Film at Lincoln Center Podcast
Film at Lincoln Center
The Film at Lincoln Center Podcast is a weekly podcast that features in-depth conversations with filmmakers, actors, critics, and more.
Episodes
Ken Russell, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mark Kermode on The Devils
Welcome to the final daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, we present a special two-part conversation in celebration of Ken Russell’s restored, uncensored cut of The Devils playing on 35mm for one week only starting this Friday at Film at Lincoln Center. Russell’s infamous adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s novel, about the apparent possession of a group of nuns after one accuses a priest of collaborating with the devil, is at long last available in its full, uncensored splendor. In 2010, a year prior to his passing, Film at Lincoln Center welcomed Russell for our retrospective Russellmania!, which featured a post-screening conversation on The Devils between the director and Vanessa Redgrave, now available to listen to for the first time. Then, at the 64th New York Film Festival, Mark Kermode joined NYFF Programmer Dan Sullivan to discuss the restoration, the film’s legacy, and how it continues to be embraced by new generations. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Ava DuVernay & Team on 14th
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Ava DuVernay, Ambassador Jeff Flake, editor/producer Spencer Averick, producers Tammy Garnes and Paul Garnes, and Sherrilyn Ifill, founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy, join NYFF programmer Florence Almozini at a press conference to discuss this year’s Closing Night selection 14th. DuVernay follows her epochal 2016 documentary 13th with a thrillingly expansive sequel of sorts, which passionately and persuasively details how the tenets of the 14th Amendment, ratified post–Civil War, are now under systematic attack. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Jesse Eisenberg, Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti & More on The Debut
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Jesse Eisenberg, Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey, Bernadette Peters, and Eldar Isgandarov join NYFF Programmer Madeline Whittle to discuss The Debut. In Eisenberg’s theater-world comedy, Moore flings herself with delicious abandon into the role of a middle-aged New Jersey housewife who gets a part in a local stage musical despite having zero experience. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Pedro Almodóvar and Milena Smit on Bitter Christmas
Welcome to the daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, Pedro Almodóvar and Milena Smit join NYFF programmer Florence Almozini to discuss Bitter Christmas. Special thanks to Carla Marcantonio for interpretation. The incomparable Almodóvar explores the artist’s tenuous relationship with fiction and reality in this film about an actress writing a script inspired by the lives of those around her—which is itself the invention of an Almodóvar-like filmmaker. Bitter Christmas will open on November 13 at Film at Lincoln Center with tickets on sale now. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Luca Guadagnino, Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Hoffman & More on Artificial
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino, Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Hoffman, composer Damon Albarn, and screenwriter Simon Rich join NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim to discuss Artificial. Anchored by brilliant lead performances by Garfield and Borisov, Guadagnino’s thrilling, funny, and very human drama propels audiences through the two decades of machine learning research that have brought us to our current AI crisis point. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Cristian Mungiu and Sebastian Stan on Fjord
Welcome to the daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, Cristian Mungiu and Sebastian Stan join NYFF Main Slate and Spotlight Selection Committee Member Justin Chang to discuss Fjord. Mungiu earned his second Palme d’Or for this searing drama starring Stan and Renate Reinsve as a married couple who have immigrated to Norway from Romania and fall under suspicion of child abuse. Fjord is Romania’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Jordan Firstman, Reggie Absolom, Diego Calva, Cara Delevingne & More on Club Kid
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Jordan Firstman, Reggie Absolom, Diego Calva, Cara Delevingne, Colleen Camp, Eldar Isgandarov, Alaska Riley, Saturn Risin9, and Miss Benny join NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim to discuss Club Kid. Firstman’s wildly funny and remarkably assured feature debut about a washed-up thirtysomething New York scenester who discovers he has a 10-year-old British son swerves from irreverent satire to genuine pathos. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Tom McCarthy, Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, Amy Ryan, Tatiana Maslany & More on A Statement
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Tom McCarthy, Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, Amy Ryan, Tatiana Maslany, and Nathaniel Rich discuss A Statement with Justin Chang. In 1980, a group of environmental activists, scientists, and policymakers convened to discuss an alarming government study on climate change. Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) re-creates this historical moment with a brilliant ensemble cast including Paul Rudd, Amy Ryan, Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, and more. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Virginie Efira on All of a Sudden
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Virginie Efira join NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim to discuss All of a Sudden. Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes for Academy Award–winning director Hamaguchi’s radiant new film about a nursing home director promoting a radical new care program. All of a Sudden is Japan’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards and opens at Film at Lincoln Center on November 25 with Hamaguchi and Okamoto in person for sneak preview screenings November 18 and 19. Tickets on sale soon. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Tony Gilroy, Pedro Pascal, Will Arnett, and Eva Victor on Behemoth!
