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New York Film Festival · 2021

New York Film Festival 2021

Currents

In addition to the features listed below, there are a number of shorts programmes

Programme

16 films · 7 reviews

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2 Pasolini

Follows the Italian auteur and his theological advisor, Don Andrea Carraro, on a trip through 1960s Palestine to scout locations for his 1964 biblical masterpiece The Gospel According to Saint Matthew.

(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: Andrei Ujică)

World premiere

All About My Sisters

The director documents her own fractured family, gradually revealing the personal and psychological effects of China’s one-child policy on the individual, the family unit, and women in society at large.

(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Qiong Wang; Stars: Jin Zhou, Li Wang, Xiaoqing Yan, Jianhua Wang, Sifan Wang, Jin Zhou, Li Wang, Xiaoqing Yan, Jianhua Wang, Sifan Wang)

North American premiere

The Great Movement (El Gran Movimiento)

Review preview for The Great Movement

The multi-layered emotional consideration of themes, in particular the clash of cultural traditions and modernity - the building up of the city mirroring the destruction of the people within it and the natural landscape - are resonant and engaging.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Mystical portrait of the contemporary central South American cityscape and those who work within its bowels and environs.

(Country: Bolivia, France, Qatar, Switzerland; Year: 2021; Director: Kiro Russo; Writer: Kiro Russo; Stars: Francisa Arce de Aro, Israel Hurtado, Gustavo Milán Ticona, Julio César Ticona, Max Bautista Uchasara)

Full review

US premiere

Haruhara-san's Recorder

Portrait of a young woman’s interior world.

(Country: Japan; Year: 2021; Director: Kyoshi Sugita; Writer: Kyoshi Sugita; Stars: Chika Araki, Saho Ito, Takenori Kaneko, Minako Niibe, Chika Araki, Saho Ito, Takenori Kaneko, Minako Niibe)

North American premiere

I Want to Talk About Duras

Review preview for I Want to Talk About Duras

Swann Arlaud as Yann Andréa and Emmanuelle Devos as Michèle Manceaux give tremendous performances that circle around discoveries of deep personal truths.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
Portrait of the complex romantic relationship between epochal experimental novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras and her much younger, homosexual partner, Yann Andréa.

(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: Claire Simon; Writer: Claire Simon, based on the book by Yann Andréa; Stars: Emmanuelle Devos, Swann Arlaud)

Full review

North American premiere

Just A Movement (Juste un mouvement)

In Senegal, Omar Blondin Diop’s name is associated with an unpunished state crime. In France, he is mostly remembered as the Marxist activist featured in La Chinoise, a fiction film of political anticipation by Jean-Luc Godard. Vincent Meessen’s political and poetic inquiry into Diop offers a meditation on the relationship between politics, justice, and memory.

(Country: Belgium, France; Year: 2021; Director: Vincent Meessen; Writer: Vincent Meessen; Stars: Bouba Diallo, Marie-Thérèse Diedhiou, Cheikh Hamalah Blondin Diop, Dialo Diop, Ousman Blondin Diop, Doudou Fall, Fi Lu, Alioune Paloma Sall, Felwine Sarr, Malal Almamy Tall)

Nature

Essay film about humanity in harmony and conflict with the natural world.

(Country: France, Germany, Armenia; Year: 2020; Director: Artavazd Peleshian)

A Night Of Knowing Nothing

Review preview for A Night Of Knowing Nothing

An oneiric, sensory and imaginative journey documenting being young in contemporary India.

Mateusz Tarwacki · 4 out of 5
A poetic record of the experience of being a young Indian in a land of violence.

(Country: India, France; Year: 2021; Director: Payal Kapadia)

Full review

Outside Noise

A group of friends hang-out and contemplate their lives.

(Country: Germany, Korea, Austria; Year: 2021; Director: Ted Fendt; Writer: Ted Fendt, Mia Sellmann, Daniela Zahlner; Stars: Daniela Zahlner, Mia Sellmann, Natascha Manthe, Genevieve Havemeyer-King, Hani Alaraj, Manu Bäuerle, Katharina Maria Grabner, Ted Fendt, Stefanie Zingl, Daniela Zahlner, Mia Sellmann, Natascha Manthe, Genevieve Havemeyer-King, Hani Alaraj, Manu Bäuerle)

North American premiere

Prism

A film in which the differences in the directors' skin colour serve as a departure to explore their different experiences with the biased limitations of the medium.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2021; Director: Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen, Rosine Mbakam)

World premiere

Returning To Reims (Fragments) (Retour A Reims (Fragments))

Review preview for Returning To Reims (Fragments)

Never directly asking the question, but leaving liberté, égalité and fraternité to hang in the air between scenes and lines, Périot’s latest gives a voice to the voiceless, the disenfranchised, the forgotten.

Matthew Anderson · 3 out of 5
An intimate and political story of the French working class from the beginning of the 1950s to today.

(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: Jean-Gabriel Périot; Stars: Narrated by Adèle Haenel)

Full review

North American premiere

A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Review preview for A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Shengze Zhu mixes the past, present and vision of the future in a new, strange, anti-social, empty world.

Mateusz Tarwacki · 4 out of 5
A Wuhan-set documentary that focuses on the Yangtze River.

(Year: 2021; Director: Shengze Zhu)

Full review

US premiere

Social Hygiene (Hygiène sociale)

Review preview for Social Hygiene

Côté has often played with artifice, particularly in his documentaries, and here he pushes things to experimental extremes.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
Hedonistic philosopher-cum-delinquent, Antonin gets stuck between five women.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2021; Director: Denis Côté; Writer: Denis Côté; Stars: Maxim Gaudette, Eve Duranceau, Éléonore Loiselle, Larissa Corriveau, Kathleen Fortin, Evelyne Rompré, Maxim Gaudette, Eve Duranceau, Éléonore Loiselle, Larissa Corriveau, Kathleen Fortin, Evelyne Rompré)

Full review

US premiere

Ste. Anne

Experimental film about a long-missing young woman’s unexpected return to her indigenous Métis community.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2021; Director: Rhayne Vermette; Writer: Rhayne Vermette; Stars: Isabelle d'Eschambault, Jack Theis, Valerie Marion, Dolorès Gosselin, Roger Vermette, Andrina Turenne, Denise Tougas, Yvette Deveau, Paulette Cooksey, Rhéanne Vermette, Isabelle d'Eschambault, Jack Theis, Valerie Marion, Dolorès Gosselin, Roger Vermette)

US premiere

The Tale Of King Crab (Re Granchio, The Legend Of King Crab)

Review preview for The Tale Of King Crab

The use of traditional folk song and the fact that the language shifts from Italian to Spanish also highlights the way that stories are passed from mouth to ear down the generations and across borders.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Italy, today. Some elderly hunters reminisce about the tale of Luciano - a drunk who locks horns with the head of the region over right of passage and is later exiled.

(Country: Italy, France, Argentina; Year: 2021; Director: Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis; Writer: Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis; Stars: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Darío Levy, Jorge Prado, Mariano Arce, Gabriele Silli, Severino Sperandio, Bruno di Giovanni, Daniel Tur, Ercole Colnago)

Full review

North American premiere

The Tsugua Diaries (Diarios De Otsoga)

Details of this film have yet to be released.

(Country: Portugal; Year: 2021; Director: Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes; Writer: Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo; Stars: Crista Alfaiate, Carloto Cotta, João Nunes Monteiro)

Opening night. US premiere