September
21
New York Film Fest Sticks to its Knitting
Every fall the good old New York Film Fest, which opens September 26, gets the same scrutiny. It's like an annual ritual. Some journalist asks, is it still relevant? does it only appeal to old people? And someone else, in this case The Reeler, defends it as an institution for the ages.
This year, even if the pickings were slim among higher-profile American pictures, I particularly commend Telluride and New York (Toronto plays a different kind of game) for sticking to the best that world cinema had to offer. New York has always kept arcane art films at the core of its selection of some two dozen films, and often chooses controversial and unpopular pics, such as last year's Brian DePalma Iraq flick Redacted.
More than Cannes, which tends to stick to name auteurs and only rarely anoints new members to the club, the NYFF has always been brave about its choices. Even the erudite programmers at Telluride this year hadn't heard of some of NY's picks. These days festivals are supposed to challenge audiences. That's their job.
Scott Kirsner posits a new role for film fests in this Businessweek story on Innovation Lessons from Hollywood, complete with an 18 People Who Changed Hollywood slide show.
Filmmaker magazine posts Jamie Stuart's NYFF 46 teaser and Spoutblog's Karina Longworth adds analysis of his series of NYFF shorts over the years.
[Photos: NYFF's Wendy and Lucy and Hunger]
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Arcane art films? Your bias seems kind of transparent. And yes, NYFF sort of seems underwhelming with their non-mainstream, non-A-list roster on the surface, but goddamn the films are fucking impeccably chosen this year. I didn't know squat about most of them, but they have turned out to be some of the most breathtaking and essential of the year. It's made me re-realize that little gems like this deserve just as much as chance as big A-name films even if they don't sound as sexy on the surface. "Voy A Explotar," and "Tokyo Sonata" are two of the best films I've seen so far this year and thank god, I just gave them a chance cause I was feeling semi-adventurous.
Yes, it's a film fest's job to challenge audiences and thank god NYFF has taken that to hear this year.
A film fest doesn't have to have gigantic names to be relevant. Once you see more of the fabulous roster, you'll hopefully agree.
Posted by: The Playlist | September 21, 2008 at 06:01 PM
funny, I think we agree with each other here. arcane art film doesn't equal bad art film. Of the films I've seen--including Waltz with Bashir, Changeling, Che, the restored Lola Montes, A Christmas Tale, Happy-Go-Lucky, Hunger, Wendy and Lucy, The Wrestler and The Class--NY has chosen well. Of course this means I haven't seen the more arcane ones!
Posted by: anne thompson | September 22, 2008 at 11:12 AM