Welcome to the daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, Tony Gilroy, Pedro Pascal, Eva Victor, and Will Arnett join NYFF programmer Justin Chang at a press conference to discuss their NYFF64 Centerpiece selection Behemoth!. Note: spoilers are briefly discussed from 14:55 from 15:40. An American drama of uncommon intelligence, humor, and grace, the latest from writer-director Tony Gilroy stars Pedro Pascal in a career-best performance as a cellist picking up the pieces of a fractured life. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Sofia Coppola on Making Marie Antoinette
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Sofia Coppola discusses Making Marie Antoinette and collaborating with Eleanor Coppola with NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen. Sofia Coppola’s dynamic craftsmanship in creating her personal vision for 2006’s Marie Antoinette (NYFF44) is on full display in this video diary shot by her mother, Eleanor Coppola, on the film’s set in Versailles in 2005. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Mike Leigh and Team on Tender Loving Care
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Mike Leigh, cast members Marion Bailey, Kate O' Flynn, and Alice Bailey Johnson, cinematographer Lucy Bristow, and producer Georgina Lowe discuss Tender Loving Care with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Mike Leigh’s portrayal of overwhelmed, resilient lives in post-Brexit England should be received as one of his signature works, a film with a leveling sense of humor about the difficulty of asking for—and accepting—help in a world that continually lets us down. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Lee Chang-dong and Cast on Possible Love
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Lee Chang-dong, Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung, and Cho Yeo-jeong discuss Possible Love with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Thanks to Haley Yung, Estelle Lee, and Iris Jang for interpretation. Possible Love opens at Film at Lincoln Center on October 23. Tickets on sale now. The lives of two married couples from different social strata collide in Lee Chang-dong’s brilliantly unfolding narrative about economic precarity, in which a laid-off factory worker and his wife become the camera subjects for a documentary filmmaker. Winner of the Silver Lion at the 2026 Venice Film Festival and South Korea's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Chris Rock, Rosalind Eleazar, Daniel Kaluuya, Topher Grace, and Amy Landecker on Misty Green
At the 64th New York Film Festival, Chris Rock, Rosalind Eleazar, Daniel Kaluuya, Topher Grace, and Amy Landecker discuss Misty Green with NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. In the star-making performance at the center of Chris Rock’s L.A. odyssey, Rosalind Eleazar plays a former actress struggling to make ends meet in an unforgiving Hollywood. The marvelous supporting cast includes Rock, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, and more. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor on NAZA
Welcome to the daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor join NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim to discuss NAZA following the film's North American premiere. Directed by Abraham and Szor, two of the four co-directors of the 2024 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, NAZA was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, revealing the systems behind Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Produced by the Guardian and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the 2026 Venice Film Festival.
Takashi Yamazaki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, and Minami Hamabe on Godzilla Minus Zero
Welcome to the daily 64th New York Film Festival podcast. On today’s edition, Takashi Yamazaki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, and Minami Hamabe join NYFF programmer Justin Chang at a press conference to discuss this year’s Spotlight Gala selection Godzilla Minus Zero. Limited tickets are available for our final Godzilla Minus Zero screening this Wednesday in Dolby Atmos at Alice Tully Hall! An experience that demands the big screen, director Takashi Yamazaki’s follow-up to his triumphant, Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One is a supremely satisfying sequel with even more astounding effects choreography than its predecessor. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
James Gray, Adam Driver, and Miles Teller on Paper Tiger
To kick off the 64th New York Film Festival, James Gray, Adam Driver, and Miles Teller joined NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen at a press conference to discuss this year’s Opening Night selection, Paper Tiger. They discussed the inspiration behind the drama, their approach to acting, recreating a 1980s New York City, and more. Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson star in James Gray’s brilliant New York thriller, charting the tragic fallout after a family man is pulled into a shady scheme with Russian criminals by his former cop brother. Opening Night is presented in partnership with Rolex.
