi), the woman who loves them both. As "Pomp and Circumstance" wryly plays throughout, the protagonists nobly fumble their way through romance and work, culminating in Jin-gu's disastrous post-screening Q&A. Hong's eleventh feature is a comedy with tremendous emotional heft, concluding with a heartbreaking précis on the vagaries of the heart and the terrors of aging.

Old Cats/Gatos viejos
Sebastián Silva, 2010, Chile, 88m
With last year's The Maid (ND/NF 2009) and now with Old Cats, Sebastián Silva has emerged as one of cinema's greatest young talents, mining the hilarity and horror of the nuclear family. Claudia Celedón and Catalina Saavedra-who, respectively, played la señora and the titular domestic servant in The Maid-star as girlfriends Rosario and Hugo, hapless schemers always borrowing money from Isadora and Enrique, Rosario's ailing mother and stepfather. When Isadora refuses to be swindled once again by her daughter, Rosario erupts in tears and recriminations, her hysterics setting off several outrageously funny scenes. A master of tone shifts, Silva seamlessly transforms his family farce into a weightier look at the responsibilities that parents and their offspring alike must face. World premiere.

Poetry/Shi
Lee Chang-dong, 2010, South Korea, 139m
As he did in his last film, Secret Sunshine (NYFF 2007), Lee Chang-dong creates another masterful tale about a woman raising a child on her own. Mija (played by the extraordinary Yoon Jeong-hee), a proper, sixtyish home aide in the early stages of dementia, lives with her sullen adolescent grandson, whose mother is looking for work in Pusan. Enrolling in a poetry class, Mija anxiously awaits inspiration from the muses-which arrives the moment she decides her charge must finally suffer the consequences of a heinous act he has committed. Perfectly paced and performed, Poetry stands out as both a quietly scathing condemnation of male violence (and the craven attempts to cover it up) and an ode to the strength-and moral compass-of an indefatigable senescent woman. A Kino International release.

Post Mortem
Pablo Larraín, 2010, Chile/Mexico/Germany, 98m
A literal and figurative dissection of his country's turbulent contemporary history, Chilean director Pablo Larraín's third feature is another highly original, darkly comic mix of the personal and the political from the director of Tony Manero (NYFF 2008). Set in 1973 in the last days of Salvador Allende's presidency, the film stars Tony Manero lead Alfredo Castro (here sporting a mane of long, whitish-blond hair) as Mario, an autopsy recorder who frequents a seedy burlesque hall where his neighbor, Nancy, is one of the dancers. Infatuated from afar, he finally works up the courage to visit her dressing room, and finds his affections if not exactly returned, at least entertained. As Mario haphazardly tries to woo Nancy away from her Popular Front boyfriend, Chile descends into chaos around them, until Mario finds himself an unwitting first-person witness to the grim face of violent social change.

Le Quattro Volte
Michelangelo Frammartino, 2010, Italy/Germany/France, 88m
Michelangelo Frammartino's wondrous four-part meditation on man and nature traces the grand cycle of life through the humble daily rituals of rural folk in the hilly southern Italian region of Calabria. An elderly shepherd ingests the dust from a church floor to treat his cough; a baby goat from his flock tentatively ventures out to pasture; a majestic fir tree is felled and repurposed as the centerpiece of a village celebration; finally, its logs are transformed into wood charcoal through the ancient methods of the local workers. Connecting the dots among animal, vegetable, mineral and dust, Frammartino's film is both concrete and cosmic, and it features what may be the most impressive single shot of the year: a masterfully orchestrated long take involving a religious procession, a herd of goats, a runaway truck, and a truly awe-inspiring dog.

Revolution/Revolución
Mariana Chenillo, Patricia Riggen, Fernando Eimbcke, Amat Escalante, Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo García, Diego Luna, Gerardo Naranjo, Rodrigo Plá and Carlos Reygadas, 2010, Mexico, 105m
The first major political revolution of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution transformed that society while offering a model for the rest of Latin America for government-directed social change. To commemorate its centenary, ten of Mexico's brightest young directors each contributed a short to this omnibus project, organized and co-produced by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. Ranging from Patricia Riggen's delightful Beautiful and Beloved to Carlos Reygadas' explosive This is My Kingdom, Revolución is an intriguing collection of responses to the Revolution's legacy, a fascinating panorama of views on contemporary Mexico, as well as a terrific introduction to one of the world's most consistently exciting national cinemas.

The Robber/Der Räuber
Benjamin Heisenberg, 2010, Austria/Germany, 96m
Adapted from a novel that was in turn based on the real-life case of a champion marathoner who led a double life holding up banks in 1980s Austria, Benjamin Heisenberg's sleek and intelligent genre exercise is at once an action thriller, a love story, a character study, and an existential parable. Its protagonist, Johann (Andreas Lust, last seen here in the Oscar-nominated Revanche), is defined almost exclusively by his twin obsessions. He runs and he robs, therefore he is. Alternating between endorphin-rush kineticism and stretches of quiet tension, The Robber is as precise and single-minded as its hero. At the film's center is a brilliantly calibrated performance by Lust, by turns explosively physical and tightly coiled, as a man driven to attain a state of perpetual motion. (FYI, though having nothing to do with this film, Benjamin Heisenberg is the grandson of Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum physics.)

