This week we’re excited to present a conversation with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes from a recent advance screening of the highly anticipated new film Challengers.

From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist, West Side Story), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (Josh O’Connor, The Crown)–his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win?

The conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.

#524 - Justin Kuritzkes on Challengers

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, lead actor Hitoshi Omika, and composer Eiko Ishibashi from a recent Q&A for Evil Does Not Exist, an NYFF61 Main Slate selection currently playing in our theaters. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/evil

Deep in the forest of the small rural village Harasawa, single parent Takumi lives with his young daughter, Hana, and takes care of odd jobs for locals, chopping wood and hauling pristine well water. The overpowering serenity of this untouched land of mountains and lakes, where deer peacefully roam free, is about to be disrupted by the imminent arrival of the Tokyo company Playmode, which is ready to start construction on a glamping site for city tourists—a plan, which Takumi and his neighbors discover, that will have dire consequences for the ecological health and cleanliness of their community. The potent and foreboding new film from Oscar-winning director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, both NYFF59) is a haunting, entirely unexpected cinematic experience that reconstitutes the boundaries of the ecopolitical thriller. Intensified by a rapturous, ominous score by Eiko Ishibashi, this mesmeric journey diverges from country-vs-city themes to straddle the line between the earthy and the metaphysical. An NYFF61 Main Slate selection. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.

This conversation was moderated by FLC Vice President of Programming Florence Almozini.

#525 - Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hitoshi Omika, and Eiko Ishibashi on Evil Does Not Exist

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Over the Bridge director Tolu Ajayi from a recent Q&A at the Opening Night of the 2024 edition of the New York African Film Festival. Since its inception in 1993, the festival has been at the forefront of showcasing African and diaspora filmmakers’ unique storytelling through the moving image.

In Over the Bridge, a man named Folarin is an accomplished investment banker with a beautiful wife and a life most people can only dream of. When a high-profile government project his company was hired to manage goes awry, he starts to question everything he’s ever known to be true. After going missing, he discovers himself in a remote fishing village and starts to put together the missing pieces—but will he ever find his way back home?

#526 - Tolu Ajayi on Over the Bridge

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 61st New York Film Festival with Green Border director Agnieszka Holland, cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk, and cast members Behi Djanati Atai & Joely Mbundu. This conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.

Green Border was a Main Slate selection of NYFF61 and will open in select theaters on June 19th.

A Syrian family leaves the violence of their country behind, hoping to cross from Belarus into Poland and then onto the safe haven of Sweden. But, like so many lost souls, they end up caught in a political maelstrom, demonized by the Polish government and press and used as pawns in an inhumane, deadly border game. This harrowing, urgent drama from the veteran Polish director Agnieszka Holland constructs an intricate account of the contemporary global humanitarian crisis, expanding out to encompass the interconnected lives of security patrol officers, activist lawyers, and civilians who put themselves on the line for strangers. With the sobering and sometimes shocking Green Border, Holland reaffirms both her unyielding commitment to political filmmaking and the ability of immersive storytelling to illuminate the darkest corners of the world.

#527 - Agnieszka Holland, Tomasz Naumiuk, and More on Green Border

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Another End director Piero Messina from Opening Night of this year’s edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

A melancholic, philosophical take on science fiction, Piero Messina’s ensemble drama contemplates a futuristic twist on the afterlife and its implications for those whom the deceased have left behind. Gael García Bernal stars as Sal, who has recently lost his partner Zoe in a car accident. When Sal’s sister Ebe (Bérénice Bejo) suggests he use a new technology to transplant Zoe’s memories into the mind and body of a stranger (Renate Reinsve), he finds himself confronted with a new opportunity to say goodbye to his love—but at what price? A rare blend of high-concept and deep feeling, Another End is a moving work on human connection in an increasingly virtual world.

This conversation was moderated by FLC programmer Tyler Wilson.

#528 - Piero Messina on Another End

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Film at Lincoln Center Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle, as she discusses the films featured in FLC’s new series Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker.

A series of 17 films handpicked by acclaimed playwright Annie Baker that engage with theater as a cinematic theme, Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Bakera runs from June 14-20 in anticipation of the release of Baker’s directorial debut, Janet Planet, on June 21.

Get tickets to Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker!

Get tickets to Janet Planet!

Many films in the series will be shown on 35mm and Baker will join us in-person for select introductions and Q&As, including a sneak preview of Janet Planet on June 20. Opening Night of the series will feature Louis Malle’s iconic collaboration with André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, My Dinner with André (1981) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), both presented on 35mm. Baker will also engage in a discussion with Shawn about each film’s perspective on theater as an art form and its translation to the big screen.

The conversation was moderated by Erik Luers, FLC's Digital Marketing Manager.

#529 - Programmer's Preview on Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Music director Angela Schanelec following her film’s U.S. premiere in the Main Slate at the 61st New York Film Festival. Music opens at Film at Lincoln Center next Friday, June 28 with introductions by Doug Tielli, the singer-songwriter featured in the film, at the 6:15pm screenings on June 28 and 29.

Get tickets to Music!

Leading contemporary German filmmaker Angela Schanelec is singularly adept at creating dramas of unexpected catharsis via the most oblique narrative strategies. Her latest film, Music, pushes this approach to new levels of emotionality. Using abstract gestures and broad narrative ellipses, yet still managing to plumb the depths of its characters’ complicated traumas, Music tells the story of a young man and woman unknowingly united by the same violent death. Brought together by fate and horrible irony, Ion (Aliocha Schneider) and Iro (Agathe Bonitzer) first meet in prison, where he’s an inmate and she’s a guard; they kindle a romance fomented by passion for classical music and opera, followed by marriage and children. Yet as in all tragedies, the past returns to haunt them. Inspired by the Oedipus myth, Schanelec has created an alternately austere and vivid portrait of grief and redemption through art told with her distinctive compositional rigor.

This conversation was moderated by NYFF Advisor Michelle Carey.

#530 - Angela Schanelec on Music

Listen to Ana Gasteyer scat her way through William Finn's "Mother's Gonna Make Things Fine."

From the Encores! Off-Center cast recording of "A New Brain," out February 5 from PS Classics.

"Mother's Gonna Make Things Fine" – Ana Gasteyer & Jonathan Groff

New York City Center

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