Lush foliage paves the frames of Mexican director Yulene Olaizola’s entrancing feature “Tragic Jungle.” Backdrop to violence and the supernatural, the eponymous ecosystem traps us in its mystifying maw for an alluring adventure centered on Black and Indigenous characters—an infrequent sight in the country’s filmic output. 

Played by first-time Belizean actress Indira Rubie Andrewin, Agnes is a young woman crossing the Hondo River to escape a much older English cacique she’s expected to marry.  

Continue reading ‘Tragic Jungle’ Is An Alluring Mexican Adventure Centered On Black & Indigenous People [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

A Tragedy of Manners. This is how bestselling author Patrick DeWitt’s satirical novel “French Exit” was billed upon its publishing in 2018. That description is also spot-on for this elegant, droll, and heartbreaking screen adaption, directed with crafty command and confident style by Azazel Jacobs. Scripted by DeWitt himself with the authority of a wordsmith possessed by his own material, the fiendishly disarming “French Exit” widely and nonchalantly grins out its death-tinted tragedy throughout, but with a fake smile, a severe code of conduct, and not a hair out of place.

Continue reading ‘French Exit’: With No F*cks To Give, Michelle Pfeiffer Sets An Icy World Of Privilege Ablaze [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Among the many things suspended during these plague times of social distancing and self-quarantine is the friendly visit, those excursions we take to friends’ houses just to hang out and catch up, exchange banalities and intimacies between sips of wine on the couch. These meetings yield insights of a different nature than those gleaned from eavesdropping, or those extracted from drunken confessions at the bar—who are our friends on their own turfs? Who else will come knocking at their doors?

Continue reading ‘The Woman Who Ran’: Hong Sang-Soo’s Offbeat Film Examines The Textures Of Female Relationships [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

“The Truffle Hunters” takes viewers deep in the forests of Northern Italy to watch as elderly men and their indispensable dogs participate in the tradition of sniffing out the elusive white Alba truffle.  Beloved by gourmet chefs, the truffle’s rarity drives prices sky-high, even as the subjects of the film maintain the old ways of hunting, free of technology, relying on their own memories and a cranky sense of secrecy.  Like many who spend hours alone in the woods, their character tends to the eccentric, but to step away from the anxieties of 2020 and spend time in their irascible company is a tonic for the soul, a tranquil visit to a vanishing way of life attuned to nature. 

Continue reading ‘The Truffle Hunters’: A Beautiful, Immersive Search For Flavor In The Forests Of Italy [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

Continue reading ‘Red, White And Blue’: John Boyega Is Superb In Steve McQueen’s Challenging, And Unafraid ‘Small Axe’ Film [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

They “meet cute” from across a street, at opposing bus stops; Luc (Logann Antuofermo) is going one way, Djemila (Oulaya Amamra) the other. We meet them in evenly composed medium-wide shots, the camera sharing the distance that separates them. Predictably, he trots across the street to ask for directions. And hey, wouldn’t ya know it? He’s going her way. The bus approaches, and he follows her on; as they ride, each one tries to look at the other without getting caught, and neither succeeds.

Continue reading ‘The Salt Of Tears’: Philippe Garrel’s Latest Film Is An Evocative Look At Lost Love [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

A teaser is meant to, well, tease. Though that definition has changed over the years, as modern teasers have been known to be bonafide trailers that spoil major plot points and leave little to the imagination. That is most definitely not the case for the new teaser for the upcoming festival film, “Tragic Jungle.”

READ MORE: NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See

With “Tragic Jungle” arriving stateside for its North American premiere at this year’s New York Film Festival, we are thrilled to offer our readers an exclusive look at the first teaser for the beautiful film.

Continue reading ‘Tragic Jungle’ Exclusive Teaser: Yulene Olaizola’s Lush Thriller Is Coming To This Year’s NYFF at The Playlist.

Philippe Lacôte understands the cyclical nature of human conflict and how invaluable the stories people tell about their collective past are. In the remarkable “Night Of The Kings,” the Ivorian director’s follow-up to the political turmoil drama “Run,” oral tradition enlivens a chaotic microcosm that’s suspended somewhere between an ancient saga and contemporary unrest.

READ MORE: NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See

Under its own code of conduct and lore, La MACA, a prison nestled in a lush forest in the West African nation of Ivory Coast, is a kingdom onto itself where veteran inmate Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) governs.

