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Jim Jarmusch Fall is upon us with the world premiere of his first film in six years, “Father Mother Sister Brother,” coming to fall festivals. His tragicomic triptych “Father Mother Sister Brother” first bows in competition at the Venice Film Festival — and, allegedly, after this year’s Cannes rejected it — before making its North American premiere as the Centerpiece screening of the 2025 New York Film Festival.

Jarmusch’s first feature since 2019’s “The Dead Don’t Die,” “Father Mother Sister Brother” will play the New York Film Festival on October 3. The ensemble cast features a mix of Jarmusch regulars and newcomers: Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Sarah Greene, Indya Moore, Luka Sabbat, and Françoise Lebrun all star.

“Father Mother Sister Brother” is comprised of three chapters, all set in the present day, about the relationships between adult children reconnecting with their aging or dead parents,...

After the Hunt, Luca Guadagnino’s topical drama starring Julia Roberts, will open the 63rd New York Film Festival on September 26.

The film centers on a Yale professor (Roberts) whose comfortable life is thrown into chaos after her longtime colleague and friend is accused of sexual assault. Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny also star.

Earlier this week, Venice Film Festival organizers announced that the film will have its world premiere there, screening out of competition. It is slated to debut in U.S. theaters on October 10.

Film at Lincoln Center, which organizes the festival, said Guadagnino and members of the cast are set to be on hand as the film has its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall. Guadagnino has had several of his films, including Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All and Queer, screen at the New York festival. The event typically...

Not to be outdone by Venice and TIFF, this year’s New York Film Festival on Tuesday began rolling out its own lineup.

First up: opening night, which will be celebrated with the North American premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt.” The Opening Night gala of the 63rd New York Film Festival, presented in partnership with Rolex, will take place at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, September 26, with Guadagnino and members of the cast in attendance.

In today’s announcement, NYFF classifies the film as a “razor-sharp new drama” in which the filmmaker “plunges with refreshing abandon into the murky seas of contemporary morality — and gives Julia Roberts one of the most complex and gratifying starring roles of her career.” The film will have its world premiere out of competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival and will be released by Amazon MGM Studios in New York and LA theaters on Friday,...

After just this week announcing the New York Film Festival’s opening night film (RaMell Ross’ much-anticipated Colson Whitehead adaptation “Nickel Boys”), Film at Lincoln Center has today announced the film that will close this year’s edition: Steve McQueen’s “Blitz,” starring Saoirse Ronan and newcomer Elliott Heffernan. After world premiering at the London BFI Film Festival on October 9, the film will mark its North American premiere on October 10 at Alice Tully Hall.

Per Thursday’s announcement, “Blitz” is “an authentic and astonishing recreation of London during its blitzkrieg by the Germans during World War II, pushes the artistry of Steve McQueen to ever more impressive levels. Working on a vast scale, McQueen sets things at human eye level, telling his original tale from the parallel perspectives of working-class single mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and her nine-year-old son, George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan), as they become separated within the labyrinth of a city under siege.

RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys will be the opening-night film of the 62nd New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall on September 27, the fest’s parent organization, Film at Lincoln Center, revealed Monday.

The adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel stars Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in the story of two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow-era Florida. In the harrowing tale inspired by actual events, their close friendship helps sustain their hope even as the horrors mount around them at the Nickel Academy, which becomes a microcosm of American racism in the mid-20th century. Their breakout performances “cut to the bone,” says NYFF.

Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor also star.

“Nickel Boys signals the emergence of a major filmmaking voice,” said the festival’s artistic director Dennis Lim. “RaMell Ross’ fiction debut, like...

New York Film Festival has set the RaMell Ross-directed historical drama “Nickel Boys” as its opening night movie.

The screening will take place Sept. 27 at Alice Tully Hall. “Nickel Boys” is adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. The story follows two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow-era Florida. Herisse and Wilson play Elwood and Turner, whose close friendship helps sustain their hope even as the horrors mount around them at the Nickel Academy, which becomes a microcosm of American racism in the mid-20th century.

