Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

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#516 - Thomas Cailley (The Animal Kingdom) & Sophie Barthes (The Pod Generation) In Conversation Mar 16, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with The Animal Kingdom director Thomas Cailley and The Pod Generation director Sophie Barthes as they discuss their playful, up-to-the-minute experiments with genre and the use of speculative fiction to examine political realities and probe timeless emotional truths. This conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle with interpretation by Nicholas Elliott. Thomas Cailley, whose 2014 breakout feature Love at First Fight charmed audiences with its invigorating fusion of the rom-com and coming-of-age genres, returned to Rendez-Vous with French Cinema with this year’s Opening Night selection, The Animal Kingdom, in which a darkly imaginative sci-fi premise gives way to a thoughtful study of fatherhood. When mankind is plagued with a mysterious infection that selectively mutates the bodies of ordinary people into animal hybrids, a widower and his teenage son must fight to survive in Cailley’s darkly imaginative exploration of a human ecosystem undergoing inexplicable—but potentially liberating—transformation. The Animal Kingdsom is in select theaters now, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

#515 - Marion Cotillard, Mona Achache, and Laetitia Gonzalez on Little Girl Blue Mar 09, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Little Girl Blue director Mona Achache, producer Laetitia Gonzalez, and lead actress Marion Cotillard as they discuss the 2024 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema selection with FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle. The lives and legacies of three generations of extraordinary women artists are unpacked in Mona Achache’s César-nominated hybrid documentary. Achache, herself an accomplished writer and filmmaker, turns her gaze on her mother, Carole—a writer, photographer, and actress, and the daughter of novelist and screenwriter Monique Lange (goddaughter of William Faulkner). Carole’s myriad professional achievements notwithstanding, her private life was indelibly marked by predatory behavior she experienced at the hands of those close to her, including family friend Jean Genet. Marion Cotillard brilliantly embodies Carole across a series of hauntingly resonant reconstructions that, alongside a generous archive of video, photography, and personal writing, create a rounded portrait of a troubled but outstandingly creative mind. Achache blurs the line between truth and fiction, producing a work as fittingly unsettling and unforgettable as her mother’s own story.

#514 - Denis Villeneuve on Dune: Part Two Mar 05, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Denis Villeneuve, the subject of a recent retrospective presented by FLC and who’s new highly anticipated sci fi-epic, Dune: Part Two, is now in theaters worldwide courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures. The saga continues as award-winning filmmaker Denis Villeneuve embarks on Dune: Part Two, the next chapter of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel Dune, with an expanded all-star international ensemble cast. The big-screen epic continues the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s acclaimed bestseller Dune with returning and new stars, including Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, and Austin Butler. Dune: Part Two explores the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee. This conversation was moderated by FLC Vice President of Programming Florence Almozini.

#513 - Lulu Wang on Expats Feb 22, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Lulu Wang, who’s new Prime Video series Expats is now streaming. Lulu Wang casts her penetrating gaze on the intersection of race and class in Hong Kong’s milieu of expats, and the migrant domestic workers employed by them, in this vivid adaptation of Janice Y. K. Lee’s widely acclaimed novel, The Expatriates (1998). Across six episodes, Expats shuttles back and forth between the prelude and aftermath of a tragedy that has dramatically reshaped the lives of three women—Margaret (Nicole Kidman), a mother left shattered as she navigates her way through an inconceivable loss; her neighbor Hilary (Sarayu Blue), herself struggling to regain control of her marriage in the face of infidelity; and the twentysomething, free-spirited Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), who finds herself caught in the center of Margaret and Hilary’s anguish. But for the limited series’ feature-length fifth episode, the three women recede into the background with Wang shifting her focus in an entirely different direction, and transforming this rich tapestry of stories into something altogether more complex. In this penultimate episode, “Central,” Margaret and Hilary’s Filipina caretakers, Essie (Ruby Ruiz) and Puri (Amelyn Pardenilla), come to the fore as we follow them on their day off—socializing, corresponding with family abroad, and carving out time to pursue their own dreams, but who nevertheless remain entangled in their employers’ quandaries, and whose own future hangs in the balance of their every decision. This conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.

