With its intentionally streamlined, if steadily expanding, programming, it’s always inevitable that the New York Film Festival will leave out some favorites from the year’s international festival circuit. But while among this year’s edition of the annual Lincoln Center showcase’s 36 main-slate titles, one won’t find the latest well-received entries from former NYFF darlings Jafar Panahi, Kelly Reichardt, and Asghar Farhadi, there’s no shortage of new films from longtime fest staples as well as an exciting showing of movies from first-time representatives.
After a relatively modest showing in its semi-centennial last year, the festival’s 51st edition is all about going big. The inaugural event of the Kent Jones era not only contains more films than any previous iteration of the fest, but in terms of scope, ambition, and length it’s similarly unparalleled. No less than four main-slate selections clock in at over three and a half hours, and with Frederick Wiseman’s hotly anticipated At Berkeley and Lav Diaz’s colossal Dostoyevsky riff Norte, the End of History, which wowed everyone who sought it out at Cannes, among them, they promise to rank among the event’s highlights.
Which isn’t to say that the selection committee has abandoned the festival’s old stock in trade: programming a smattering of feted films from Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and other international showcases alongside a selection of ambitious Academy Award hopefuls. The former group is well represented by such items as Abdellitif Kechiche’s controversial Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, Tsai Ming-Liang’s recently crowned Venice prize-winner Stray Dogs, and the most recent efforts by master filmmakers like Claire Denis, Hayao Miyazaki, and Jia Zhang-ke. The Oscar strivers are led by Paul Greengrass’s docudrama Captain Phillips, the fest’s opening-night film starring Tom Hanks as a skipper whose ship is beset by Somali pirates. But, somewhat anomalously for the fest, the other highest profile films are in a less somber, more comic vein, such as festival-centerpiece The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, with director Ben Stiller updating the 1947 classic, and the closing-night film Her, the latest comedic whatsit from Spike Jonze.
Additionally, this year’s fest is filled with sidebars and special events including a Jean-Luc Godard retrospective, a 20th-anniversary screening of Dazed and Confused, and the highly anticipated New York unveiling of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. And, as always, the event’s Views from the Avant-Garde series serves up the most recent offerings from such essential experimental filmmakers as Nathaniel Dorsky and Ernie Gehr.
Starting September 16, check back daily for a full review of each main-slate selection. The 51st New York Film Festival will run from September 27 to October 13, 2013. For a complete schedule of films, screening times, and ticket information, please see the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s official site. And for our supplemental coverage of the festival at The House Next Door, click here. Andrew Schenker
• 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
• About Time (Richard Curtis)
• Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)
• Alan Partridge (Declan Lowney)
• All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)
• American Promise (Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson)
• At Berkeley (Frederick Wiseman)
• Bastards (Claire Denis)
• Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)
• Burning Bush (Agnieszka Holland)
• Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass)
• Child of God (James Franco)
• Gloria (Sebastián Lelio)
• Her (Spike Jonze)
• The Immigrant (James Gray)
• Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen)
• The Invisible Woman (Ralph Fiennes)
• Jealousy (Philippe Garrel)
• Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (Arnaud Desplechin)
• The Last of the Unjust (Claude Lanzmann)
• Le Week-End (Roger Michell)
• Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
• The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh)
• My Name Is Hmmm… (Agnès B.)
• Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (Hong Sang-soo)
• Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz)
• Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
• Omar (Hany Abu-Assad)
• Real (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller)
• The Square (Jehane Noujaim)
• Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)
• Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)
• A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhang-kee)
• When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (Corneliu Porumboiu)
• The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki)
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