Film at Lincoln Center has announced its lineup of festival, repertory, and new release programming for the 2023 summer season, from June through October.

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Kicking off the summer, Film at Lincoln Center will present The Dirty Stories of Jean Eustache, a retrospective of the auteur’s films, all of which have been newly restored, beginning July 7, preceded by a theatrical run of Eustache’s epochal The Mother and the Whore, opening on June 23. New releases include Christian Petzold’s latest film Afire, a breezy, often funny, emotionally layered drama of creative and romantic insecurities along the German Riviera, with Petzold in person on July 13 and 14; Passages, the newest film from Ira Sachs, which offers one of the director’s most cutting variations on desire and intimacy; and two selections from this year’s ND/NF festival: Opening Night selection Earth Mama, Savanah Leaf’s auspicious debut feature and a deeply affecting work of cinematic humanism, with Leaf in person on July 14 and 15; and Remembering Every Night, Yui Kiyohara’s follow-up to her acclaimed Our House that immerses viewers in the quiet pursuits of several women, including a wandering university student, a helpful neighborhood meter reader, and a middle-aged gentle soul seeking employment but finding herself agreeably lost instead. This quarter will also bring Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade, 1960–1969, a major showcase of key works from the 1960s, a decade now widely considered South Korea’s premier film renaissance, featuring imported film prints seldom screened in the United States, premieres of new restorations, and more; and the return of the New York Asian Film Festival and the 61st New York Film Festival.

New 4K restorations coming to FLC are two of Kira Muratova’s works: her solo debut Brief Encounters, which defines a love triangle concerning a city planner (played by Muratova herself), her geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer and satirist Vladimir Vysotsky), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) hired as their housekeeper in Odessa; and NYFF60 Revivals selection The Long Farewell, the director’s fourth feature (not released until 1987 during perestroika), a majestic psychodrama centering on the relationship between a mother and a son and rendered with a borderline avant-garde sense of aesthetic freedom and formal experimentation. 

For one week only, FLC will present a newly struck 70mm blowup of Paul Thomas Anderson’s NYFF35 selection Boogie Nights, a sprawling mosaic of life in the adult-film industry. Tickets on sale June 15 at noon, with early access for FLC Members starting June 14 at noon.

FLC programming is led by Florence Almozini, Senior Director, Programming, and the team includes Manuel Santini, Senior Manager, Programming; Dan Sullivan, Programmer; Regina Riccitelli, Senior Programming Coordinator; Madeline Whittle, Assistant Programmer; Tyler Wilson, Programmer; Katie Zwick, Exhibition & Programming Coordinator; Cecilia Barrionuevo, Programmer-at-Large; and Claire Diao, Programmer-at-Large.

Film descriptions and additional details are listed below and on filmlinc.org. New releases and revival runs are organized by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson.

FILM & SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
All films screen at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.) or Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W. 65th St.).

June 23-July 13
The Dirty Stories of Jean Eustache

My Little Loves. Courtesy of Janus Films.

Few filmmakers have captured the sheer sorrow and humor of being alive in a time and place more majestically than Jean Eustache. A fellow traveler of Cahiers du Cinéma’s Hitchocko-Hawksians in the late 1950s, Eustache was a satellite figure of the ascendant Nouvelle Vague while it was revolutionizing the aesthetics and aesthetic politics of narrative cinema. But he emerged in the second half of the 1960s as a singularly formidable filmmaker in his own right, directing several medium-length fiction films and documentaries before producing one of French cinema’s all-time masterpieces, the titanic and epochal The Mother and the Whore (1972). 

Eustache’s career would continue with more sporadic, always fascinatingly idiosyncratic efforts in the years to come (including the achingly, heartbreakingly beautiful My Little Loves [1974]), before his suicide in 1981. A true pioneer of autobiographical cinema, Eustache’s influence has been sharply felt in the years since—particularly in the work of Léos Carax, Jim Jarmusch, Philippe Garrel, and Noah Baumbach, to name a few—and yet his oeuvre has historically been difficult for American audiences to access. On the occasion of new restorations of Eustache’s work being made available by Janus Films, join Film at Lincoln Center as we celebrate the life and career of one of cinema’s great enfants terribles with an extensive retrospective for the cynical saint of autofiction. Tickets on sale now.

Opens July 14
Afire
Christian Petzold, 2023, Germany, 102m
German with English subtitles

Afire. Courtesy of Janus Films.

