The Year’s Best? Bleakest? Elitist? 10 Questions for the NYFF Selection Committee

Still, Fine’s allusion to “elitism” is a topic often discussed during the festival. indieWIRE editor-in-chief Eugene Hernadez took on the topic in an article on October 1 in which he asked: “What is wrong with a little elitism?” In the article he states that it’s “a terrific year for new international cinema, when so many New York Film Festival films are bound to polarize some event attendees, Resnais’ latest was such a fitting choice to open the fest. The fest’s reconfigured selection committee…is refreshingly serving up something to challenge, or a least provoke, mainstream sensibilities every single day of this seventeen day film event.”

Then there was The New York Times’ A.O. Scott, who likely ruffled the proverbial feathers most with his curt take on the festival.  Scott suggested NYFF “produces more fatigue than shock, and seems governed less by a sense of adventure than by academic duty and confirmation bias.”

But, what of the programming committee themselves and their assessments of this year’s festival as it heads into its final weekend, which will be capped off on Sunday with Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces”?  Even a group of individuals charged with curating a respected - and even loved - event such as the New York Film Festival are not immune to the reactions and chatter of individuals and the media in all its forms. indieWIRE asked the programming committee to talk about this year’s festival, and they had much to say - touching on subjects written about the festival in the past two weeks, including “the bleak factor,” audience reaction to the films, and how they go about curating a festival that historically film lovers have trusted over the decades to program any given year’s round of “the most significant films.” [Brian Brooks]

Eugene Hernandez: The first question is for Jim. Last week, while introducing the screening of “Lebanon,” you said to the audience, “New York’s a tough town, you’re a tough audience. You shouldn’t expect anything less.” What inspired that comment?

J Hoberman: I was reading things online and elsewhere that seemed to be complaining that the festival wasn’t—I dont know—warm and cuddly enough.

I thought that there’s really plenty of that stuff out there if that’s what people want. I can’t imagine that people want to go to the Film Festival or ever want to really get involved in some sort of artistic experience just to be comforted - just to get things they are familiar with.

As far as I am concerned good art can never be depressing, no matter what it is about.

Eugene Hernandez: There are certainly more opportunities for people to lash out now, with Twitter, Facebook, blogs. Is this criticism consistent with past years?

Richard Peña: A few years ago I remember we got lambasted by blogs for the opening night film, “The Queen.” I didn’t seem obvious to me, but to others it was absolutely blaring. They accused us of dumbing down the festival in favor of a popular film. It’s funny how in a few years I’ve become the person who’s become the conjurer of films too challenging for New Yorkers. You get a lot more reaction now. People in the supermarket come up to me and ask, why didn’t you show this film and why did you show that film?

For me, what’s really been so gratifying in the new Alice Tully Hall, is to see people out there engaged in a passionate discussion. It’s been really great to see that these films have really engaged people’s interests in important ways.

Eugene Hernandez: And what about going back further. I’ve only been attending the festival for 15 years. What about before that?

J Hoberman: If you want to go back, the festival really got amazingly hostile press throughout the ‘60s and into the ‘70s. And a lot of those things the festival now gets credit for—that are held up as great things that the fest did—Godard, Fassbinder, Rivette, they were panned at the time. The Godard films were incredibly panned. Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” was like a revolving door. 

One of the things that came up is that this festival is elitist. I dont know what that means. The idea is to be out in front of popular taste. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Scott Foundas: The difference between now and the time that Jim’s talking about is that there has been such an uptick in the number of festivals. [And] festivals that have bent over backwards to cater to the industry or [serve] as a launching pad. You start to question how much a festival is really programmed by [those] programmers.

Brian Brooks: Picking up on the passionate discussion going either way in the lobby, I’ve heard some discussion about movies that weren’t included in the festival. How do you react to criticism about particular films that were omitted from this year’s lineup, specifically the Audiard (“A Prophet”) and the Coens (“A Serious Man”)?

Richard Peña: I prefer to discuss films in the context of what did play in the New York Film Festival. I never want to discuss in the context about why we didn’t show a certain film.

Eugene Hernandez: Jim spoke earlier about the festival being ahead of popular taste. Is there a programmatic mission or approach that you give the committee during the process?

Richard Peña: Each year we try to present a snapshot of what we think is the best in contemporary world cinema. I tend to think if there is any directive I give, it’s to try and drop any agendas we have. I think it’s very important that the the audience feels that every film they see in the lineup has been selected or chosen.

Scott Foundas: For me, one of the pleasures of having done this for three years now, is there’s a remarkable lack of ideologies. I don’t think we bring a lot of baggage through the door.

Richard Peña: Nobody wants to promote films from non-Western countries more than I do for instance, but I think it ultimately doesn’t help if you just shove a film in. I think this year we have an incredible wealth of documentaries, for example. Two years ago, we had all these American films. But we had seen a lot of films from Americans that we liked that year.