Continue reading ‘Night Of The Kings’ Is A Striking Tribute To The Power Of Storytelling Set In An Ivorian Prison [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Nothing “happens” in the opening scene of Tsai Ming-liang’s “Days,” at least not in any conventional sense: Kang (Lee Kang-sheng), a middle-class, middle-aged man, is sitting at his window, looking out at as the rain falls. The shot lasts four-and-a-half minutes, without cutting or moving – just a man, staring out a window and thinking.  It’s a deliberate choice, right off the bat; if you get antsy, this may not be the movie for you.

Continue reading ‘Days’: Tsai Ming-liang’s Latest is Minimalist But Moving [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Despite studios moving films such as Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake out of the calendar year and questions about whether some films will actually hit theaters, there are still new Oscar contenders being revealed for critics and AMPAS members alike. Over the past 48 hours, Netflix virtually screened Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” for select media, and A24 and Apple debuted Sofia Coppola’s “On the Rocks” at the 2020 New York Film Festival.

Continue reading Awards Season Verdicts: ‘The Trial Of The Chicago 7’ & ‘On The Rocks’ at The Playlist.

With the indispensable aid of his widow and collaborator Valeria Sarmiento, the prolific Raúl Ruiz has given the world another film from beyond the grave.  That might seem strange for some directors, but this partnering of living and dead is right on brand for the esoteric exile, whose films always operated in liminal spaces, obscuring the difference between dream and reality, night and day, conscious and unconscious.  “The Tango of the Widower and Its Distorting Mirror,” officially co-directed by Sarmiento and Ruiz (who passed in 2011), is the completion of footage shot by Ruiz in 1967 for what would have been his debut, but instead sat unfinished due to lack of funding for sound and was forgotten after Ruiz’s exile in 1973. 

Continue reading ‘The Tango Of The Widower’: Nightmares Come To Life In Raúl Ruiz’s Rediscovered First Film [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

If a film such as “The Irishman” or “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is unnecessarily long, then what will people say about “Malmkrog,” Cristi Puiu’s three-and-a-half-hour period adaptation? Focused almost entirely on the intellectual discussions of five aristocrats gathered at a wintry Transylvanian mansion in the early 1900s, “Malmkrog” belongs to the milieu of cerebral art-films whose arduousness is perhaps exactly the point. Cinephiles with a taste for the hardcore, painful pleasures of slow cinema, are encouraged to read further, but it’s difficult to recommend this feature to the movie-goer unacquainted with or baffled by the sorts of films in which “nothing happens.” Imagine “My Dinner With Andre” without the intimacy and zany charisma.

Continue reading ‘Malmkrog’: Cristi Puiu’s Ambitious Period Film Is Demanding & Beautiful Slow Cinema [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

It feels like we spend less time in awe at movies these days, cocking our collective head and murmuring or gasping, “How did they do that?” That lack of marveling is partly due to Marvel, at risk of putting too fine a point on it – not to single them out, but there’s a general sense, in film culture, that we know how everything is done, thanks to behind-the-scenes packages and DVD supplements and copious images of actors in front of green screens. 

Continue reading ‘Gunda’: A Modest Yet Devastating Nature Documentary [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Like most aspects of life, the New York Film Festival looks a little different this year, switching to a mostly virtual format in light of the pandemic. While this will limit the chances for the film community to gather in-person, it’s still a joyful time for film lovers to unite virtually to celebrate the world’s best films after a lost summer of moviegoing and luckily, the festival’s opening night film, Steve McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock,” is a portrait of a joyful community, a feast for the evocation of the senses of a wild house party of West Indians in 1980 London. 

READ MORE: ‘Lover’s Rock’: Steve McQueen’s Dance-Filled ‘Small Axe’ Entry Is Surprisingly Tender [NYFF Review]

“Lover’s Rock” kicked off the 58th New York Film Festival yesterday evening, and to commemorate the occasion, the film’s director and stars Amarah-Jae St.

Continue reading Director Steve McQueen & Cast Discuss ‘Lover’s Rock’: “An Image of Freedom” [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen’s films rarely have a light touch. For example, “Hunger” recounts the life of IRA member Bobby Sands, and the group’s organized hunger strike; “Shame” depicts sex addiction; “12 Years a Slave” violently retells the story of a freed Black man kidnapped into slavery; and “Widows” explains the socio-political environment for women and Black people in Chicago.