“’Nickel Boys’ signals the emergence of a major filmmaking voice,” said Dennis Lim, artistic director of the New York Film Festival. “RaMell Ross’s fiction debut, like his previous work in photography and documentary, searches for new ways of seeing and,...

Garth Davis’s science-fiction sci-fi drama Foe, directed by Garth Davis (Lion) and starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The film, which Amazon will release this fall, is one of the Spotlight selections just announced by festival presenter Film at Lincoln Center.

Also making its world premiere in the Spotlight section is Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s A24-produced Showtime series The Curse, which stars Emma Stone. The North American premiere of Bradley Cooper’s Maestro was announced on Wednesday as a Spotlight Gala.

The festival’s 61st edition will kick off September 29 and run through October 15, with screenings planned in all five boroughs of New York City.

Other notable Spotlight entries include The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in a decade; a late-night showing of Harmony Korine’s Aggro DR1FT, shot entirely in infrared,...

Maestro, the Leonard Bernstein biopic starring and directed by Bradley Cooper, will have the Spotlight Gala slot at this fall’s 61st New York Film Festival.

The Netflix film’s North American premiere on October 2 will come a few weeks after its world premiere in Venice. Netflix and New York have had an active relationship in recent years, with recent editions of the festival including films like The Irishman, Marriage Story, White Noise, The Power of the Dog and Roma occupying tentpole slots.

Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall, which reopened last year after a $550 million renovation, will host the premiere. The venue is home to the New York Philharmonic, of which Bernstein was the longtime conductor.

Maestro is Cooper’s directorial follow-up to A Star Is Born. Per the official logline, “Coasting on the boundless energy of its subject’s runaway genius, Maestro transports the viewer back to a vividly re-created postwar New York,...

Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” will be in the Spotlight of this year’s New York Film Festival.

Film at Lincoln Center confirmed to IndieWire that “Maestro” will be part of the Spotlight Gala at NYFF61, with the film making its North American debut with the first film premiere ever held at David Geffen Hall. The venue is usually dedicated just to concert events.

“The New York Film Festival is proud to present the North American debut of ‘Maestro,’ Bradley Cooper’s tour de force film about the life of renowned conductor, composer, and musician Leonard Bernstein,” Lesli Klainberg, President, Film at Lincoln Center, said in an official statement.

“Maestro” marks Cooper’s directorial follow-up to “A Star Is Born” and focuses on the public and private lives of legendary musician Bernstein, especially his marriage to Felicia (Carey Mulligan). Per the official synopsis, “Maestro” is a “tender, often intensely emotional film...

Eugene Hernandez has been promoted to the new role of SVP of Film at Lincoln Center (Flc) and Executive Director of the New York Film Festival (NYFF), and Dennis Lim has been upped to the NYFF’s first-ever Artistic Director, newly promoted President, Lesli Klainberg, announced on Friday. Hernandez will also continue to lead Flc’s strategic initiatives, including his role as publisher of Film Comment.

This year will mark the 60th anniversary of NYFF, and the festival will run from Sept. 30 to Oct. 16. The NYFF Main Slate selection committee, chaired by Lim, also includes Hernandez, Florence Almozini, K. Austin Collins, and Rachel Rosen.

“Eugene and Dennis have done an extraordinary job during challenging times, leading the last two New York Film Festivals to great success,” Klainberg said in a statement. “With the upcoming 60th edition, we seek to expand our commitment to the festival and its integral role in...

The 60th New York Film Festival will officially take place September 30–October 16. The later fall dates were announced by Film at Lincoln Center on March 4, along with two promotions for festival directors Eugene Hernandez (also an IndieWire co-founder) and Dennis Lim.

Film at Lincoln Center President Lesli Klainberg revealed that Hernandez will be promoted to Executive Director of the New York Film Festival and Senior Vice President of Film at Lincoln Center. He will also continue to lead the organization’s strategic initiatives, including his role as publisher of Film Comment.

