New York Film Festival 62 gets underway Sept. 27-Oct. 14 with a dizzying array of groundbreaking films. Opening night features RaMell Ross’s searing adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel, Nickel Boys. Set in Jim Crow Florida, the film centers on the fate of two Black teens who become wards of the state. With breakthrough performances from Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson as Elwood and Turner, the two retain hope through friendship as they face the horrors of barbaric conditions at the Nickel Academy, from which the film derives its name. Nickel Boys is one of the 32 films that comprise the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival. Visit filmlinc.org. for more information.
This year’s Main Slate will bring films from across 24 countries with 18 directors making their NYFF Main Slate debut. Among the highly anticipated offerings is Mati Diop’s Dahomey. Winner of Berlin Festival’s Golden Bear Award, Dahomey charts the return home from Paris in 2021 of 26 treasures from their country of origin, the African Kingdom of Dahomey, to what is now the Republic of Benin, after their plunder by French colonial troops in 1892. Weaving a mystical tale that explores contemporary questions surrounding the lingering effects of exploitation of a culture in the postcolonial world, Diop challenges her viewers to explore their own values. Diop uses her probing lens to alternate contrasting settings that depict the nocturnal voyage of the treasures against the conflict of debate among students at Benin’s University of Abomey-Calami over the fate of these ancient relics and their relevance to the tumultuous socio-political of today. Screenings begin Sept. 28.
Legendary Black British film director Steve McQueen, whose Oscar-winning Twelve Years A Slave turned the film industry upside down, returns with his eighth NYFF offering of the feature film Blitz for Closing Night. Blitz recreates the German blitzkrieg of London during World War II from the viewpoint of a single mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) separated from her 9-year-old son George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan). For more, visit filmlinc.org.