#512 - Nuri Bilge Ceylan on About Dry Grasses Feb 16, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with About Dry Grasses director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. An NYFF61 Main Slate selection, About Dry Grasses opens at FLC next Friday, February 23rd. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/grasses. In a village nestled within the wintry landscape of the East Anatolia region of Turkey, an art teacher named Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) is struggling through what he hopes to be his final year at an elementary school. Already tiring of the unforgiving environment, where he has been assigned by the government’s public education system, Samet is further disillusioned and frustrated after a young girl in his class, Sevim, appears to accuse him of inappropriate behavior. The only light on the horizon for Samet is his growing friendship with—and clear attraction to—a teacher from a nearby school, Nuray (Merve Dizdar), a sharp, politically engaged woman unafraid to put the self-involved Samet in his place for his general apathy and narcissism. Turkey’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards, the latest deeply philosophical drama from Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, NYFF49) is a work of elegant, novelistic filmmaking, rigorously unpacking questions of belief versus action, the tangible versus the enigmatic, and who we wish to be versus how we live. A centerpiece conversation between Samet and Nuray—capped off by a provocative metacinematic flourish—ranks with Ceylan’s greatest sequences, and Dizdar, who won the Best Actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, commands every second she’s on screen. A Sideshow/Janus Films release. This conversation was moderated by NYFF Advisor Violeta Bava.

#511 - Serge Daney Talk with Richard Brody, Nicholas Elliott & Madeline Whittle Feb 11, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a panel of critics and programmers to discuss the significance of the late French film critic Serge Daney (1944–1992)'s thought today, with a particular emphasis on how his politically driven analysis and radical enthusiasms of the 1970s might speak to our contemporary moment. Film at Lincoln Center was proud to recently present Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s, a series that celebrated French film critic Serge Daney and the films he championed in his book La Rampe, occasioned by its long-awaited English translation under the title Footlights. Complementing this program was a panel that featured The New Yorker’s Richard Brody, translator of Footlights and series co-programmer Nicholas Elliott, and moderator FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle. This discussion considered the relation between mise-en-scène and moral perspective, the cinema as an antidote to advertising, and the critic’s role as an ally to filmmakers. Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970 was sponsored by MUBI.

#510 - Trân Anh Hùng on The Taste of Things Feb 01, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Trân Anh Hùng to discuss the NYFF61 Spotlight selection, THE TASTE OF THINGS, opening at Film at Lincoln Center on February 9th. The director will appear in person at select screenings opening weekend as well as for a sneak preview on Thursday, Feb. 8. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/taste. Destined to be remembered as one of the great films about the meaning, texture, and experience of food, this sumptuous, exceptionally well-crafted work, set in late 19th-century France, stars Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel (married, decades ago, in real life) as Eugénie, a cook, and Dodin, the gourmet chef she has been working with for 20 years. As they reach middle age, they can no longer deny their mutual romantic feelings, which have so long been concentrated in their passionate professionalism. This simple narrative—based upon Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel LA PASSION DE DODIN-BOUFFANT, GOURMET—sets the table for a sublime, sense-heightening exploration of pleasure, in which the play of sunlight across a late-afternoon kitchen is as meaningful as the image of a perfectly poached pear or the crisp of a buoyant vol-au-vent. Director Trân Anh Hùng won the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his bravura, scrupulously deployed feat of epicurean cinema. France’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards. An IFC Films release.

#509 - Bas Devos and Liyo Gong on Here Jan 29, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Bas Devos and actress Liyo Gong to discuss the NYFF61 Main Slate selection, HERE, opening at Film at Lincoln Center on February 9th. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/here. Stefan, a migrant construction worker living in Brussels, is planning a trip home to his mother in Romania. In preparing for his voyage, he reconnects with local family members over gifted bowls of homemade soup, interacts with strangers, and discovers a revivifying commune with nature. This all leads him to an unexpected connection with Shuxiu, a Chinese-Belgian bryologist, who’s studying the local moss. The gradual cultivation of this friendship—beautifully performed by actors Stefan Gota and Liyo Gong—motivates this hushed, emotionally resonant film about the power of observation, of people often deemed socially invisible, and of the larger green world surrounding us. In his lovely and tranquil fourth feature, Belgian filmmaker Bas Devos (GHOST TROPIC) has created a work that finds transcendence in the simplest human encounters and the most radiant of cinematic gestures. Winner of the Best Film prize in the Berlin International Film Festival’s Encounters competition. A Cinema Guild release.