Hernandez was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of IndieWire, building this site over nearly 15 years as it became the leading editorial publication for independent and international films, filmmakers, industry, and audiences. Hernandez joined Film at Lincoln Center in 2010 as the Director of Digital Strategy, before being promoted to Deputy Director in 2014, leading strategy and special programs for the organization. He...

The 60th edition of the New York Film Festival will take place from Sept. 30 through Oct. 16.

Along with the newly announced dates, Film at Lincoln Center president Lesli Klainberg shared that Dennis Lim has been elevated to the New York Film Festival’s first-ever artistic director and Eugene Hernandez has been upped to the new role of senior VP of Flc and executive director of the New York Film Festival. Hernandez will also continue to lead the organization’s strategic initiatives, including his role as publisher of Film Comment.

“Eugene and Dennis have done an extraordinary job during challenging times, leading the last two New York Film Festivals to great success,” said Klainberg. “With the upcoming 60th edition, we seek to expand our commitment to the festival and its integral role in film culture by elevating Eugene and Dennis and dedicating more of our resources and energy to ensuring a...

Film at Lincoln Center has promoted two key members of its leadership team and also confirmed September 30 to October 16 as the dates for the New York Film Festival.

Dennis Lim has been elevated to artistic director of the festival, becoming the first person to hold that title since the first edition in 1963. Eugene Hernandez has been upped to SVP of Flc and executive director of the festival. He will continue to steer strategy for the organization, including as publisher of Film Comment.

Both execs are longtime fixtures of the New York film and cultural scene. Lim arrived in 2013 as director of programming for Flc and began in that same role for the festival in 2020. Following his promotion, he will focus his energies on the festival and Flc will conduct a search for a year-round programming chief.

Hernandez, a co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Deadline’s sister site, IndieWire, joined Flc...

Film at Lincoln Center searching for new senior director of programming.

Dennis Lim has been promoted to New York Film Festival’s (NYFF) first artistic director and Eugene Hernandez to the new role of SVP of parent body Film at Lincoln Center and executive director of NYFF heading in the festival’s 60th anniversary year.

Hernandez will continue to lead Flc’s strategic initiatives, including his role as publisher of Film Comment. Flc’s newly promoted president Lesli Klainberg announced the promotions today (4).

As artistic director Lim will continue to oversee curation and programming and will continue to work closely...

Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,” starring Penélope Cruz, will continue to make the festival rounds and play as the closing night film at the New York Film Festival.

“Parallel Mothers” is also set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival as the event’s opening night film, but its debut at NYFF will mark its North American premiere. It will screen on Oct. 8 at Alice Tully Hall before being released by Sony Pictures Classics in theaters on Dec. 24.

Almodóvar’s film joins an NYFF 59 slate that also includes opening night film “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” as the centerpiece selection.

“Parallel Mothers” tells the story of two women, Janis and Ana, who meet in a hospital room where they are about to give birth. Both are single and got pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant.

In today’s film news roundup, Adam Driver is honored, Robocop will be reborn and Hola Mexico Film Festival and The Montalbán Theatre are teaming for a screening series for potential Oscar nominees.

Honors

Sffilm has selected Adam Driver as the recipient of the Sffilm award for acting, formerly the Peter J. Owens Award.

Driver, who received an Oscar nomination this year for “BlacKkKlansman,” will be honored at the organization’s annual fundraising celebration honoring achievement in filmmaking craft on Dec. 3 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Exhibition Center. Other honorees are Chinoye Chukwu, Marielle Heller and Lulu Wang.

“There are times when a world-class actor takes over the consciousness of the film-loving audience, and 2019 is the year of Adam Driver,” said Sffilm’s Rachel Rosen. “The range and scope of his work this year is just incredible, from the epic scale of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker...

