New York Film Festival Sets Lineup For Currents Strand Led By Jem Cohen’s ‘Little, Big, And Far’

1 month ago 13
ARTICLE AD

New York Film Festival parent Film at Lincoln Center has set the slate for its Currents strand at the 62nd edition – 12 features and 28 shorts meant to complement the Main Slate with an emphasis on new, innovative voices.

Currents’ Centerpiece selection is the world premiere of Jem Cohen’s Little, Big, and Far, a tale of catastrophes through the travels of an astronomer in search of a sky dark enough to study the stars.

Other portraits include Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, a fragmented recomposition of the Martiniquan writer and activist’s legacy; Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré’s 7 Walks With Mark Brown, following the path of a paleobotanist in search of native plants; Yashaddai Owens’s debut feature, Jimmy, which imagines a young James Baldwin as he arrives in Paris from New York; and Lilith Kraxner and Milena Czernovsky’s bluish (winner of the Grand Prix at FIDMarseille), portraying the day-to-day life of two young women recently transplanted to a big city as their early adulthood unfolds.

Films tackle sociopolitical issues as in Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell’s DIRECT ACTION (winner of the Best Film award in the Berlinale’s Encounters section), which traces the actions of a French political eco-activist group, and Dimitris Athiridis’s exergue – on documenta 14, where politics and art collide in a 14-part serial looking behind the scenes of the making of the global contemporary art showcase Documenta 14 and how it signaled major impending political shifts in Europe.

Other features include Nicolás Pereda’s Lázaro at Night, an awkward love triangle among actors auditioning for the same film; Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language (winner of the Audience Award at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight), which grasps at connection among relocated Iranians in Canada and Marta Mateus’s Fire of Wind, which mingles past and present traditions through a small community during the harvest season.

The short films in Currents reflect similar stylistic and thematic concerns and are grouped into six programs, see below.

NYFF runs September 27–October 14 at Lincoln Center and venues in Staten Island (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema), Brooklyn (BAM), Bronx (The Bronx Museum, and Queens (Museum of the Moving Image).

CURRENTS FEATURES

Currents Centerpiece: Little, Big, and Far, Jem Cohen, World Premiere

7 Walks with Mark Brown, Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

Bluish, Lilith Kraxner, Milena Czernovsky

DIRECT ACTION, Guillaume Cailleau, Ben Russell

exergue – on documenta 14, Dimitris Athiridis,

Fire of Wind, Marta Mateus

Jimmy, Yashaddai Owens,

Lázaro at Night, Nicolás Pereda

The Suit, Heinz Emigholz

Universal Language, Matthew Rankin

You Burn Me / Tú me abrasas, Matías Piñeiro

CURRENTS SHORT FILMS

Currents Program 1: The Will to Change

Black Glass, Adam Piron

Man number 4, Miranda Pennell,

An All-Around Feel Good, Jordan Lord,

The Deep West Assembly, Cauleen Smith,

Currents Program 2: Identification Marks

Track_ing, Chanyeol Lee, Hanna Cho, Samgar Rakym, Ali Tynybekov,

I Remember (depth of flatten cruelty), James Richards, Tolia Astakhishvili

Efforts of Nature, Morgan Quaintance,

Being John Smith, John Smith

Currents Program 3: Signal to Noise

Grandmamauntsistercat, Zuza Banasińska,

Jizai, Maiko Endo,

Like an Outburst, Sebastián Schjaer

Hemel, Danielle Dean,

Currents Program 4: Space Is the Place

Revolving Rounds, Christina Jauernik,

ESP, Laura Kraning,

re-engraved, Lei Lei,

A Black Screen Too, Rhayne Vermette

The Land at Night, Richard Tuohy,

Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya, Malena Szlam

Currents Program 5: Material Worlds

Vibrant Matter, Pablo Marín,

Towards the Sun, Far from the Center, Pascal Viveros, Luciana Merino,

No Spank, Jordan Strafer,

Sinking Feeling, Zachary Epcar

The Invisible Worm, Rosalind Nashashibi,

Currents Program 6: Poetry Is Not a Luxury

Refuse Room, Simon Liu,

Machine Boys, Karimah Ashadu,

Razeh-del, Maryam Tafakory,

Practice, Practice, Practice, Kevin Jerome Everson,

October Noon, Francisco Rodríguez Teare

Read Entire Article