NYFF 2010 Wish List

Film Socialisme

Only two films so far are confirmed for the 2010 New York Film Festival, David Fincher's The Social Network and Julie Taymor's Tempest. In anticipation of the imminent announcement of the full lineup, I thought I'd list 16 films from Cannes that I'd like to see at Lincoln Center in late September and early October:

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee
Mathieu Amalric's Tournee
Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's A Screaming Man
Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy
Lee Chang-Dong's Poetry
Mike Leigh's Another Year
Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats (Les amours imaginaires)
Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme
Hong Sang-Soo's Ha Ha Ha
Jia Zhangke's I Wish I Knew
Lodge Kerrigan's Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs)
Manoel de Oliveira's The Strange Case of Angelica
Radu Muntean's Tuesday, After Christmas
Olivier Assayas's Carlos
Gregg Araki's Kaboom

The loss of J. Hoberman and the addition of Todd McCarthy (who hated the new Godard) to this year's selection committee probably means that challenging, offbeat films now stand less of a chance of being chosen, but that remains to be seen. Dennis Lim, Melissa Anderson, Scott Foundas and Richard Pena can still counteract McCarthy's more mainstream, crowd-pleasing influence.

UPDATE 9/3: I'm disappointed that Jia Zhangke and Xavier Dolan didn't make the cut, but about half of my Cannes choices were selected for the NYFF, along with some that are about to be premiered at Venice within the next week.  Juan and I have both faxed in our order forms, and here is my planned list of 20 films and events packed into 16 days:

HBO Directors Dialogue with Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Dennis Lim
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Kent Jones and Martin Scorsese's A Letter to Elia, plus Elia Kazan's America, America
Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men
Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy
Lee Chang-Dong's Poetry
Mike Leigh's Another Year
Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme
Hong Sang-Soo's Oki's Movie
Manoel de Oliveira's The Strange Case of Angelica
Radu Muntean's Tuesday, After Christmas
Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls
Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte
Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon
Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff
Michael Epstein's LENNONYC
Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus
James Benning's Ruhr
Thom Andersen's Get Out of the Car
Joe Dante's The Hole 3D

Olivier Assayas's Carlos and David Fincher's The Social Network will be opening theatrically shortly after the festival, so I will wait to see those in theaters.