Dennis Lim on the 64th New York Film Festival, Selection Process, and Can't-Miss Films
This week we’re excited to present a special preview of the 64th New York Film Festival, beginning next Friday, September 25 and running through October 12. NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim is joined by Jordan Raup, Associate Director of Marketing at Film at Lincoln Center, to break down the films and events you can’t miss throughout this year’s 18-day festival. Lim takes your questions from Discord and Reddit, including what a year in programming looks like, navigating the late additions this year, reflecting on the legacy of the festival, and much more. Don’t forget to subscribe for more daily filmmaker conversations throughout the festival. Tickets to this year’s festival are still available but going fast. Get yours here: https://filmlinc.org/tix The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
James Gray and Joaquin Phoenix on The Immigrant
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 51st New York Film Festival in 2013 with The Immigrant director James Gray and lead actor Joaquin Phoenix, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. In James Gray’s richly detailed period tragedy The Immigrant, set in a dusty, sepia-toned 1920s Manhattan, a young Polish immigrant (Marion Cotillard) is caught in a dangerous battle of wills with a shady burlesque manager (Joaquin Phoenix). James Gray returns to the New York Film Festival with this year’s Opening Night selection Paper Tiger. NYFF64 tickets will go on sale this Tuesday, Sept. 15 at noon, with pre-sale access for FLC members and Pass holders. Learn more at filmlinc.org/nyff
#666 - Mike Leigh on Naked
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from 2022 with the great British filmmaker Mike Leigh as he discusses his 1993 film: the NYFF31 selection Naked. Mike Leigh returns to the New York Film Festival with his final film, Tender Loving Care, at the 64th New York Film Festival this September and October. Secure your seats with an NYFF64 Pass at filmlinc.org/passes The acclaimed winner of the 1996 Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Mike Leigh’s mid-’90s masterpiece cemented his status as the poet laureate of modern family life. The story concerns Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, awarded Best Actress at Cannes), a working-class white woman whose personal and interpersonal lives are transformed when she learns that a Black optometrist is the child she gave up for adoption 27 years prior. Created, like Leigh’s other films, after long months of intensely collaborative improvisation, Secrets & Lies is remarkable for its lived-in warmth and humor, and above all for its unflinching honesty in capturing the everyday evasions and deceptions that can define our lives.
#665 - Kevin Walker, Jack Auen, and Anne Laure Sellier on Chronovisor
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with the directors and lead actress of Chronovisor, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Tyler Wilson. Chronovisor will be opening at Film at Lincoln Center next Friday, September 4 with in-person Q&As at select screenings opening weekend! Get tickets at filmlinc.org/chronovisor Ahead of the film’s release, don’t miss Bibliomania: A Preface to Chronovisor (taking place August 28–September 3), a curated anthology of features and shorts that brilliantly wring suspense, humor, and terror from seemingly undramatizable subjects. The series serves as a great preface to Chronovisor. View the full screening schedule and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/bibliomania Inspired by the true story of a “fake” invention, Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s Chronovisor follows a Columbia professor deep into a Borgesian labyrinth of textual clues pointing to a time-travel device rumored to have been suppressed by the Vatican.
#664 - Casper Kelly, Delaney Quinn, Rafi Margules, and Tyler Davidson on Buddy
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from Opening Night of Scary Movies, the popular horror festival that just concluded its spooky 14th edition, with Buddy director Casper Kelly, producers Rafi Margules & Tyler Davidson, and lead actress Delaney Quinn, moderated by FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. Buddy will be opening in select theaters beginning August 28th, courtesy of Roadside Attractions. Viewers might know Casper Kelly as the mad-genius Adult Swim auteur responsible for 2014’s viral sensation Too Many Cooks, among other fever-dream spoofs of vintage pop-culture weirdness. With his first foray into big-screen feature filmmaking, Kelly embraces a larger canvas, applying his gleefully deranged sense of humor to the uncanny, oppressive cheerfulness of a ’90s soundstage-set kids’ TV show. The plucky young live-action characters of “It’s Buddy!” pass their days (or rather, episodes) laughing and learning in a brightly-hued analog playhouse—until the titular host, a charismatic orange unicorn, turns unexpectedly violent, and the show’s hermetically sealed fantasyland descends into gore-spattered mayhem. The result is an unhinged satire in which Kelly’s trademark flair for surreal black comedy reaches dazzling new heights, here abetted by a pitch-perfect ensemble cast that includes Cristin Milioti, Topher Grace, and the voice-acting talents of Keegan Michael Key and Patton Oswalt. Now please enjoy the conversation with Buddy director Casper Kelly, producers Rafi Margules & Tyler Davidson, and lead actress Delaney Quinn, moderated by FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. Scary Movies XIV was sponsored by MUBI.
#663 - Martin Scorsese, Willem Dafoe, Kent Jones, & More on Late Fame and a Scary Movies XIV Preview
This week we’re excited to present two conversations: first, a special programmer’s preview of Scary Movies XIV (the popular horror festival taking place at FLC through August 20) with FLC programmer Madeline Whittle, and then we transition to a conversation about the NYFF63 Main Slate selection Late Fame featuring director Kent Jones and cast members Willem Dafoe and Edmund Donovan, moderated by the great Martin Scorsese. Late Fame is currently playing at FLC. View showtimes and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/fame Scary Movies XIV is currently running through August 20. View showtimes and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/scary Scary Movies XIV is sponsored by MUBI, the streaming service, production company, and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema.
