The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the 30 films that will comprise the Main Slate official selection of the 52nd New York Film Festival (NYFF, which runs September 26–October 12), including the work of such notable directors as Lisandro Alonso, Asia Argento, Olivier Assayas, Nick Broomfield, Pedro Costa, David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Abel Ferrara, Jean-Luc Godard, Hong Sang-soo, Mike Leigh, Mia Hansen-Løve, Bennett Miller, Oren Moverman, Alex Ross Perry, Alain Resnais, Alice Rohrwacher, and Josh & Benny Safdie.
The lineup features award winners from other festivals presented for the first time to New York audiences, including four from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders, the winner of the 2014 Grand Prix Award; Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, for which he was named Best Director, David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, for which Julianne Moore won the prize for Best Actress, and Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, for which Timothy Spall received the Best Actor Award for his performance as the painter J.M.W. Turner. Additional award winners are Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and Life of Riley, the final feature from the late Alain Resnais, which took home the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize. The 4K restored version of Resnais’s first feature, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), was previously announced as part of the Revivals selection at this year’s NYFF.
Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language, his first feature in 3-D, will fittingly screen at NYFF in the wake of the comprehensive retrospective of the filmmaking legend’s work that was a highlight of last year’s festival. Other notables among the many filmmakers returning to NYFF with new works are Olivier Assayas with Clouds of Sils Maria, which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress preparing for a new role and Kristen Stewart as her assistant; Pedro Costa with Horse Money, a moving look at the life of Cape Verdean Ventura, who has worked with Costa on his last few films; Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne with Two Days, One Night, which stars Marion Cotillard as a woman desperately trying to save her job; and Abel Ferrara, with his biographical film Pasolini, starring Willem Dafoe as the controversial filmmaker/poet/novelist.
NYFF’s 2014 Filmmaker in Residence Lisandro Alonso’s latest film, Jauja, which stars Viggo Mortensen as an Argentinian officer in the 1870s searching for his missing daughter, will be a highlight, as will the North American premiere of French actor Mathieu Amalric’s heated dramatization of Georges Simenon’s novel The Blue Room, about a love triangle coming to a dangerous conclusion. Actress Asia Argento also puts on the director’s hat once again with her new autobiographical film, Misunderstood, about a pre-teen girl all but ignored by her self-absorbed superstar parents in 1980s Rome.
The city of New York takes center stage via the works of local filmmakers Perry, Moverman, and the Safdie Brothers. Perry’s Listen Up Philip stars Jason Schwartzman as an insufferable young literary star taken under the wing of an older literary lion played by Jonathan Pryce. Moverman’s Time Out of Mind features a remarkable performance by Richard Gere as a man who finds himself out on the streets. The Safdie Brothers’ Heaven Knows What places us in the world of two heroin-addicted young lovers as they struggle to live and find their next fix.
Additional special events, documentary sections, and filmmaker conversations and panels, as well as NYFF’s Projections and the full Convergence programs, will be announced in subsequent days and weeks.
Previously announced were festival opener Gone Girl, the centerpiece Inherent Vice and the closer Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. Here’s a rundown of the Main Slate:
The 52nd New York Film Festival Main Slate
Opening Night Gala Selection
GONE GIRL
Director: David Fincher
Centerpiece Gala Selection
INHERENT VICE
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Closing Night Gala Selection
BIRDMAN OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
BELOVED SISTERS (Die geliebten Schwestern)
Director: Dominik Graf
THE BLUE ROOM (La chambre bleue)
Director: Mathieu Amalric
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Director: Olivier Assayas
EDEN
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
FOXCATCHER
Director: Bennett Miller
GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (Adieu au langage)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT
Directors: Josh & Benny Safdie
HILL OF FREEDOM (Jayuui Eondeok)
Director: Hong Sang-soo
HORSE MONEY (Cavalo Dinheiro)
Director: Pedro Costa
JAUJA
Director: Lisandro Alonso
LIFE OF RILEY (Aimer, boire et chanter)
Director: Alain Resnais
LISTEN UP PHILIP
Director: Alex Ross Perry
MAPS TO THE STARS
Director: David Cronenberg
MISUNDERSTOOD (Incompresa)
Director: Asia Argento
MR. TURNER
Director: Mike Leigh
PASOLINI
Director: Abel Ferrara
THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE (La Princesa de Francia)
Director: Matías Piñeiro
SAINT LAURENT
Director: Bertrand Bonello
LA SAPIENZA
Director: Eugène Green
’71
Director: Yann Demange
TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER
Director: Nick Broomfield
TIMBUKTU
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
TIME OUT OF MIND
Director: Oren Moverman
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (Deux jours, une nuit)
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
TWO SHOTS FIRED (Dos Disparos)
Director: Martín Rejtman
WHIPLASH
Director: Damien Chazelle
THE WONDERS (Le meraviglie)
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
