The 64th New York Film Festival wrapped its run on October 12, three days after closing with the world premiere of Ava DuVernay's documentary "14th" at Alice Tully Hall. The October 9 screening drew DuVernay and several of the film's participants to Lincoln Center, capping a festival that also hosted new work from James Gray and Tony Gilroy, plus what the British director Mike Leigh says is likely his last film.
Programmed by Film at Lincoln Center, the festival ran September 25 through October 12, mixing awards-season contenders with holdovers from Cannes and the fall festival circuit. "14th" is DuVernay's follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2016 film "13th," which argued that the amendment ending slavery left room for mass incarceration to take its place. The new film turns to the 14th Amendment's promises of birthright citizenship and equal protection, built from interviews with figures including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Sen. Jeff Flake and civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill.
"If '13th' asked who gets caged, then '14th' asks who gets counted," DuVernay said of the film, according to Complex's account of her statement. Netflix plans a limited theatrical release on November 27 before the film streams globally on December 4.
A Follow-Up That Divided Critics
Early reviews out of the festival were mixed. Writing for TheWrap, critic Siddhant Adlakha called "14th" informative but said it rarely feels "as challenging or dramatically cogent as DuVernay's previous work," singling out Ifill as the film's strongest interview subject while faulting its use of AI-animated archival photographs of enslaved and emancipated Black Americans.
It's not the kind of film that will convince anyone on the fence.
Siddhant Adlakha, TheWrap
NYFF's artistic director, Dennis Lim, framed the selection differently in the festival's own program notes, calling "14th" "a movie for the moment that sees through the fog of the present." The split verdict is typical of a festival whose job is less to crown consensus favorites than to put a year's serious nonfiction and arthouse cinema in front of New York audiences before wider release.
A Festival Bookended by Hollywood Names
NYFF opened on September 25 with James Gray's "Paper Tiger," a Cannes competition title starring Adam Driver and Miles Teller as brothers entangled with the Russian mafia in 1980s Queens, with Scarlett Johansson playing one of their wives. Neon releases it in theaters on November 13. Gray called returning to NYFF, after three prior selections, "an honor," and said the film was rooted in New York City.
The festival's Centerpiece slot, on October 2, went to Tony Gilroy's "Behemoth!," led by Pedro Pascal as a classically trained cellist who leaves an orchestra job to score Hollywood films, with Olivia Wilde, Hank Azaria and Will Arnett in support. Gilroy said the Centerpiece berth had been a "long-held fantasy" he had imagined "more times than I care to admit," while Lim called Pascal's performance "a tour de force." Searchlight Pictures has not announced a release date.
Less starry but arguably more poignant was the inclusion of Mike Leigh's "Tender Loving Care," a comedy-drama set inside Britain's underfunded elder-care system, starring Leigh's longtime partner Marion Bailey. Leigh, 83, lives with myositis, an autoimmune condition that affects the muscles, and told IndieWire in an interview reported by Film Stories that making another feature would likely be beyond him.
Absolutely. I think very likely, yes.
Mike Leigh, asked whether "Tender Loving Care" is his final film
Bleecker Street is set to release "Tender Loving Care" on December 4 — the same day "14th" arrives on Netflix — putting two of the festival's most talked-about late selections into theaters and living rooms within weeks of each other. For a festival built around premieres rather than prizes, the real verdict on this year's slate will come from wider audiences over the next two months, not from the Lincoln Center crowd that saw them first.
