IFC Center
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“By No Means a Film Against Boys”: Alli Haapasalo on Girl Picture
Girl Picture, the sophomore feature from Finnish director Alli Haapasalo, ditches hokey coming of age conventions while preserving the crushing emotional weight inherent to being a teenage girl. The film’s protagonists—best friends Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) and Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen), alongside Mimmi’s lover Emma (Linnea Leino)—navigate the threshold of impending adulthood, oscillating wildly between manic self-centeredness and graceful altruism, encapsulating the disparate emotional poles one must traverse to arrive at self-actualized adulthood. What truly sets Girl Picture apart from the otherwise cloyingly twee coming of age landscape is its depiction of teenage sexual awakenings as something that can be natural, pleasurable […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 12, 2022 -
5 Questions for Yosemite Writer/Director Gabrielle Demeestere
Distracted fathers and sons left to their own devices; father surrogates and the salve of friendship — these are the themes that circle around Gabrielle Demeestere’s lovely and composed feature debut, Yosemite, which opens today in New York from Monterey Media at the IFC Center. Based on two short stories by James Franco (taken from the same collection that led to the film Palo Alto), as well as Demeestere’s own original material, Yosemite is set in 1985, when pre-adolescent dangers are symbolized by mountain lions descending from the wilds into this Northern California town, and when father-son bonding trips into […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 1, 2016 -
Come See 25 New Faces Screen and Talk at the IFC Center on Monday Night
Filmmaker‘s annual 25 New Face screening night at the IFC Center takes place next Monday, September 22 at 8:00 PM in New York City. We’ve got an especially strong line-up this year, including never-before-seen short films, and four filmmakers will join me after for a panel discussion on the art, economics and distribution of short film filmmaking. Here’s the program: Charlotte Glynn’s Immaculate Reception. “Rarely have the complexities and disappointments of young masculine sexuality been so deftly portrayed,” wrote Brandon Harris in his 25 New Face write-up of Glynn and her Rust Belt-set, coming-of-age tale that turns on Franco Harris’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 19, 2014 -
“25 New Faces” Screening Next Wednesday at NYC’s IFC Center
Last year, Filmmaker organized a nationwide tour of “25 New Faces” screenings that included a very enjoyable, sold-out screening at IFC Center in Manhattan. This year, there is another tour (now sponsored by Sony Creative Software and ARRI) and we are very happy to be having another event at IFC Center, which will take place next Wednesday, October 2, at 8pm. Tickets are available here, and I will be there moderating a Q&A with a group of filmmakers who are showing a really excellent slate of shorts that night, while also joining in will be other 2013 alums plus some special guests. (Last year, Blue Valentine director […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 27, 2013 -
Lady Vengeance: Hungering for the Release of Battle Royale
Although I’ve been recently reminded of the fact repeatedly, it always shocks me anew to hear that Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku’s stunning, blood-soaked film adaptation of the novel by Koushun Takami, has never officially had U.S. distribution. After a spate of festival bookings, a 3D release of the film in honor of its 10-year anniversary, and a DVD and Blu-ray release from Anchor Bay, Battle Royale, original flavor, is starting to see theatrical premieres in the U.S., like the one at the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles in December 2011, and the New York premiere starting at the IFC Center […]
by Farihah Zaman on May 25, 2012 -
Oslo, August 31st — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Oslo, August 31st is being distributed by Strand Releasing. It opens Friday in NYC at the IFC Center.) Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his much-loved 2006 debut, Reprise, begins with an audio montage of voices sharing their memories of the titular city: “I remember taking the first dip in the Oslo fjord on the first of May.” “I don’t remember Oslo as such, its people I remember.” “We moved to the city. We felt extremely mature.’” On the screen, stationary shots of empty city streets are followed by home movies—children at play, friends enjoying each other’s company—then back to the streets […]
by Nelson Kim on May 24, 2012 -
Attenberg — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Attenberg world premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and is being distributed in America by Strand Releasing. It opens on Friday, March 9, 2012, at the IFC Center in NYC. Visit the film’s official page at the Strand website to learn more.) The world would be a much less grating place if certain cinematic sub-genres were to be banned from the table immediately. Reading a description of Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg, one might worry that she has committed the double-sin of embracing two of the more increasingly overused and deplorable ones: 1) the “stunted-to-the-point-of-retarded adult-child;” and 2) the “quirky […]
by Michael Tully on Mar 7, 2012 -
JOHN VANCO, FILM PROGRAMMER, OCCASIONAL CONTRACTOR
On the opening weekend of the IFC’s new IFC Center (which a friend reported was packed out for the opening of Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know), the folks at Gothamist have posted an interview with our friend John Vanco, the chief programmer for the theater. Vanco talks a lot about film and outlines an exciting vision for the theater, and he also reveals a past life as a carpenter when asked about the theater’s construction delays: “My background as a carpenter is an awfully obscure fact and fading memory — that was a long time ago. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2005