Meredith Brody is covering the San Francisco Film Fest: Head still buzzing from Walter Murch’s allusive, inspiring State of Cinema address, I slipped into Cold Weather, from a young indie filmmaker named Aaron Katz, whose first two films, as the catalogue states, are among those that “defined a movement of American ultra-low-budget filmmaking popularly termed ‘mumblecore.'” I arrived rather late to the mumblecore party, and am not fully convinced of its pleasures. But I decide to see Cold Weather for two typically random film festival reasons: I met the director and his cinematographer, Andrew Reed, earlier today, as they were chatting with head programmer Rachel Rosen. They were fresh from a visit to Bi-Rite Creamery and eagerly reciting the multiple flavors of ice cream they’d each ...

Meredith Brody starts seeing some movies at the Sfiff. The first full day of screenings starts gently, with nothing scheduled before 3:30 in the afternoon. (A patron standing in line outside Theaters 3 & 4 in the Kabuki asks director of programming Rachel Rosen if they haven’t been let in “because the Q and A [from the previous movie] is running long.” Startled, she says “These are the first screenings of the day!”) While waiting for Constantin and Elena in Theater 3, I chat with a lovely woman from “the former Yugoslavia” whose hot dog I had admired at the concession stand (really). She and her husband have tickets to ten movies over the festival’s two weeks. They have two young children, “or we’d take off ...

[Our thanks to Michael Hawley's continuing contributions to the Twitch readership.]

The full line-up for the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (Sfiff) was announced at an unusually subdued press conference last week. With Executive Director Graham Leggat taking an uncustomary silent role in the proceedings, it was left for new Director of Programming Rachel Rosen and her staff to guide attendant journalists and Bay Area film community members through this year's impressive roster of 177 films from 46 countries. Rosen admitted that while the festival doesn't program according to "themes", certain ones inevitably emerge. 2010's program is characterized by "a return to basics and beauty in filmmaking," films that could be deemed "unclassifiable," films with an "intense interest in the creative process" and the beginnings of an "era of co-auteur theory" (15 of this year's selections have two or more directors). Rosen also joked that she has indulged her taste for "nuns, old men and farm animals."

 ...

San Francisco, CA -- Roger Ebert will receive the Mel Novikoff Award at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22 - May 6). The award, named for the pioneering San Francisco art and repertory film exhibitor Mel Novikoff (1922-87), acknowledges an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. The Novikoff Award will be presented at An Evening with Roger Ebert and Friends, Saturday, May 1 at 5:30 pm at the Castro Theatre. Confirmed guests to date include directors Jason Reitman and Terry Zwigoff, with others to be announced soon.

The program will close with a screening of Julia, touted by Ebert as one of the finest films released in 2009. Erick Zonca's character-driven thriller, starring the fearless Tilda Swinton, barrels straight into the sleazy wasteland of an abrasive alcoholic kidnapper who is in way over her head.

"It's an honor to pay...

The 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF53) has just announced that filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt is the recipient of this year’s Persistence of Vision Award. The festival has chosen Hertzfeldt for his “unique contributions to animation” and for his dedication to the short, animated format. Rachel Rosen, San Francisco Film Society director of programming said, “We are delighted to present this honor to Don Hertzfeldt, who is the youngest recipient to be awarded to date, but whose body of work and determination to remain an independent animator exemplifies a true persistence of vision.”

Read more on The 53rd Sfiff honors Don Hertzfeldt with Persistence of Vision Award…...

Lots to of changes to report at the Cinema Eye Honors. Held in the spring for the first two years of its existence, in 2010 the awards dedicated to nonfiction film will take place in January. The calendar move will change the identity of the event from a footnote to the long awards season to a potential pre-Oscar indicator. Also, filmmaker Esther B. Robinson and newly installed San Francisco Film Society programmer Rachel Rosen will join Cinema Eye Founder Aj Schnack as co-chairs of the event, and former co-chair Thom Powers will now chair the Nominations Committee. Finally, the nominees for January's awards will be announced at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in England in November, thus somewhat internationalizing the affair. Coverage of past Cinema Eyes. ...