NYFF 64: "Once Upon a Time in Harlem," William Greaves threw a party like no other

by Cláudio Alves

Here at The Film Experience, we love to celebrate centennials, and yesterday marked a big one. On October 8th, 1926, William Greaves was born in Harlem, and would go on to become one of the most important figures in 20th-century American non-fiction filmmaking. More specifically, his legacy rests on documenting African-American life, spanning from avant-garde exercises like the Symbiopsychotaxiplasm duology to more conventional fare like his Ida B. Wells profile for the American Experience series. And though he died in 2014, Greaves’ cinema lives on in ways that defy convention. Through the efforts of his son, director David Greaves, and granddaughter, producer Liani Greaves, the great cineaste is gifting us a new film from beyond the grave. 

Indeed, he is inviting you, the viewer, to a most exclusive cocktail party at the home of the one and only Duke Ellington. It’ll be a gathering of artists and intellectuals, the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s and 30s. Or it was, for this happened already, in August 1972, when said party took place and the director recorded it all. From that wealth of footage comes Once Upon a Time in Harlem, left unfinished for half a century before it was completed and premiered at Sundance earlier this year. Neon bought the rights then and will release it theatrically next week, on October 16. In the meantime, this ghostly party from a bygone era, remembering an even older day, has been doing the festival circuit, spellbinding audiences wherever it goes, including TIFF and the NYFF…

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NYFF 64: "My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile" is as vivid as its predecessor

by Joanna Sodeman-Taylor

Forget spectacle, forget box office, forget IP and star power. Digger? I hardly know her! The biggest, most epic movie of the year is Julia Loktev’s six-hour documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile, a continuation of last year’s Part I, subtitled Last Air in Moscow. That film followed roughly a dozen journalists, most of them women, at the independent reporting outfit known as TV Rain. These folks had already spent years operating as “undesirables” or “foreign agents” (ie, folks not mindlessly repeating government propaganda), and worked to undermine the dictums coming from the Kremlin despite constant surveillance and the imprisonment of several colleagues. Last Air in Moscow concluded with a huge chunk of TV Rain’s reporters fleeing Russia following the start of their invasion into Ukraine in February 2022.

The military operation led Putin’s government to immediately crack down on independent media, meaning these journalists had to get the fuck out of dodge or risk being jailed. Last Air in Moscow filmed across a span of several months in 2021-2022, and Exile takes up right where that film left off, seeing those same faces (and a few new ones) all the way to March 2026...

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NYFF 64: “Clarissa” is the best “Mrs. Dalloway” adaptation you’ll ever see

by Cláudio Alves

Between Wuthering Heights and The Odyssey, much has been said this year about the merits and demerits of film adaptations straying from their source material. Most of the time, I’m a defender of unfaithfulness in the transformation of a text between mediums. Indeed, some of the most interesting aspects of both those box office success stories are precisely the dialogues established between them and their literary origins, deviation as conversation. Moreover, the general public’s idea of fidelity to a text can be superficial, to say the least, and believe me, I’m trying to be diplomatic in my choice of words here. Some would say Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa is a wild re-imagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, unfaithful as can be in its transposition of a narrative set in post-WWI England to contemporary Nigeria.

They would be wrong. Not because the Esiri brothers don’t do what I’ve just described, but because, in this gesture, they have managed to capture the essence of Mrs. Dalloway in ways no other cineaste has to this day. Step aside, Gorris and Daldry, for there are new masters of putting Woolf on screen to join Sally Potter in her tiny pantheon. And it’s precisely through their changes to the classic novel that they manage to make Clarissa the best Mrs. Dalloway we’re likely to see in the annals of film history, yesteryear’s and those to come, purists be damned…

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NYFF 64: Austria’s “Rose” is much more than merely another Sandra Hüller showcase

by Cláudio Alves

While our TIFF 51 coverage isn’t over – sometimes, it feels like it will go on forever, with Eurocheese and I falling into Sisyphus' fate – one must acknowledge the other big festival of the moment. Right now, the New York Film Festival is blessing audiences with some of the best in world cinema, from September 25 to October 12. As we’ve done in years past, Joanna Sodeman-Taylor will join me in covering the fest from a distance, relying on screeners and whatnot. Hope you enjoy this wild virtual ride.

To kickstart these NYFF musings, why not consider another Best International Oscar submission? This one’s from Austria and last Berlinale’s Best Leading Performance Silver Bear winner, Rose. Indeed, most of the chatter about Markus Schleinzer’s latest has focused on Sandra Hüller’s work, a tour de force at the heart of a film that, nevertheless, is much more complicated than a mere acting showcase. Set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, Rose is a story assembled from various cases documented in legal archives of the time, about those who were born as women to society’s eyes yet assumed male identities to liberate themselves from the limits of their sex. In the 17th century and beyond, there were and there are many Roses…

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TIFF 51: Germany’s “Everytime” and Italy’s “The Spiral”

by Cláudio Alves

Every year, a good part of my TIFF journey involves seeking the films that will eventually compete for the Best International Film Oscar. After all, here at The Film Experience, we’ve always prided ourselves on giving in-depth coverage to a race many overlook. Sometimes, the films have already been submitted by their nations by the time I arrive. Toronto. Sometimes, the news comes midway through the fest, after I’ve watched a picture and dismissed it despite the fun we had together. Who knew AMPAS’ most awarded nation would go so wacky, even tacky, for their selection? As to why I decided to pair these two? Well, they both offer portraits of families in crisis, grief as seen through the prism of mothers on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And yet, they couldn’t be more different.

From Germany, a country already in the running thanks to Berlinale winner Yellow Letters, we have Sandra Wollner’s Everytime, which took first prize in Cannes’ underrated Un Certain Regard competition. From Italy, the rare horror film to fight for the Venice Golden Lion and a Midnight Madness delight for the Toronto crowd, Paolo Stripooli’s The Spiral…

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