The evening began with an engaging conversation between MAD Ball honoree Cristina Grajales and MAD's Windgate research Curator, Christian Larsen. Among her many artistic colleagues and friends, Grajales became quite close with Robert Wilson, the avant garde theater director and playwright. 

Rather than rely on cocktails and conversation, the planners offered multiple happenings on Floors 1 - 9, including materials to create one's own brooch, charm or mask. 

However, the 4th and 5th floor served as the piece de resistance because that's where the spectacular exhibition "Queer Maximalism X Machine Dazzle" dazzled.

Machine Dazzple's (Matthew Flower) theatrical outfits shimmered in sparkles and outrageousness seducing viewers and relaying historical stories embedded in each dress.

The evening closed with dinner in Robert Restaurant.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

Art is made inside those spaces of imagination, of dreams given form through the bodies of dancers. In fact, it's up to the dancers to weasel inside those spaces to retrieve the moves.

Kate Geis' film "Creative Domain" on Paul Taylor's creative process,  pulls the curtain aside, revealing the magic of making a dance. Although much of that process rests inside the creator, the physicalization of those ideas emerge through dancers' interpretations. A curious camera roams inside the nascent dance, swerving from the snippets of rehearsal, to conversations about the choreography's intent and the toll it takes on the dancers' bodies.

At the age of 84 (the film was produced in 2014), slim and stooped, and still smoking, Paul Taylor dominates the rehearsal room. With the dancers circled around him, Taylor calls out the names of those who will be "his colors" for the new piece. A bit nerve wracking, the selected performers stay for rehearsal.

A former dancer with Martha Graham, Taylor only references her when mischievously describing previous experiences in rehearsal rooms when "a" choreographer spent precious rehearsal time poetically explaining every second of the choreography. 

Preferring action to too many words, Taylor admiringly points to Balanchien who didn't waste a second in the rehearsal room. Later, when musing on the nature of inspiration,  Taylor admits he borrowed from a section of choreographer Antony Tudor's mournful "Dark Elegies."

In front of our eyes, Taylor constructs the form and architecture of a dance. Once completed, he invites the composer, Peter Elyakim Taussig, to a viewing.  Taussig is amazed by Taylor's intuitiveness and how the dance falls into shape with the score.

The final details are shaped by Taylor's longtime collaborators, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton and costume designer Santo Loquasto. For those who wonder what it takes to make a dance, this draws you close to the magical process and inside Paul Taylor's remarkable choreographic orbit.

Gies' astute direction along with Tom Hurwitz's sensitive camera work and well paced editing makes for a thoughtful view into the life of a dance.

First Run Features presents Paul Taylor Creative Domain and the documentary is available for streaming and on DVD.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis November 1.

The two decade retrospective of Meszaros' groundbreaking films tap into the alienating era bridging Europe's devastation after World War II with the sinister Iron Curtain epoch.

Meszaros' cool camera is masterfully observant of individuals, drawing into faces yet retaining a distance. Called a feminist filmmaker, she's more of a realistic auteur. A clear-eyed filmmaker, Meszaros sharply foregrounds the politics and social mores of the 1950's and 60's.

The loosely autobiographical black and white film Diary for my Children follows a young woman Julie (Zsuzsa Czinkotizi) sent to Hungary to live with a family friend, Magda (Anna Polony), who holds a high level position in the Communist Party. 

Despite Magda's desire to educate and raise Julie, teenage defiance reigns in a country where everyone obeys the rules. In this universe, women might rise in the ranks within a political system, but men grip the ultimate power.

Entranced by the movies, she wants to disappear in the make-believe of film and escape the reality of a world that left her without a mother or father. Shot through with interpersonal tension, the camera lingers on the desolate city exteriors, and faces partially stripped of emotions. Fluid camerwork, always on the move, magnifies the sense of instability.

Experimental and probing, Marta Meszaros' films will leave their imprints on you.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celila Ipiotis

Trouble ensues when Brian, a struggling actor and Kathy, a psychotherapist, demand a steep rent hike. A feud ignites. At first oblivious to the back biting parents, the young boys proceed in the beautiful sunlight of their friendship. But soon, their parents’ animosities creep into their playing field. Directed by Ira Sachs, it sings of lost innocence and adults in turmoil.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

Married and preparing for his first child, Gleason received the ALS verdict along with a life expectancy of two to five years. Through personal video journals and a fierce schedule of globe trotting and great adventures, a human being of many dimensions emerges and proves that through great strife comes amazing courage and goodness.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

In Josh Aronson’s film, young artists are treated to a magnificent array of insights into the cello. Like a chef, Katz combines a completely different set of ingredients for each student, making certain they are stirred to create the perfect balance.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

Throughout his life, Owen found solace and discovered life-lessons in Disney classics like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. Very slowly, over time, Owen’s silence began to find words. Of course, this did not happen easily, Owen has access to some of the finest instructors, physical therapists and psychologists, on top of parents who breathed their own lives into him.

