New York Film Fest will screen new offerings from Oscar winners such as Joel & Ethan Coen, Barry Jenkins, and Paweł Pawlikowski.
On Tuesday, the fall gathering unveiled the 30 films that will screen as part of its main slate. They include “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” a western anthology from the Coens; If Beale Street Could Talk,” Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel of the same name; and “Cold War,” a Soviet-era love story that earned rave reviews for Pawlikowski when it debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Like “Cold War,” many of the movies highlighted at the NY Film Fest have previously screened at other influential festivals, such as Venice or Toronto. The lack of world premieres is a sign of the competition that these taste-making events face in landing awards-season contenders. Instead, New York is contenting itself with a series of U.S. and North American premieres.
The festival has already announced that the festival will kick off with Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” a historical drama with Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz set during the reign of Queen Anne. “Roma,” a family drama from Alfonso Cuaron, will be the centerpiece selection. The closing night film is “At Eternity’s Gate,” Julian Schnabel’s look at Vincent van Gogh’s final years.
“Francis Ford Coppola said that the cinema would become a real art form only when the tools of moviemaking became as inexpensive as paints, brushes, and canvases,” NYFF director and selection committee chair Kent Jones said in a statement. “That has come to pass, but at the same time, it’s become increasingly tough to do serious work that is beholden to nothing but the filmmaker’s need to express these emotions in this form in moving images and sound. So if I were pressed to choose one word to describe the films in this year’s main slate, it would be: bravery.”
The 56th ork Film Fest, runs from September 28 to October 14.
3 Faces
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Asako I & II
Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Ash Is Purest White
Dir. Jia Zhangke
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Burning
Dir. Lee Chang-dong
Cold War
Dir. Paweł Pawlikowski
A Faithful Man/L’Homme fidèle
Dir. Louis Garrel
A Family Tour
Dir. Ying Liang