#662 - Kiyoshi Kurosawa on The Samurai and the Prisoner
This week we’re excited to present a recent conversation with The Samurai and the Prisoner director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, moderated by film critic Siddhant Adlakha. The Samurai and the Prisoner is currently playing daily at Film at Lincoln Center, courtesy of Janus Films. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/samurai In 16th-century Japan, Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) turns against Oda, the warlord he once served, and is besieged inside his own castle, where inexplicable crimes begin to look to Murashige and his frightened advisors like signs of divine judgment. As Oda’s invading army tightens its grip outside and suspicion infiltrates the stronghold, Murashige is forced to consult Kanbei (Masaki Suda of Cloud), the cunning strategist he has locked in the dungeon, while his wife Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka) and his generals try to keep the court from devouring itself. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s stately jidaigeki—adapted from Honobu Yonezawa’s best-selling, Naoki Prize–winning novel and selected at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—is a tense and metaphysical whodunit with the director’s characteristic philosophical overtones, bringing the winding investigations of Cure and Serpent’s Path into a meticulously composed period piece about the manipulation of terror.
#661 - Yeon Sang-ho on Train to Busan
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2026 edition of the New York Asian Film Festival with Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho on the tenth anniversary of the film’s release, presented on this particular evening in a new 4K restoration. Ten years later, Train to Busan is still a monster with an angry engine. Yeon Sang-ho’s breakout transforms a zombie outbreak aboard the KTX into one of the great modern action-horror rides: brutal, sentimental, and made for packed movie theaters. Gong Yoo plays a self-absorbed, divorced fund manager taking his young daughter to Busan for her birthday. Before they leave Seoul, the outbreak reaches the station, a bitten passenger makes it onto the train, and the trip becomes a car-by-car fight for survival, with fear spreading almost as fast as the virus. Ma Dong-seok became an international fan favorite here as the passenger everyone wanted on their side.
#660 - Ena Alvarado on Lost Chapters
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2025 edition of New Directors/New Films with Lost Chapters lead actress Ena Alvarado, moderated by ND/NF selection committee member Tyler Wilson. Lost Chapters is currently in select theaters, courtesy of Several Futures. When a letter nestled deep inside her father’s library details the writing of an unknown author, the young, ambitious bibliophile Ena sets off to find his work. Is the fabled book real? Did the author even exist? Where most movies might use this to kick off a treasure hunt, Lost Chapters opens a door to Venezuela’s rich cultural history and troubled present. A master class in composition and sound design that leaves no detail to chance, Lorena Alvarado’s feature debut achieves a remarkable sense of emotional warmth from her real-life sister, father, and grandmother, whose on-screen naturalism never once lapses into mannerism.
#659 - Elaine May and Julian Schlossberg on Mikey and Nicky
This week we’re excited to present a conversation between legendary filmmaker Elaine May and producer Julian Schlossberg as they discuss a new 4K restoration of the 1976 feature Mikey and Nicky for the film's 50th anniversary this year. Elaine May’s third feature stands apart from the rest of her oeuvre in a number of ways, not least of which is the fact that it finds her working with another paradigm-shifting actor/director in John Cassavetes. Here Cassavetes plays opposite his frequent collaborator Peter Falk, the former playing a Philly gangster who has run afoul of his boss and gone underground due to a fresh contract on his life; the latter playing his childhood friend who—unbeknownst to him—is helping with the assassination plot. Set entirely across one anxious night, Mikey and Nicky remains an eminently potent, emotionally tremulous portrait of male friendship (and male betrayal) that crackles with the raw energy of three of the era’s most indelible and uncompromising American film artists working together.
#658 - Lana Daher on Do You Love Me
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2026 edition of New Directors/New Films with Do You Love Me director Lana Daher, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Dan Sullivan. Do You Love Me is currently in select theaters, courtesy of Icarus Films. A portrait of Lebanon assembled entirely from archival footage, Lana Daher’s Do You Love Me stitches together a poetic, expansive vision of a country fragmented by military, social, and economic turmoil, turning individual documents into collective memory. It is being hailed as one of the great cinematic discoveries of 2026.
#657 - Carla Simón on Romería
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Romería director Carla Simón, moderated by NYFF Main Slate selection committee member Florence Almozini. An NYFF63 selection, Romería opens this Friday at Film at Lincoln Center with Q&As at select screenings on June 26 and June 27. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/romeria Amidst the jagged cliffs on the Atlantic coast of Galicia in Spain, 18-year-old Marina has arrived on a deeply personal mission. Having lost both of her parents at a very young age, the orphaned young woman has set off on a journey to meet her paternal grandparents and extended family for the first time. While connecting with her affectionate, teeming new clan, Marina also is forced to reconcile with the past, negotiating her idealized memories of her parents and difficult truths that have been long buried. Alternating between 2004 and the early 1980s, evoked in hallucinatory, grainy flashbacks, Romería achingly dramatizes the processes of creating new memories and holding onto fleeting ones. Carla Simón proves again with this delicate, naturalistic, and poignantly autobiographical film that she is an essential voice in international cinema.
