The Scene at NYFF with Naomie Harris and Kenneth Lonergan

Murtada reporting from a weekend at the NYFF.

The New York Film Festival enables local cinephiles to catch a finely curated collection of films that have screened at other festivals earlier in the year. It is also a veritable hotbed of casual sightings of the New York film crowd: there’s Todd Haynes entering the Alice Tully Hall animatedly chatting with his Carol editor Alfonso Gonçalves (who has two films in the festival: Gimme Danger and Paterson). Here's Mikhail Baryshnikov posing with his daughter Anna who’s in Manchester by the Sea; I see Bob Balaban making his way through the security line. And, look, Edie Falco introducing herself to Casey Affleck after the Q and A for his movie.

Lonergan in conversation with Jones

Most interesting though are the stories filmmakers tell as they screen their films...

Click to read more ...

NYFF: Paterson and The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

Here’s Manuel reporting from the New York Film Festival with two projects on unassuming artists.

Paterson
In Paterson, Adam Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson. He lives in the New Jersey town by the same name and, living up to the town's poetic tradition (it was home to both Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams), jots down verses in between bus shifts.

Jim Jarmusch's latest is just as precious as that description makes it sound and that's before I tell you that it's structured around a week in the life of Paterson, with every day marked by the same routine...

Click to read more ...

Cannes Closing Ceremony Tomorrow - Any Guesses?

The 69th annual Festival du Cannes wraps up this weekend with reprise screenings of competition titles and the closing ceremony tomorrow evening at 7:15 PM (Cannes time so a handful of hours earlier here in NYC). Sean Penn's The Last Face starring Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron (pictured in all her androgynous chic, left, at the premiere), Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman (which takes its title from an in movie amateur production of Death of a Salesman), and Paul Verhoeven's Elle starring Isabelle Huppert were among the last titles to premiere. Don't expect The Last Face, which was met with hostility to show up in the prizes.

Here are the 21 competition titles loosely grouped by your hosts vague perceptions of how well received they were (you might group them differently as its my policy not to read full reviews from Cannes - which tend to be spoiler filled for films that are months away from release). George Miller's jury will name one of these the Palme D'Or winner, one the Jury Prize winner, and then we'll see who takes Director,  Actress (we have a few ideas as to who might win), and Actor. Depending on how the jury plays it we might get a couple of other prizes, too...

Click to read more ...