The 54th annual New York Film Festival opens with a bang today. One of our most anticipated titles of the year, never mind this particular fest, holds the honor of kicking off the festivities — Ava DuVernay’s “13th,” an exploration of the racially skewed mass incarceration of U.S. citizens. The documentary is making its World Premiere at the fest, and is the first ever nonfiction film to open NYFF.
There are plenty of other films by and about women screening that are also worth getting excited about. We’ve compiled some of the standouts from NYFF below, but this list is by no means an exhaustive. Check out the full program here. Other highlights from the fest include remarkable performances from Hayley Squires as a working class mother struggling to provide for her children in Cannes winner “I, Daniel Blake,” and “Sex and the City” star and NYC native Cynthia Nixon’s portrayal of Emily Dickinson in “A Quiet Passion.”
NYFF runs until October 16. Synopses are courtesy of the fest.
“20th Century Women”
What it’s about: Mike Mills’s warm, funny, texturally and behaviorally rich new comedy, starring the great Annette Bening, creates a moving group portrait of particular people in a particular place (Santa Barbara) at a particular moment in the 20th century (1979), one lovingly attended detail at a time.
Why we’re interested: “20th Century Women” sees Annette Bening leading a great ensemble cast that includes Elle Fanning (“Neon Demon”) and Greta Gerwig (“Frances Ha”). The women join forces to teach a teenage boy about romance, sex, and life. Bening, a four-time Oscar nominee, is already getting lots of awards buzz for her performance. “I just think that having your heart broken is a tremendous way to learn about the world,” Bening’s character observes in a newly released trailer for the drama. We can’t wait to hear more wisdom from a woman who seems to have a great deal to teach.
“Everything Else” — Written and Directed by Natalia Almada
What it’s about: In her empathetic first fiction feature, documentarian Natalia Almada focuses on a Mexico City government clerk (Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza) all but dehumanized by 35 years of bureaucratic servitude.
Why we’re interested: We’re happy to see a film centered on a female character over the age of 35, let alone one whose been working for that long. As demoralizing as dealing with bureaucratic systems is, being employed within those systems has to take a toll. “Everything Else” will offer a portrait of an elderly government clerk whose own life’s tragedies have left her bitter rather than empathetic. It’s rare to see a film where a woman’s profession plays such a prominent role in her identity and the plot, so we’re eager to see this character’s trajectory in “Everything Else.”
“Things to Come” — Written and Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
What it’s about: The new film from Mia Hansen-Løve (“Eden”) is an exquisite expression of time’s passing. Isabelle Huppert is Nathalie, a Parisian professor of philosophy who comes to realize that the tectonic plates of her existence are slowly but inexorably shifting. Huppert’s remarkable performance is counterpointed by the quietly accumulating force of the action.
Why we’re interested: “Things to Come” was one of our favorite films at TIFF. We were duly impressed with Isabelle Huppert’s portrayal of a woman who becomes unmoored when her husband leaves her, and her mother, who was very depressed and needed a lot of attention, dies. With her kids grown and her mother gone, a new chapter in her life begins. As she says to her star pupil, “I am free.” Women are so rarely free — and we so rarely get the chance to see them onscreen in this light.
“Julieta”
What it’s about: Pedro Almodóvar explores his favorite themes of love, sexuality, guilt, and destiny through the poignant story of Julieta, who has a chance encounter that stirs up sorrowful memories of the daughter who abandoned her.
Why we’re interested: Mother-daughter relationships are often oversimplified — either they’re idealized or one party is demonized. We doubt that’s the case for “Julieta.” The drama is based on three short stories by award-winning Canadian author Alice Munro, whose work often focuses on the complex, tumultuous inner lives of women.
“13th” (Documentary) — Directed by Ava DuVernay
What it’s about: Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing nonfiction film refers to the loophole in the 13th Amendment that allowed for a progression from slavery to the horrors of mass incarceration and the prison industry. The director lays this out with a bracing lucidity that makes for a work of grand historical synthesis and an overwhelming emotional experience. To quote Woodrow Wilson on another movie, it’s like writing history with lightning
Why we’re interested: Ava DuVernay consistently offers great insight into Hollywood’s inclusivity problem, though, as she’s pointed out, “the onus is not on the marginalized to educate.” DuVernay is the first female filmmaker in 12 years to open the NYFF, and she’s coming to bat ready to take a mighty swing. “13th” addresses past and present racism in the U.S. through the lens of the prison system. A horrifying, disproportionate number of people of color are behind bars, and “13th” will explore the disturbing reasons behind why this is the case. Early reviews are excellent, with Entertainment Weekly praising the “staggering, scorching Roman candle of a documentary,” and concluding that “viewing — right now — should be mandatory.”
“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds” (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Alexis Bloom
What it’s about: Unlike today’s newly minted celebrities, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are open books. “Bright Lights” is an affectionate, often hilarious and unexpectedly moving valentine to the mother-daughter act to end all mother-daughter acts.
Why we’re interested: Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are two Hollywood icons who happen to be mother and daughter. Fisher and Reynold’s credits include classics such as “Star Wars” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” respectively. And anyone familiar with the delightfully candid actresses’ lives beyond their resumes knows that they’re both big characters off-screen as well, making them fascinating subjects for this doc. We can’t wait to learn more about the legends’ relationship with one another.
“Karl Marx City” (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Petra Epperlein
What it’s about: The filmmaking team of Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker turn their attention to the former East Germany of Epperlein’s childhood, and specifically to the possibility that her father might have been one of the many thousands of citizens recruited as informers by the Stasi.
Why we’re interested: Twenty-five years following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, “Karl Marx City” co-director Petra Epperlein returned to the town she grew up in and sought answers about what happened there, in part because she wanted to have a fuller understanding of why her father committed suicide. Epperlin explained that she was wondering not only if he had been an informant for the secret police, but if her childhood had been “an elaborate fiction.” “It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of the subject of modern surveillance and come out sounding like a raving paranoid,” Epperlein told Women and Hollywood. “However, for anyone who has lived under the gaze of surveillance in a dictatorship, the implications — and dangers — of our data driven future are chilling, no matter what its architects tell us.” The doc incorporates declassified Stasi surveillance footage: “The past plays like dystopian science fiction, providing a chilling backdrop to interrogate the apparatus of control and the meaning of truth in a society where every action and thought was suspect,” Epperlein said. This weaving of the personal and political sounds fascinating, and we heard excellent things about “Karl Marx City” at TIFF.
“Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan” (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Linda Saffire
What it’s about: The extraordinary Wendy Whelan, principal dancer at New York City Ballet for 23 years, is followed throughout a passage of life that all dancers must face, when she must confront the limits of her own body and adapt to a different relationship with the art form she loves so madly.
Why we’re interested: Ballerinas are capable of doing things with their bodies that do not seem physically possible. The artists and athletes make magic — and pay a hefty price to make all of that grueling work look effortlessly beautiful. We were fans of “A Ballerina’s Tale,” a 2015 doc about Misty Copeland, and look forward to seeing a doc about another extraordinary ballerina who is in a very different stage of her career.