#656 - Mark Jenkin and Mary Woodvine on Rose of Nevada
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Rose of Nevada director Mark Jenkin and actress Mary Woodvine, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Rose of Nevada opens at Film at Lincoln Center on June 19 with select screenings on 35mm and featuring in-person Q&As opening weekend. View full screening schedule and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/nevada The singular Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin brings his distinctive and bold storytelling approach to his most expansive work yet. Again immersing the viewer in the uncanny environments of the small towns along the coast of Cornwall, Jenkin spins a sci-fi-tinged tale of dislocation and regeneration. In a tiny, sparsely populated fishing village, a boat that had been lost at sea 30 years ago, the Rose of Nevada, suddenly reappears portside, fully intact and without its long-missing crew. Two local neophyte fishermen desperate for work (played by George MacKay and Callum Turner) take jobs on the boat as it sets out for a good-luck return voyage. When they return, all is no longer what it once was. Shot on 16mm, this earthy, psychological portrait of a working-class community’s cyclical existence is an atmospheric plunge into the eerie. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#655 - Nadia Melliti on The Little Sister
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with The Little Sister lead actress Nadia Melliti, moderated by FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. A 2026 Rendez-vous with French Cinema selection, The Little Sister is currently playing at Film at Lincoln Center, courtesy of Strand Releasing. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/sister Devout Muslim teenager Fatima (Nadia Melliti) lives with her loving Algerian immigrant family in Paris, but fears the inevitable fallout if her tradition-minded kin discover her identity as a lesbian. Initially wary of her own sexuality and eager to downplay it, Fatima blossoms when she meets Ji-na (Return to Seoul star Park Ji-Min), but challenges await the nascent couple. In her fourth directorial effort, Hafsia Herzi (also acclaimed for her captivating performances in The Rapture and The Secret of the Grain) rejects the clichés of queer coming-of-age stories, which so often center around tragedy and trauma. Instead, Herzi centers one young girl’s relatively drama-free journey of self-discovery and coming out, one telling incident at a time. A true discovery in her first on-screen role, Melliti won Best Actress awards at Cannes and Lumières, as well as the César Award for Best Female Newcomer, while the film took home the prestigious Louis-Delluc Prize in 2025. A Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026 selection. A Strand Releasing release.
#654 - Ildikó Enyedi and Tony Leung on Silent Friend
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Silent Friend director Ildikó Enyedi and lead actor Tony Leung, moderated by TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek. Silent Friend is currently playing daily at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/friend Ildikó Enyedi, whose On Body and Soul won the Golden Bear at the 2017 Berlinale and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film, returns with a century-spanning triptych that moves from 1908 to the early months of the pandemic, unfolding around an ancient ginkgo in the botanical garden of Marburg University, the fixed witness to a century’s worth of passing faces. From a young woman forcing her way into the male-dominated scientific establishment at the dawn of the 20th century to idealistic lovers in the politically turbulent 1970s, Enyedi considers how consciousness itself is historically situated, mapping the incremental rewiring of how people think and connect over time. Tony Leung anchors the 2020 chapter with a characteristically subtle, deeply felt performance as a visiting neuroscientist stranded on campus during lockdown, whose attempt to measure the tree’s electromagnetic signals—guided remotely by a French plant biologist, played by Léa Seydoux—gradually opens into a meditation on perception itself.
#653 - Kamal Aljafari on With Hasan in Gaza
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with With Hasan in Gaza director Kamal Aljafari, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. An NYFF63 Currents selection, With Hasan in Gaza opens in select theaters beginning May 29, courtesy of The Cinema Guild. It is 2001 in Gaza, and Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist Kamal Aljafari is traveling from north to south, accompanied by a MiniDV camera and searching for a man he met while briefly imprisoned as a teenager. Aljafari’s footage, now nearly a quarter-century old and unseen by the filmmaker himself until recently, is often tranquil: drives down the highway, walks through the market, a trip to the beach, a card game among friends. But the immediate return of Israeli shelling, captured here in detail, invokes the ever-present background of settler violence. With Hasan in Gaza is an aching witness to the beauty of this land and the struggle of its people, neither of which may soon be recognizable at all. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex while NYFF63 Currents features are sponsored by The Travel Agency: A Cannabis Store.