Continue reading ‘Lovers Rock’: Steve McQueen’s Dance-Filled ‘Small Axe’ Entry Is Surprisingly Tender [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

As we’ve mentioned ad nauseum this fall, cinema is different this year and so are film festivals. While the pandemic knocked Cannes, Telluride, and SXSW out of action, festivals with the benefit of more time have worked extremely hard to find a way to pull off a virtual film festival with drive-in screenings. Chief among them and so far, the only major American film festival to pull it off, the New York Film Festival, has done a remarkable job of pulling their festival together, using both virtual screenings, that expand all over North America and not just New York, and drive-in screenings around the five boroughs.

Continue reading NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See at The Playlist.

Yep, festival season is a little weird this year, but if the currently-ongoing Venice Film Festival and just-started Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the 58th New York Film Festival is going to be just as good, albeit enjoyed from a safe distance. The festival has a terrific line-up that includes movies from Steve McQueen (three films from his “Small Axe” anthology, Chloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland” starring Frances McDormand, “David Byrne’s American Utopia” from director Spike Lee, “The Human Voice” from Pedro Almodóvar, Orson Welles’ doc “Hopper/Welles,” “On the Rocks” from Sofia Coppola,” and so much more.

Continue reading NYFF 2020 Trailer Teases Looks At Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe,’ Sofia Coppola’s ‘On The Rocks’ & More at The Playlist.

In light of the slew of canceled film festivals in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s New York Film Festival is hoping to pull out all the stops and become the premier film event in the US. And as a way of showing what that means, the NYFF organizers announced the Spotlight section for this year’s fest.

READ MORE: ‘The Human Voice’ Clip: Tilda Swinton Stars In Pedro Almódovar’s Venice-Bound Short

NYFF describes the Spotlight section as a showcase of sneak previews, gala events, screenings with live elements, and other special evenings.

Continue reading NYFF 2020 Spotlight Section Includes New Films From Spike Lee, Pedro Almodóvar, Orson Welles & More at The Playlist.

With the only major US film festival to happen in 2020 being Sundance, it’s not hyperbolic to say that the New York Film Festival is poised to be one of the biggest events in American film this year. It’s kinda that way by default. That being said, with the announcement of the entire list of films that will screen at the NYC event, it’s clear that the New York Film Festival is doing its best in this uncertain time to provide a quality experience for those willing to show up.

Continue reading NYFF 2020 Full Lineup Revealed: Films From Steve McQueen, Chloe Zhao, Jia Zhangke & More at The Playlist.

While the US festival season has been in a bit of disarray since SXSW was canceled back in March, it appears that some events will actually take place before the end of 2020, led by the New York Film Festival in September. And though the event is scaled down a bit from previous editions, there are still some high-quality films being screened, including the upcoming Closing Night selection, “French Exit.”

Today, NYFF announced that Azazel Jacobs’ upcoming feature, “French Exit,” will serve as the Closing Night selection at this year’s event.

Continue reading ‘French Exit’: Michelle Pfeiffer & Lucas Hedges Film With A Talking Cat To Close Out NYFF 2020 at The Playlist.

Ever since its announcement as part of this year’s Cannes Film Festival Official Selections, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology series from Amazon has been positioned as one of the 2020 fall festival darlings. And it appears that is playing out at this year’s New York Film Festival, which will not only debut a feature-length episode of the anthology as its Opening Night film but will also showcase two additional episodes as part of the main slate.

Continue reading ‘Lover’s Rock’: Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ Feature Will Open This Year’s New York Film Festival at The Playlist.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left the 2020 film festival schedule in shambles. Basically every festival from March until now has been either canceled or drastically altered with digital screenings. And though the festivals that begin this fall are in a better position than earlier events, with limited physical screenings and possible red carpets, it appears the organizations behind them are committed to working together instead of being competitors, for the sake of the industry.

In an open letter signed by leaders at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival, the leaders at each event have decided that the best way to help the industry recover from the pandemic is to collaborate and drop the competitive nature of the events.

Continue reading The Major Fall Festivals Commit To Collaboration In 2020: “The Art Form We Love Is In Crisis” at The Playlist.

The 2020 New York Film Festival is significant for a number of reasons this year. Not only is the festival coming off a great 2019, which featured the world premiere of the Oscar-nominated “The Irishman,” but the 2020 event is the first for new director Eugene Hernandez. However, considering the event is scheduled to begin in late September, some are wondering if the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the festival’s plans.

Continue reading New York Film Festival Officials Are “Going Ahead” With The Fall Event With Announcements Coming Soon at The Playlist.