#508 - Kleber Mendonça Filho on Pictures of Ghosts and a Programmer's Preview of Serge Daney's 1970s Jan 20, 2024

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This week we’re excited to present two conversations, the first with programmers Madeline Whittle and Nicholas Elliott about our upcoming retrospective, Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s, and the second with Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of the NYFF61 Main Slate selection Pictures of Ghosts, opening in our theaters on January 26th. Beginning Friday, Film at Lincoln Center presents a series celebrating French film critic Serge Daney and the films he championed, occasioned by the long-awaited English translation of the critic’s first book La Rampe, now titled Footlights. The series runs from January 26 through February 4 and will feature a robust selection of works by master filmmakers, with many presented on 35mm or in digital restorations, accompanied by guest introductions. The programmers of the retrospective, Madline Whittle and Nicholas Elliott, spoke with Digital Marketing Manager Erik Luers about how they curated the lineup and the importance of Daney’s writing and views on cinema. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/daney Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s is sponsored by MUBI. Learn more at mubi.com/en/flc The life of a true cinephile is one constantly haunted by the dead, as the history of the movies is a corridor of ghosts. Brazilian filmmaker and unrepentant cinema obsessive Kleber Mendonça Filho’s new documentary—Brazil’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards—serves as a poignant testament to the liminal state of movie love. It tells, in three chapters, the story of his cinematic world—namely the city of Recife, where his youthful film education took place. At theaters like the Veneza and the São Luiz, Mendonça discovered a popular art form that would change his life; today, with the landscape of the city altering drastically, he surveys its empty rooms now pregnant with memories. This moving and playful film, as much about the architectural and social structures of a city as about the movies that inspire and haunt us, honors the personal spaces that are also the communal lifeblood of our urban centers. Enjoy the conversation from the New York Film Festival between Kleber Mendonça Filho and FLC Vice President of Programming, Florence Almozini. Get tickets to Pictures of Ghosts at filmlinc.org/ghosts.

#507 - The Cast of The Curse and Pham Thien An on Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell Jan 12, 2024

Show notes

This week we’re excited to present two conversations, the first from the 61st New York Film Festival with Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell director Pham Thien An and the second with Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, Nizhonniya Luxi Austin, and Dave McCary of the new Showtime series The Curse. Winner of the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the enthralling Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell from Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Thien An is a reverie on faith, loss, and nature expressed with uncommon invention and depth. It’s a simple tale told with visual complexity: after a car accident claims the life of his sister-in-law and leaves his 5-year-old nephew an orphan, a thirty something man named Thien (Le Phong Vu) leaves Saigon for a trip back to his rural hometown. During his meditative, wandering visit, Thien wrestles with his own agnosticism in the face of others’ religious beliefs, summons memories of his long-disappeared brother, and reconnects with a former girlfriend who now lives as a nun at a Christian church and school. With its drifting camera, evocative use of natural light, and gratifying perambulatory nature, this is a film with the power to readjust one’s perceptions of the world around us. An NYFF61 Currents selection. In this brilliantly discomfiting collaboration between Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, Fielder and Emma Stone play married entrepreneurs (don’t call them gentrifiers!) who flip houses and convert them into eco-friendly homes for the struggling residents of Española, New Mexico—all for an HGTV-style reality show. Following the world premieres of episodes 1–3 at the 61st New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center is pleased to present the remaining seven episodes from this genre-defying, riotously funny series, directed by Fielder and David and Nathan Zellner. An NYFF61 Spotlight selection. Get tickets to Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, opening at Film at Lincoln Center on Jan. 19: filmlinc.org/cocoon

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