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