#652 - Ian McKellen and Ed Solomon on The Christophers
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with The Christophers' lead actor Ian McKellen and screenwriter Ed Solomon as they discuss their film with FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. In Steven Soderbergh’s new film The Christophers, Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, who was once a star of London’s 1960’s and 70’s pop art explosion but hasn’t painted in decades and has been broke for years. His two estranged children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning), desperate for an inheritance, hire Lori, an art restorer and former forger (Michaela Coel), to pose as a prospective assistant in order to access 8 unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in storage. Her plan is to complete them, then return them to storage, where they are to be “discovered” upon Julian’s death.
#651 - Tony Leung on His Collaborations with Wong Kar Wai, Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Woo, and More
This week we’re excited to present a special conversation with global icon Tony Leung, tracing one of the most extraordinary screen careers of the past five decades. From his emergence in the Hong Kong New Wave to his enduring collaborations with many of the defining filmmakers of contemporary cinema, Leung reflects on his roles, working methods, and creative instincts that have shaped his singular screen presence. This conversation was moderated by FLC Vice President of Programming, Florence Almozini. See Tony Leung in the new feature film Silent Friend, currently playing daily at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/friend This conversation took place as part of our recently concluded retrospective The Grandmaster: Tony Leung. The series was sponsored by Criterion.
#650 - George Clooney at the 51st Chaplin Award Gala
This week we’re excited to present a special episode featuring the star-studded speeches from our recent 51st Chaplin Award Gala, honoring George Clooney. Having taken place on April 27 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Gala encompassed a joyful celebration of the celebrated actor and filmmaker’s incredible body of work, featuring notable speakers and film clips, and culminating in the presentation of the Chaplin Award, an annual honor bestowed upon cinema’s most outstanding talents. The evening’s guest speakers included, in order of appearance, Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies, Emmy Award–winning actor, writer, and director John Turturro, Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell, Emmy- and Grammy Award–winning host Stephen Colbert; Academy Award-winning producer Grant Heslov, and the man himself George Clooney.
#649 - Giulio Bertelli on Agon
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with Agon director Giulio Bertelli. Agon is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. This conversation was moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Tyler Wilson. In Agon, three athletes—including one played by a real-life gold medalist in women’s judo—prepare for a fictional Olympiad in this elemental study of athletic discipline from first-time feature director Giulio Bertelli. Bertelli shows how the athletes’ preparation is dominated by technologies, from arthroscopic surgery footage to simulators to video games, suggesting the dehumanization of vulnerable bodies inside the global behemoth that is modern organized sport.
#648 - Pete Ohs, Jeremy O. Harris, and Lena Góra on Erupcja
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with the team behind the new film Erupcja. Co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, the 55th edition of New Directors/New Films took place April 8-19, with many filmmakers attending in person. In Erupcja, Charli XCX stars as a 365 party girl who wonders whether the music is finally stopping, as a weekend in Warsaw with her boyfriend resurfaces the unresolved, tantalizing excitements of an old friendship. Erupcja is now in select theaters, courtesy of 1-2 Special. The following conversation features Erupcja director Pete Ohs and cast members Jeremy O. Harris and Lena Góra, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Madeline Whittle.
#647 - Adrian Chiarella, Joe Bird, and Stacy Clausen on Leviticus
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with the team behind the opening night selection of this year’s New Directors/New Films. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, the 55th edition of New Directors/New Films takes place April 8-19, with many filmmakers scheduled to attend in person. Get tickets at newdirectors.org The following conversation features Leviticus director Adrian Chiarella and lead actors Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Madeline Whittle. Sundance favorite Leviticus expounds daringly on the horror-movie truism that sexual desire makes you vulnerable—notably, to gruesome death. Named for the book of the Old Testament used to justify homophobia, the wrenching and terrifying feature debut from Adrian Chiarella begins with Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) breaking into an abandoned mill, their matey horseplay soon surrendering to its powerful homoerotic subtext. Fans of Heated Rivalry will appreciate how Chiarella draws out the intuitive connections that form beneath the show of machismo that the young men take pains to maintain for their traditional community—in this case, the provincial Australian town where Naim’s mother (Mia Wasikowska in a complex, calibrated performance) has relocated them, dragging him along to a local church’s praise meetings in search of fellowship. Gothic iconography lurks in Chiarella’s oppressive and foreboding widescreen compositions, and soon, after Ryan and another boy are subjected to a disturbing exorcism intended to cure them of their urges, the community’s queer youths, already picked on, begin to be picked off by a spectral killer that appears to them in the form of their forbidden love objects. Ingeniously complicating the deep interrelation between teen sexuality and slasher movie iconography, and staging his set pieces with chilling precision, Chiarella announces himself as a new Aussie horror auteur to stand alongside Jennifer Kent and the Philippous.
