NYFF '08 | Assayas Discusses His "Summer Hours," Martel's "Woman" Makes NYC Debut

As the 46th New York Film Festival winds down through its second and final week, indieWIRE had the chance to hear from two of its featured directors. Olivier Assayas, whose "Summer Hours" made its U.S. debut at the festival, sat down for an interview at The Park Lane Hotel last Thursday, while Lucrecia Martel, Argentine director of "The Headless Woman" spoke after the film's Monday press screening at the Walter Reade Theater. The New York Film Festival runs through Sunday, October 12.
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NYFF '08 | Aronofsky, Rourke Talk "Wrestler," Folman "Waltzes" With New York

Wednesday afternoon at the Walter Reade Theatre in New York marked a big day for the 46th New York Film Festival. "The Wrestler" Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei and producer Scott Franklin joined director Darren Aronofsky to discuss the film after its first screening for New York press and industry. The movie, acquired shortly after its North American debut last month at the Toronto fest, will close the NYFF on October 12th. Meanwhile, Ari Folman's acclaimed animated documentary, "Waltz With Bashir" made its New York debut as well. indieWIRE was in attendance, and has the highlights.
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NYFF '08 | Soderbergh's "Che," Leigh's "Lucky" Make New York Debuts

Steven Soderbergh's 4-hour Ernesto 'Che' Guevara biopic, "Che" and Mike Leigh's much shorter "anti-miserablist" film, "Happy-Go-Lucky," were among the films screened for the press in the past few days at the 46th Annual New York Film Festival. Both screenings were followed by press conferences featuring the directors, and in "Lucky"'s case, its star Sally Hawkins. indieWIRE was in attendance, and has the highlights.
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NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL '08 | Beyond Cannes and Toronto: Surveying NYFF's Nooks and Crannies

It has a decidedly French twist. For one thing, 18 of the 28 features in this edition of the New York Film Festival bowed in Cannes in May. Four "fully" French movies and eight co-pros with French backing are being screened. Given the weight of place, of site, in this year's crop, the latter frequently translates into product placement, aka "embedded marketing," not of Converse or Nike but of France itself--more economic exchange than organic inclusion.
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NYFF '08 | Eastwood's "Changeling," Aronofsky's "Wrestler" Join French Heavy New York Film Festival Slate

The full selections for the 46th New York Film Festival were unveiled today with Cannes 2008 titles featuring prominently in this year's event, taking place September 26 - October 12. The North American premiere of Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" will screen as the festival's Centerpiece, while Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" will close out the festival, considered a major highlight of the New York film community's calendar year.
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NY NY | Channel 13 Gives its Take on the "Reel New York"

New Yorkers are lucky to have one of the strongest public television stations in the country. Where the rest of the nation calls it PBS, we know it as Channel 13, and for more than a dozen years, it has hosted some of the most cutting edge filmmaking for, by and about New Yorkers, during the annual Reel New York Film Festival, currently a month into its 13th season at the difficult hour of 12:30 AM on Friday nights. Thank God for DVR.
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NYFF '07 Critics Notebook 2 | Sisters Doing it For Themselves at New York Fest; and a Little Boy on Boy Too

"Let's hear it for the girl...Let's give the girl a hand..." These could be signature lyrics (with apologies to Denise Williams) for a number of pics in the second half of the NYFF. Many are about women; four (all foreign) are directed by females. Odd, given that most of the films in the first batch were marked by male bravado and bonding (with only one made by a woman, whose co-director is a man). Foreshadowing these mostly melancholic, femme-focused movies are the Grace Chang starrers in the tantalizing sidebar "Chinese Modern: A Tribute to Cathay Studios." Chang (aka Ge Lan) was a major icon of the '50s and early '60s Hong Kong cinema.
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NYFF '07 | Wes Anderson's "Darjeeling" to Open 45th New York Film Festival; Coen's "Country" In Centerpiece Slot

Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited," will open the 45th New York Film Festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced Wednesday evening. Joel and Ethan Coen's Cannes '07 competition feature "No Country for Old Men," meanwhile, will be the festival's Centerpiece screening, while Palme d'Or winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and Lee Chang-dong's Korean feature "Secret Sunshine," starring Cannes best actress-winner, Jeon Do-yeon are also joining the lineup at this year's NYFF, taking place September 28 - October 14.
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DISPATCH FROM NYFF: Clooney, Miller, Baumbach and Yoji Yamada Share Fest Spotlight

One insider calls it New York's own "Oscar Night" and others refer to it as indie film's annual prom; the opening night of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center followed by the traditional party at Tavern On The Green is a glittering night out for the film community. The New York Film Festival, a highly curated seventeen day event offering a main program of just two dozen feature films includes a mix of the best from other festivals and new films about to open in theaters. This year's fest kicked off Friday night with George Clooney's look at the battle between CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, "Good Night, and Good Luck."

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Clooney Speaks Out About Journalism and Filmmaking As NYFF Opens

The 43rd New York Film Festival will open tonight with a gala Lincoln Center screening of George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” followed by the traditional glittering after-party at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Clooney's new movie is a look at a seminal time in the early days of broadcast journalism when reporter Edward R. Murrow took on Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin for his role in communist witch-hunts during the red scare of the 1950s. “I thought it was a good time to raise the idea of using fear to stifle political debate,” explained director & co-writer Clooney after a screening of the film Wednesday.

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At The New York Film Fest (not Toronto), World Cinema Gets its Due and Looks For Distribution

Finally, world cinema gets the chance to shine. As the 43rd New York Film Festival kicks off tonight at Lincoln Center, about two dozens films from around the globe will get the attention they deserve -- unencumbered by studio junketeering and high-priced acquisitions news. How unfortunate that in the hyper-market-ized Toronto International Film Festival, where 335 films screened from 52 countries last week, it was only one country, the United States, that captured the imagination of both the public and the industry. With the unveiling of deserving Oscar-contenders like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Capote" and big U.S. acquisitions grabbing the limelight, virtually none of the films that got attention were in a language other than English.
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Clooney's "Good Night" Set to Kick Off 43rd New York Film Festival

The 2005 New York Film Festival will kick off with the North American premiere of George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," according to Richard Peña, chairman of the New York Film Festival selection committee. David Strathairn stars as CBS News' Edward R. Murrow and Clooney, who co-wrote the film with Grant Heslov, stars as CBS producer Fred Friendly. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as Joe and Shirley Wershba, Frank Langella as Bill Paley, Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, Grant Heslov as Don Hewitt, and Jeff Daniels as Ted Church.

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