The New York Film Festival 2023 is the 61st edition of one of the longest-running and most respected film festivals in the United States. New York is a film city. The American film industry began here. New York is also closer to Europe than a lot of the US, so the festival leans European as well. But it also shows great Latin films, and seems close to the small, but vibrant Argentine film community.
Film at Lincoln Center produces film festivals all year long, but this is the big one with lots of filmmakers, movie stars, and industry people on the red carpet. Many filmmakers do Q&As at their screenings. Industry talks are free and open to the public.
Some of the films have already done well on the festival circuit. Many will be released this holiday season or in the coming year.
New York Film Festival 2023
The 61st New York Film Festival 2023 is at Film at Lincoln Center, from September 29 to October 15, 2023. Individual films $30. 🇦🇷 🇧🇷 🇨🇲 🇨🇱 🇫🇷 🇮🇹 🇵🇭 🇵🇹 🇪🇸
The opening night film is the North American Premiere of “May December” by Todd Haynes. This tale of our fascination with celebrity and trauma has star power in Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
The centerpiece film is “Priscilla,” Sofia Coppola’s portrayal of Priscilla Presley who married into the public eye at a very young age.
The closing night film is “Ferrari” by Michael Mann. The Enzo Ferrari story stars Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz. 🇮🇹 🇪🇸
One of the cool things about this festival is that it’s at Lincoln Center, but also in the five boroughs. Lincoln Center venues include Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and David Geffen Hall. In Staten Island, it’s at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. In Brooklyn, it’s at BAM. In The Bronx, it’s at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. In Harlem, it’s at Maysles Documentary Center, and in Midtown at the Paris Theater. In Queens, it’s at the Museum of the Moving Image.
Latin Films
The image we chose to represent the festival is from “Pictures of Ghosts” by Kleber Mendonça Filho for Grasshopper Films. It’s a documentary love letter to Recife in Northeast Brazil, where Filho grew up. It’s a return home to a place where a filmmaker’s youthful world was all possibility. It’s where he discovered film. In a very Brazilian way, Filho travels through Recife’s architecture and communities as he remembers what once made him dream.
What Mendonça Filho has done is important. He’s a Recife local who went out into the world and returned with his expanded vision, which includes recognition at multiple Cannes festivals and a Cannes Jury Prize. To truly understand your home, you have to leave it. The world keeps changing and mass media, including film, is an important catalyst. “Pictures of Ghosts” is a time capsule that shows the history of one man’s life, his home city, our societies, and film itself. 🇧🇷
French film “Anatomy of a Fall” by Justine Triet won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It dissects the relationship of a famous novelist accused of killing her husband who fell out a high window in their home. 🇫🇷
Spanish film “Close Your Eyes” by Victor Erice sets an aging filmmaker exploring the mystery of an unfinished film with an actor who disappeared. This is likely Director Erice’s very last film. 🇪🇸
Argentine film “The Delinquents” by Rodrigo Moreno tells the story of an Argentine bank clerk who gets fed up one day and takes enough cash to retire from the vault. 🇦🇷
“Eureka” by Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, looks at three very different lives that were all affected by colonial violence. Stars Viggo Mortensen (he was raised Argentine) and Chiara Mastroianni. 🇦🇷
“La Practica” by New Argentine Cinema director Martín Rejtman, is about an Argentine yoga instructor making his way in Chile after a separation. 🇦🇷
Chilean film “The Settlers” by Felipe Gálvez, is a story colonial brutality done in the style of an American Western in mountainous Chile. 🇨🇱
There are many more French and Italian films, plus some interesting Asian films. The films mentioned here are from the Main Slate. There are also Spotlight, Currents, Revivals, and Talks sections.
In the Spotlight section, “Strange Way of Life” by Pedro Almodóvar is a Western with Ethan Hawke relighting an old flame with Pedro Pascal. 🇪🇸 🇨🇱
In the Currents section, Argentine director Eduardo Williams takes his 360-degree camera through Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Peru in the latest in his series “The Human Surge 3.” 🇦🇷
“Mambar Pierrette” by Rosine Mbakam, returns to her homeland Cameroon, with a story of a struggling seamstress in Douala. 🇨🇲
In “Nowhere Near,” Miko Revereza contemplates his experience as an undocumented Filipino in the USA. 🇵🇭
In the Revivals section, Portuguese film “Abraham’s Valley” by Manoel de Oliveira (1993) adapts “Madame Bovary” to 20th-century Portugal, starring Leonor Silveira. 🇵🇹
There’s something for everyone at the New York Film Festival.
Tickets
Get tickets at filmlinc.org
Many films sell out. The easiest way to check availability is on this page at filmlinc.org