ROBINSON IN RUINSRobinson in Ruins
Patrick Keiller, 2010, UK, 101m
The British filmmaker Patrick Keiller is a master of the personal cine-essay and the political landscape film. As in his previous psycho-geographic tours London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997), this new work purports to be constructed from footage recorded by Keiller's fictional alter-ego, the peripatetic researcher Robinson. Striking images of nature and marginal sites (military bases, opium fields, lichen growing on a traffic sign) are paired with the measured tones of a narrator (Vanessa Redgrave) who recounts Robinson's progress through the south of England and pieces together his notebook of musings on, among many other subjects, agriculture, architecture, the collapse of late capitalism and the extinction of the planet. Packed with secret histories, hidden connections, and a few whimsical fictions, Robinson in Ruins is a work of towering ambition and sly humor, densely informative but never dry, slicing through space and time with wit, alacrity, and eccentric intelligence.

Silent Souls/Ovsyanki
Aleksei Fedrochenko, 2010, Russia, 75m
Ancient customs and traditions live on in the wake of the former Soviet Union in Silent Souls, yet another bracing sign of life for serious filmmaking in the now-fragmented land. A brooding, poetic, hauntingly beautiful art film of the old school, albeit shot through with a modern frankness about society and sex, this short feature from Ukranian director Aleksei Fedorchenko centers on a unique sort of road trip. Imposing tough guy Miron requests that taciturn writer Aist accompany him on a long journey to dispose of the remains of his wife, whose body they transport in the back of the car. As they traverse the evocatively bleak landscape, Miron, according to custom, fills the hours relating the most intimate details of his relationship with his wife, leading to a surprising finale. Drenched in melancholy and haunted by an inescapable past, this is an exquisite work by a quickly rising director.

The Strange Case of Angelica/O Estranho Caso de Angélica
Manoel de Oliveira, 2010, Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil, 94m
More than ever a force of nature, the Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira, 102 this December, delivers one of his most magical films: a radiant ghost story in which a dead newlywed comes to life before a camera lens. As the photographer hero (Ricardo Trepa) grows obsessed with this spectral beauty, the film evolves into an enchanting tale of cinema itself, intimately concerned with the act of perception and the conjuring of alternate worlds. Meditative and serene, with Chopin-scored passages of rapt contemplation and intense melancholy, Angelica is also unpredictably alive, filled with playful detours into subjects like particle physics, manual and mechanized labor, climate change, witchcraft, and the metaphysics of photography. This singular masterpiece could only be the work of an artist liberated by age: a man of multiple times, working with the freedom of a filmmaker almost as old as his medium. A Cinema Guild release.

Tuesday, After Christmas/Marti, dupa raciun
Radu Muntean, 2010, Romania, 99m
Paul (Mimi Branescu) must choose between his wife of ten years, Adriana (Mirela Oprisor), and his mistress, pediatric dentist Raluca (Maria Popistasu). Radu Muntean's singular, stripped-down look at adultery contains several masterfully composed long takes-scenes that further heighten the film's unbearable suspense, from the highly awkward meeting of all the players in the triangle to Paul's confession to his spouse. Muntean's trio of exemplary actors convey the raw emotional states of their characters without ever once relying on histrionics; though each performer is mesmerizing to watch, Oprisor, as the oblivious and then wounded wife, is astonishing in her portrayal of one woman's betrayal, hurt, and spite.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010, UK/Thailand/France/Germany/Spain, 113m
Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year for this gently comic and wholly transporting tale of death and rebirth, set in Thailand's rural northeast. Uncle Boonmee, a farmer suffering from kidney failure, is tended to by loved ones and visited by the ghosts of his wife and son. As for his remembered past lives, they might-or might not-include a water buffalo, a disfigured princess, a talking catfish, and the insects whose chirps engulf the nighttime jungle scenes. A sensory immersion, Uncle Boonmee is an otherworldly fable that lingers on earthly sensations, a film about a dying man that's filled with mysterious signs of life. Apichatpong's vision is above all a generous one: in the threat of extinction he sees the possibility of regeneration. A Strand release.

We Are What We Are/Somos lo que hay
Jorge Michel Grau, 2010, Mexico, 99m
The sudden death of its patriarch leaves a Mexican clan bereft, panicked about their survival, and fumbling to continue a family tradition-namely, a cannibalistic rite that involves the hunting and gathering of fresh human meat in present-day Mexico City. As the widow and her three teenage children grow increasingly desperate, the young director Jorge Michel Grau combines slow-burning suspense with simmering sexual tension and a queasy sense of mystery: the belief system behind what the family calls "the ritual" is never fully explained. A potent and tremendously assured first feature, We Are What We Are packs the allegorical and visceral punch of the best vintage horror. An IFC Films release.

www.FilmLinc.com/nyff
212 875 5601.