Two top film festivals are currently being held in New York, one in person, the other both in person and virtually.
Two top film festivals are currently being held in New York, one in person, the other both in person and virtually. The former is the 27th edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the celebrated annual festival, co-sponsored by Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center, that exemplifies the variety and vitality of contemporary French filmmaking; this runs through March 13. The latter is Doc Fortnight, MoMA’s wide-ranging survey of the most daring new documentaries and nonfiction films from around the world. The festival’s 21 st edition, through March 10, holds true to its mission of sharing adventurous and experimental moviemaking while highlighting thought-provoking perspectives on the most urgent issues of our time, including ecology and our relationship to the natural and built environment; understanding of illness, wellness, and care; and the future of politics and the public sphere. Highlights of the French film festival include Claire Denis’s Fire, featuring screen legend Juliette Binoche as Sara, navigating the reemergence of her ex-lover François (Grégoire Colin), who coincidentally contacts her partner Jean (Vincent Lindon) for a business proposition; Authentik, Audrey Estrougo’s crowd-pleasing and galvanizing biopic of rap duo Suprême NTM, offering a dynamic reconstruction of a moment in hip-hop’s global explosion; Emmanuel Carrère’s Between Two Worlds, taking inspiration from investigative journalist Florence Aubenas’s 2010 best-selling nonfiction book The Night Cleaner and a longtime passion project for star Binoche; Deception, master filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin’s adaptation of Philip Roth’s classic novel encompassing a fusion of rigorous intellectual discourse and fervid emotionality; Rendez-Vous regular Christophe Honoré’s Guermantes, cunningly shot and wonderfully imagined by Honoré’s theatrical community despite the production’s debilitating Covid delays; Hold Me Tight, Mathieu’s Amalric’s daringly fluid portrait of one woman’s fractured psyche; Antoine Barraud’s third narrative feature Madeleine Collins, equal parts drama and thriller, starring Virginie Efira (Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta); Our Men, starring director and Rendez-Vous regular Louis Garrel and directed by Rachel Lang and drawing upon her own background as an officer in the French army reserves; and Paris,13th District, Palme d’Or–winner Jacques Audiard’s exploration of casual sex, webcams and relationships in an unsparing but nonjudgmental portrait of young Parisians.