Impossible as it sounds, the Suskinds worked very hard to keep Owen mainstreamed in school. After Owen begins elementary school, everyone realizes that his first words are quotes from Disney films. Remarkably, Owen’s winning personality makes him an adored student body member, and he finds his own club of people sharing his infatuation for Disney films.

Much of the archival film is shot by Mr. Suskind with his own film camera, sort of a documentation of his children growing up. The film itself picks up later in Owen’s life and shows him leaving his parents’ house for an assisted living situation. It’s thrilling to see this young man actually enter his own apartment. And once in the unit, he meets a young lady who he dates for a bit.

Roger Ross Williams’ documentary offers hope. Hope that Owen will not only find a way to live with guidance, but also, find love. However, there will never be any love greater than that demonstrated by his parents.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

Colin Farrell (David) arrives at the compound, which looks like Mohonk or some other large inn backing into the woods. When the woman asks about his preference, David requests the body of a lobster.

This surrealistic community is populated by stilted people who will never hook-up, and others desperate to marry regardless of their feelings for the other person. Much like a benign summer camp routine, everyone meets for activities and meals giving potential partners in constant view. One of the many quirky touches forces the hotel residents to listen to music on earphones, but everyone is listening to same traces so if they can dance with likely partners.

Outside the compound, a renegade group looks for “lost” camp members. Bows and arrows slung on their shoulders, the woodland “loners” prey on the regimented members of the hotel. Of course, their “captives” can love anyone, listen to any music, read what they want, but one thing they can’t do is leave. So once, again, society incarcerates. Led by the attractive, but scary Lea Seydoux, she’s rebelling from her well-to-do family, while simultaneously trying to soak them for support. Like many, she’s a bundle of contradictions.

Both are controlling societies, deciding on how you will live, how many children per family—the big government. There’s an aspect of hunger games and Orwell’s 1984. Flat images, and clear colors give the film a video palette. Even the lush green woods has an air of unrealness to it.

The excellent cast, led by Farrell and Rachel Weisz (the short sighted woman), unravel a story that’s both harrowing and witty.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis

Four world premieres will brighten up the slate: Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance in the Cold War story of the 1962 exchange of a U-2 pilot for a Soviet agent; Laura Israel’s Don’t Blink: Robert Frank, a documentary portrait of the great photographer and filmmaker; as well as the previously announced Opening Night selection The Walk and Closing Night selection Miles Ahead.

Although it feels like every director in the universe has appeared as part of the NYFF, this year a few will be unveiled for the very first time from Cannes: Best Director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin; Todd Haynes’s Carol, starring Best Actress winner Rooney Mara; Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man, starring Best Actor winner Vincent Lindon; Jury Prize winner The Lobster; Un Certain Regard Best Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Journey to the Shore; and Un Certain Talent Prize winner Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Treasure.

Fort those who like a little controversy with their film viewing there's Michael Moore with Where To Invade Next, which takes a hard and surprising look at the state of our nation from a fresh perspective; NYFF mainstay Hong Sangsoo, presents Right Now, Wrong Then, about the relationship between a middle-aged art-film director and a fledgling artist; and French director Arnaud Desplechin, who is back with the funny and heartrending story of young love My Golden Days, starring Mathieu Amalric and newcomers Quentin Dolmaire and Lou Roy-Lecollinet.

In directorial debuts: Don Cheadle with Miles Ahead, a portrait of the artist Miles Davis (played by the Cheadle), during his crazy days in New York in the late-70s, and Thomas Bidegain with Les Cowboys, a film reminiscent of John Ford’s The Searchers, in which a father searches for his missing daughter across a two-decade timespan—pre- to post-9/11—from Europe to Afghanistan and back.

Several titles also add a comedic layer to this year’s lineup, including Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan, a New York romantic comedy starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader, and Maya Rudolph; Mia Madre from Nanni Moretti, starring John Turturro; Michel Gondry’s Microbe & Gasoline, a new handmade-SFX comedy that follows two adolescent misfits who build a house on wheels and travel across France; and Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Treasure, a modern-day fable in which two men look for buried treasure in their backyard. 9/25-10/11.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis