Sunday, September 24, 2023

The 61st New York Film Festival Starts Friday


Just a quick reminder that the New York Film Festival is starting Friday and for a brief instant the film world refocuses on New York as the epicenter of the film world. As we’ve done since we started Unseen Films will be hip deep in the festival bringing you word on the goodies they are showing.

If you’ve been reading Unseen Films for any amount of time you realize that NYFF holds a special place in our hearts. It was the first festival to give us press credential. It was also the first of the really big festivals in the world that I attended. Most importantly it’s been the festival where magic things happen, from getting to meet Hiyao Miyazaki long enough to get an autograph, watching Debbie Reynolds call in to speak to the audience at a screening of a doc on her life, Kibitzing with Martin Short, to seeing audiences argue with filmmakers. This year I’m taking my niece to her first festival when the new Miyazaki film screens.

I can’t wait.

As this posts I haven’t really seen much. Press screenings just started and since I was in Pittsburgh for the two days of screenings I haven’t seen much . I begin wading in tomorrow and I will be going all the way to the end.

Reviews will start tomorrow.

The must see  films are  

MAMBAR PIERRETTE is a stunning film concerning a seamstress trying to survive. It a film that all come together in the final moments to be something special

YOUTH (SPRING) is a four hour look at the workers in a Chinese factory. It’s a film filled with hope and life and is much more engaging than you can imagine.

LA ROUE  is Abel Gance’s seven hour film about the life of a railroad man and his family.  Wildly uneven- as all Gance’s epics are- it has some of the most amazing things ever put on screen. If you can catch it I recommend it- though understand one screening next weekend is the whole film in one go and the screening that follows the following week is in two parts over two days.

And of course I will be reporting from the road so do yourself a favor and get  tickets and go.

For tickets and more information go here.

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