Film at Lincoln Center Podcast

This week we’re excited to present a special conversation with global icon Tony Leung, tracing one of the most extraordinary screen careers of the past five decades. From his emergence in the Hong Kong New Wave to his enduring collaborations with many of the defining filmmakers of contemporary cinema, Leung reflects on his roles, working methods, and creative instincts that have shaped his singular screen presence.

This conversation was moderated by FLC Vice President of Programming, Florence Almozini.

See Tony Leung in the new feature film Silent Friend, currently playing daily at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/friend

This conversation took place as part of our recently concluded retrospective The Grandmaster: Tony Leung. The series was sponsored by Criterion.

This week we’re excited to present a special episode featuring the star-studded speeches from our recent 51st Chaplin Award Gala, honoring George Clooney. Having taken place on April 27 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Gala encompassed a joyful celebration of the celebrated actor and filmmaker’s incredible body of work, featuring notable speakers and film clips, and culminating in the presentation of the Chaplin Award, an annual honor bestowed upon cinema’s most outstanding talents.

The evening’s guest speakers included, in order of appearance, Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies, Emmy Award–winning actor, writer, and director John Turturro, Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell, Emmy- and Grammy Award–winning host Stephen Colbert; Academy Award-winning producer Grant Heslov, and the man himself George Clooney.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with Agon director Giulio Bertelli. Agon is now streaming exclusively on MUBI.

This conversation was moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Tyler Wilson.

In Agon, three athletes—including one played by a real-life gold medalist in women’s judo—prepare for a fictional Olympiad in this elemental study of athletic discipline from first-time feature director Giulio Bertelli.  Bertelli shows how the athletes’ preparation is dominated by technologies, from arthroscopic surgery footage to simulators to video games, suggesting the dehumanization of vulnerable bodies inside the global behemoth that is modern organized sport.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with the team behind the new film Erupcja. Co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, the 55th edition of New Directors/New Films took place April 8-19, with many filmmakers attending in person.

In Erupcja, Charli XCX stars as a 365 party girl who wonders whether the music is finally stopping, as a weekend in Warsaw with her boyfriend resurfaces the unresolved, tantalizing excitements of an old friendship.

Erupcja is now in select theaters, courtesy of 1-2 Special.

The following conversation features Erupcja director Pete Ohs and cast members Jeremy O. Harris and Lena Góra, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Madeline Whittle.

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with the team behind the opening night selection of this year’s New Directors/New Films. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, the 55th edition of New Directors/New Films takes place April 8-19, with many filmmakers scheduled to attend in person. Get tickets at newdirectors.org

The following conversation features Leviticus director Adrian Chiarella and lead actors Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Madeline Whittle.

Sundance favorite Leviticus expounds daringly on the horror-movie truism that sexual desire makes you vulnerable—notably, to gruesome death. Named for the book of the Old Testament used to justify homophobia, the wrenching and terrifying feature debut from Adrian Chiarella begins with Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) breaking into an abandoned mill, their matey horseplay soon surrendering to its powerful homoerotic subtext. Fans of Heated Rivalry will appreciate how Chiarella draws out the intuitive connections that form beneath the show of machismo that the young men take pains to maintain for their traditional community—in this case, the provincial Australian town where Naim’s mother (Mia Wasikowska in a complex, calibrated performance) has relocated them, dragging him along to a local church’s praise meetings in search of fellowship. Gothic iconography lurks in Chiarella’s oppressive and foreboding widescreen compositions, and soon, after Ryan and another boy are subjected to a disturbing exorcism intended to cure them of their urges, the community’s queer youths, already picked on, begin to be picked off by a spectral killer that appears to them in the form of their forbidden love objects. Ingeniously complicating the deep interrelation between teen sexuality and slasher movie iconography, and staging his set pieces with chilling precision, Chiarella announces himself as a new Aussie horror auteur to stand alongside Jennifer Kent and the Philippous.