#646 - Christian Petzold on Barbara
This week we’re excited to present a recent conversation with acclaimed German filmmaker Christian Petzold as he discusses the NYFF50 selection Barbara (2012) in a conversation moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Make sure to catch Petzold’s latest feature, the NYFF63 selection Miroirs No. 3 currently playing at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/miroirs Set in 1980, Barbara, the first chapter of Christian Petzold’s trilogy “Love in Times of Oppressive Systems,” centers around a doctor—played by the incomparable Nina Hoss, in her fifth film with the director—exiled to a small town from East Berlin as punishment for applying for an exit visa from the GDR. Planning to flee for Denmark with her boyfriend, Barbara remains icy and withdrawn around her colleagues, particularly with the lead physician, who is hiding a secret of his own. With her patients, however, the guarded doctor is kind, warm, and protective, even risking her own safety for one of her charges. Masterfully controlled and totally absorbing, this Cold War thriller expertly details the costs of telling and withholding the truth.
#645 - Sergei Loznitsa on Two Prosecutors
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Two Prosecutors director Sergei Loznitsa, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. An NYFF63 Main Slate selection, Two Prosecutors is currently in select theaters, courtesy of Janus Films. The latest film from the great Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa is a scalpel-precise tale of the horrors of totalitarian bureaucracy. Adapting a novel by Soviet writer and political prisoner Georgy Demidov, set in the Soviet Union in 1937, Loznitsa follows the attempts of an idealistic government-appointed prosecutor to expose the mistreatment of a dissident Bolshevik writer who has been jailed and tortured without evidence of wrongdoing. As he gradually comes to realize, the lack of cause for the man’s imprisonment is hardly unique under Stalin’s regime, and the neophyte lawyer may be putting himself in danger by exposing his own moral righteousness. Loznitsa constructs his story with a patient yet unmistakable sense of mounting dread, focusing on the devastating minutiae that allows fascism to function in our world. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#644 - Béla Tarr on Werckmeister Harmonies
This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation from June of 2023. In this conversation, director Béla Tarr discusses his 2000 feature Werckmeister Harmonies with Film at Lincoln Center Vice President of Programming Florence Almozini as part of Tarr’s two-day visit to FLC three years ago. FLC will present “Farewell to Béla Tarr,” a seven-film tribute to the late Hungarian filmmaker whose singular body of work stands among the most rigorous and influential in modern cinema, March 27-31. View full screening schedule and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/tarr Werckmeister Harmonies stands among the defining achievements of Béla Tarr’s late period and remains, alongside Sátántangó, one of his most widely celebrated works. Directed with Ágnes Hranitzky and adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, the film unfolds as a sustained immersion in a weather-beaten provincial town unsettled by the arrival of a traveling circus bearing a colossal stuffed whale—and rumors of a shadowy “Prince.” At its center is the quietly perceptive postman János (Lars Rudolph), whose wide-eyed curiosity contrasts with the mounting paranoia around him. Composed in precisely choreographed long takes and animated by Mihály Víg’s incantatory score, the film transforms rumor and unrest into a searching meditation on harmony, disorder, and the fragility of civic life. A Janus Films release.
#643 - Alexandre Koberidze on Dry Leaf
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Dry Leaf director Alexandre Koberidze and composer Giorgi Koberidze as they discuss their new film. An NYFF63 Currents selection, Dry Leaf opens at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, March 20 with Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/leaf This conversation was moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. In soccer, a “dry leaf” is a kick that produces an unpredictable landing of the ball. Shaken by the disappearance of his grown daughter, a sports photographer goes looking for her through a Georgian landscape strewn with football fields. An invisible companion in tow, he meets potential witnesses whose perspectives prove distorted or contradictory. Confirming his position as one of contemporary cinema’s most intrepid artists, director Alexandre Koberidze (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, NYFF59) shot the film on an antiquated Sony Ericsson phone. What might seem a perverse choice reveals itself, over Dry Leaf’s epic length, as a brilliant thematic gesture that elicits its own temporal register. Set to a haunting score by the director’s brother Giorgi, this melancholic mystery presents Georgia’s open plains and mountain regions in alien, oneiric contexts. One emerges from its transporting rhythms with a fresh perspective on the world. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#642 - Lesley Manville on Midwinter Break
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Academy Award-nominated actress Lesley Manville as she discusses the new film Midwinter Break with FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. Directed by Polly Findlay and based on the 2017 novel Bernard MacLaverty, Midwinter Break is a stirring meditation on faith, commitment, and the enduring power of love, as a longtime couple takes a life-changing trip to Amsterdam. The film co-stars Academy Award nominee Ciaran Hinds. Midwinter Break is now playing in select theaters,, courtesy of Focus Features.
