We welcomed director Chris Smith and producers Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Kevin Ford to present and discuss "Sr.", a Spotlight selection of this year’s festival, with NYFF Artistic Director, Dennis Lim.

Rarely do films about artists allow the kind of poignant intimacy seen in this tender yet fittingly irreverent portrait of the life and career of Robert Downey Sr., the fearless, visionary American director who set the standard for counterculture comedy in the sixties and seventies. An inspired collaboration between celebrated documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie); the subject’s son, Robert Downey Jr.; and the man himself, who’s occasionally shown working on his own version of the movie we’re watching, “Sr.” functions both as an elegy for the rule-flouting underground icon, who passed away at age 85 in July 2021, and as a testament to his tireless creative spirit. Capturing its subjects’ refreshing candor about aging, past struggles with addiction, and the ups and downs of working in Hollywood, Smith’s film is an emotional depiction of a father-son bond that remained strong, pragmatic, and deeply loving to the end. A Netflix release.

All NYFF60 Documentaries are presented by HBO.

#429 - Robert Downey Jr., Chris Smith & More on "Sr."

This week we’re excited to present an archival conversation with director Martin Scorsese, whose new film, Killers of the Flower Moon, is currently playing in theaters worldwide courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Apple Original Films. 

In this conversation with Scorsese, the director discusses his early '70s masterpiece, Mean Streets, co-starring his Killers of the Flower Moon supporting actor Robert De Niro. De Niro’s lasting partnership with Scorsese began with the filmmaker’s breakthrough third feature, an electrifying and unforgettable depiction of small-time thugs in Little Italy that established much of what was to come in both artists’ careers. Harvey Keitel, an alum of Scorsese’s student feature Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, is Charlie, an aspirant gangster seeking a middle ground between his profession and his efforts to lead a morally upright life. But his irrepressible friend Johnny Boy (De Niro) complicates matters with his anarchic behavior and debts to loan sharks. Raising hell as soon as he arrives on screen, De Niro is entirely at home as Scorsese’s young id of Mulberry Street—equal parts funny, ferocious, and frightening.

This conversation was moderated by former NYFF Associate Director of Programming, Scott Foundas.

#497 - Martin Scorsese on Mean Streets

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, the two lead actors of the NYFF61 Main Slate selection Fallen Leaves from director Aki Kaurismäki.

Sweet-souled in story, scalpel-sharp in filmmaking precision, this enchanting love story from Finnish virtuoso Aki Kaurismäki circles around two financially strapped Helsinkians who keep finding and losing one another in a world that seems to be falling apart. Evoking dark-comic romances from his early career such as Shadows in Paradise and Ariel (NYFF27), the sardonic yet exquisitely melancholic Fallen Leaves devotes its wry, humane gaze to grocery clerk Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and construction laborer Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), who commence an on-again, off-again relationship of extreme tentativeness, while seeking employment and stability. As with the greatest of Kaurismäki’s films, everyday details register as grand, meaningful cinematic gestures. This filmmaker has scrupulously carved another fictive universe out of a handful of specific, vivid locations, yet Fallen Leaves very much takes place in the world we’re living in, which makes its surrender to hope all the more affecting. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Finland’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards. A MUBI release.

This conversation was moderated by The Wrap's Tomris Laffly.

#501 - Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen on Fallen Leaves

The Film at Lincoln Center Podcast is a weekly podcast that features in-depth conversations with filmmakers, actors, critics, and more.

#429 - Robert Downey Jr., Chris Smith & More on "Sr."

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