The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) has unveiled its schedule of programs and festivals this summer and fall, and a retrospective of director, writer, and showrunner Jane Campion is among the offerings. According to a press release, the “survey of Campion’s rich and revelatory body of work” will be held September 8–20, 2017. The director herself will attend a few select events.
“Since her indelible 1989 debut feature ‘Sweetie,’ New Zealand-born Jane Campion has been one of the most distinctive talents in world cinema,” the press release emphasizes. “For four decades now, Campion has moved freely across genres — family melodrama, gothic romance, literary adaptation, farce, suspense-thriller — and also between cinema and television.” Specific film screenings have not been announced yet, but the press release lauds Campion’s features as “notable for their visual inventiveness, dark sense of humor, and complex depictions of women and sexuality.” It seems likely that movies such as “Sweetie,” “The Piano,” “An Angel at My Table,” “Portrait of a Lady,” and “Bright Star” will be shown.
The retrospective will also mark the U.S. premiere of “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” co-directed and created by Campion. The upcoming season of the acclaimed feminist series sees Elisabeth Moss reprising her role as Detective Robin Griffin, a passionate defender of women and children. Nicole Kidman, Gwendoline Christie (“Game of Thrones), and Alice Englert (“Ginger & Rosa”) also star.
Campion is the first woman and only female director to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. She received the honor in 1993 for “The Piano,” (which also earned her the Best Screenplay Oscar). She also took home the Short Palme in 1986 for her short film “Peel.” With the exception of “Blue Is the Warmest Color” stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux — who won a special Palme d’Or with director Abdellatif Kechiche in 2013 — no woman has ever won the award since.
“Too long! Twenty-four years! And before that, there was no one. It’s insane,” Campion said of her Palme d’Or win at Cannes this year. “And I’m really annoyed that the director-ess from ‘Toni Erdmann’ [Maren Ade] didn’t win last time. I thought, ‘Finally, a buddy.’ No. No! There’s no more guys winning. That’s it. It’s just going to be women winning from now on.”
In addition to the Campion retrospective, FSLC will also host “Talking Pictures: The Cinema of Yvonne Rainer,” from July 21 to 27. The “Lives of Performers” helmer’s work “signaled new directions for film language, retooling narrative generally and melodrama specifically with a disjunctive audiovisual syntax, restless political intelligence, deft appropriation, and deadpan wit,” the press release summarizes. The program’s lineup will feature films directed by and starring Rainer as well as projects that informed her work.
Head over to the FSLC website for additional details and ticket info.
“Top of the Lake: China Girl” airs this fall on SundanceTV.
