NYFF Main Slate selections announced

Breillat, Wenders and Kaurismäki among the big names

by Anne-Katrin Titze

Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera with Alba Rohrwacher is a highlight of the 61st New York Film Festival
Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera with Alba Rohrwacher is a highlight of the 61st New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced that Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall; Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest; Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days; Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses, and Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves (all Cannes Film Festival award winners) will be among the Main Slate selections of the 61st New York Film Festival. Angela Schanelec’s Music (Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Screenplay) and Bas Devos’s Here (Best Film in the Encounters section and the FIPRESCI prize) are also in.

Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, starring Kôji Yakusho (Cannes Best Actor), is another highlight
Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, starring Kôji Yakusho (Cannes Best Actor), is another highlight Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer; Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (with Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Carol Duarte, and Alba Rohrwacher); Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped; Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures Of Ghosts; Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers; Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast (based on Henry James’s The Beast In The Jungle and starring Léa Seydoux); Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, and Víctor Erice’s Close Your Eyes will also screen as part of the 32 films chosen. These highlights join the Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Closing Night selections Todd Haynes’s May December, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, and Michael Mann’s Ferrari.

“The unsettled state of the industry is an unavoidable talking point these days, but my hope is that our festival, as it has done through its 61-year history, will serve as a reminder that the art of cinema is in robust health,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival. “The filmmakers in this year’s Main Slate are grappling with eternal questions—about how movies relate to the world, about what it means to make art from life, about the most interesting ways to approach the contemporary moment and the historical past—and the answers they have proposed are thrilling in their variety, ingenuity, and urgency. We can’t wait for our audience, so vital to the festival experience, to discover these 32 new films.”

The New York Film Festival Main Slate selection committee, chaired by Dennis Lim, also includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, K Austin Collins, and Rachel Rosen.

The 61st New York Film Festival runs from Friday, September 29 through Sunday, October 15.

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