#641 - Christian Petzold on Miroirs No. 3
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Miroirs. No. 3 director Christian Petzold as he discusses his new film with NYFF programmer Florence Almozini. An NYFF63 selection, Miroirs No. 3 opens at Film at Lincoln Center on March 19 with Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. See the film and more films from Christian Petzold at our seven-film showcase from March 16-19 of the renowned German director’s signature works. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/petzold Christian Petzold’s (Transit, NYFF56) haunting, beautifully crafted new film stars Paula Beer as a pianist from Berlin who’s taken in by a mysterious woman in an isolated country house after surviving a violent car crash.
#640 - Gianfranco Rosi on Pompei: Below the Clouds
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Pompei: Below the Clouds director Gianfranco Rosi as he discusses his documentary with FLC programmer Dan Sullivan. An NYFF63 selection, Pompei: Below the Clouds opens at Film at Lincoln Center on March 6th with in-person filmmaker Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. Get tickets now at filmlinc.org/clouds The great Italian documentarian Gianfranco Rosi (Notturno, NYFF58) specializes in kaleidoscopic portraits of people living amid anxiety and uncertainty. Among his most striking and monumental works, his latest details with pointillist precision and unnerving beauty a region in Naples living under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius and above the simmering Campi Flegrei volcanic caldera, which has in recent years experienced increasingly frequent and alarming tremors. In this volatile environment, Rosi finds archeologists reckoning with both uncovered ancient artifacts and the wreckage of tomb raiders, squads of diggers descending into long abandoned tunnels, emergency centers already at breaking points, and a populace experiencing a generalized daily disquietude, fearful of an eruption like the one that buried Pompeii in 79 A.D. Linking modern and ancient life, Pompei: Below the Clouds alights on a specific region yet feels connected to everyone’s contemporary moment—the contemplation of the unimaginable nestled within our daily existence. An NYFF63 Main Slate selection. A MUBI release. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#639 - Jodie Foster and Rebecca Zlotowski on A Private Life
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with director Rebecca Zlotowski and lead actress Jodie Foster as they discuss the NYFF63 selection A Private Life. A Private Life is currently in select theaters, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. This conversation was moderated by NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim. Zlotowski’s unpredictable and playful murder mystery stars an entrancing Jodie Foster, in her first French-language performance, as an American psychoanalyst in Paris whose tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient. Unpredictable and loose-limbed, A Private Life, like its incandescent star in her most dexterous role in years, is a complete delight. A Private Life is currently in select theaters, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#638 - Programmer's Preview of Looking for Ms. Keaton
This week we’re excited to present a conversation between FLC Programmer Madeline Whittle and Digital Marketing Manager Erik Luers as they discuss the upcoming retrospective Looking for Ms. Keaton, taking place at Film at Lincoln Center February 13-19. This week-long showcase celebrates the late Diane Keaton, a paradigm-shifting performer whose contributions to the art and craft of screen acting cemented her legacy as an auteur in the truest sense of the word. View the full screening schedule and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/keaton After the conversation, be sure to listen to Diane Keaton’s acceptance speech of Film at Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award at our special Gala honoring the iconic actress from the spring of 2007. Looking for Ms Keaton is sponsored by Criterion, your trusted curator of great cinema.
#637 - Oliver Laxe and Ben Rivers on Crafting Sirāt and Mare's Nest
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival between filmmakers Oliver Laxe and Ben Rivers, moderated by NYFF programming advisor Antoine Thirion. Oliver Laxe’s Sirat returns to Film at Lincoln Center for a theatrical engagement beginning next Thursday, February 5th. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/sirat. On top of sharing an enthusiasm for mystery, the elements, and utopias, Ben Rivers and Oliver Laxe also shared a producer and a shooting location on their latest films. Rivers’s Mare’s Nest and Laxe’s Sirât are both apocalyptic road movies; the first follows a child through a variety of haunted landscapes in Spain and the United Kingdom, while the second follows a man, his young son, and a motley group of ravers as they try to find their way out of a besieged desert on the borderlands of Morocco, near Spain. Each film is a radical enigma that invites spectators to engage with cinema sensorially. NYFF was pleased to welcome Laxe and Rivers for a wide-ranging conversation about the making of their new films and their intersecting artistic and thematic preoccupations. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.
#636 - Hlynur Pálmason on The Love That Remains
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with director Hlynur Pálmason as he discusses the NYFF63 selection The Love That Remains. This conversation was moderated by NYFF programmer Justin Chang. The Love That Remains opens at Film at Lincoln Center this Thursday, January 29 with in-person Q&As and screenings of Pálmason‘s companion film Joan of Arc. View showtimes and secure tickets at filmlinc.org/loveremains Charting the gradual evolution of a family in the midst of an irreparable fracture, Hlynur Pálmason’s follow-up to his feature film Godland is a poignant domestic drama that observes life’s changes with humor and whimsy, set against the majestic, ever-shifting Icelandic landscape. The 63rd New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.