Set against the backdrop of a seaside town threatened by encroaching wildfires, Christian Petzold’s latest is a breezy, often funny, yet emotionally layered melodrama of creative and romantic insecurities along the German Riviera. The film centers around Leon (Thomas Schubert), a disgruntled novelist struggling to finish his manuscript while traveling with his photographer friend (Langston Uibel) to a vacation home near the Baltic Sea, where they’re met by an unexpected third house guest, Nadja (Paula Beer; Undine, Transit), whose presence distracts Leon as much as it cringingly exposes his self-obsessed bubble. Full of sunkissed tints and nocturnal blues, Afire finds the director operating with a deceptively light touch, but what starts as a hangout comedy gradually opens up into something entirely more surprising and psychologically complex. Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. A Sideshow and Janus Films release. Sneak preview on July 13 with Christian Petzold in person on July 13 and 14.

Opens July 14
Earth Mama
Savanah Leaf, 2023, USA, 100m

Earth Mama. Courtesy of A24

A devastating and evocative portrait of motherhood refracted through the prisms of race and class, Savanah Leaf’s auspicious debut feature (expanding upon her documentary short The Heart Still Hums [2020]) is a deeply affecting work of cinematic humanism. Set in the Bay Area, the film follows Gia (portrayed with immense complexity by Oakland rapper Tia Nomore) as she contends with pregnancy and poverty while longing for her children (who have been placed in foster care) and dodging Child Protective Services in the fear that they’ll take her soon-to-be-born baby from her as well. Facing an impossible situation, Gia warms to the idea of giving her baby up for adoption, and connects with a well-meaning, middle-class couple (Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Bokeem Woodbine), who could potentially give the child a better life. But a constellation of factors—especially Gia’s own sense of guilt—lays bare the fact that, for Gia, there is simply no way to win. Lensed in richly textured 16mm by Jody Lee Lipes, Earth Mama is both a heartrending film about a young woman grappling with the most fundamental questions of motherhood amid utterly hostile socioeconomic conditions, and a formally sophisticated work that suggests and conjures rather than facilely connecting the dots for us. The 2023 New Directors/New Films Opening Night selection. An A24 release. With Savanah Leaf in person on July 14 and 15.

July 14-30
New York Asian Film Festival

The New York Asian Film Festival is proud to announce its 22nd edition in 2023, marking more than two decades as the leading showcase of the best and boldest in Asian cinema. The first festival in North America to present the films of today’s preeminent Asian auteurs, NYAFF features the most vibrant and vital cinematic work from the continent, ranging from explosive blockbusters to eccentric arthouse gems. As we continue to champion Asian representation, NYAFF provides an essential connection with our community in New York and beyond through screenings at Film at Lincoln Center.

Opens August 4
Passages
Ira Sachs, 2023, France, 91m

Passages. Courtesy of MUBI.

A masterful work of psychosexual intensity, the newest film from Ira Sachs offers one of the director’s most cutting variations on desire and intimacy. Co-written by author and longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, Passages follows Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a mercurial German filmmaker living in Paris whose commitment to his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), falls short when he pursues a dalliance with a young schoolteacher, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Martin begins his own affair soon after, while Tomas swings between both relationships and unleashes a reckless succession of breakups and makeups. With fearless performances from Rogowski, Whishaw, and Exarchopoulos, Sachs crafts a cinematic rarity in which the white-hot pleasures and compulsions of a particularly dysfunctional amour fou are kept on par with ferocious honesty. A MUBI release.

August 18-24
Boogie Nights on 70mm
Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997, USA, 70mm, 155m
New York Premiere of the 70mm blowup

Boogie Nights. Courtesy of New Line Cinema.

This summer, Film at Lincoln Center is pleased to present a newly struck 70mm blowup of Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling mosaic of life in the adult-film industry. Boogie Nights follows the surrogate family of porn auteur Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds, in a career-topping performance)—among them the uniquely qualified star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), nurturing Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), and sweetly pathetic boom operator Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman)—riding high in the late 1970s before changing tides and technologies render them has-beens in Reagan’s America. Brilliant acting by Anderson’s stock company and the writer/director’s sensitive approach make his sophomore feature “a big, bright, shining star” in the firmament of American film. An NYFF35 selection. Tickets on sale June 15 at noon, with early access for FLC Members starting June 14 at noon.

The original release of Boogie Nights in 1997—through New Line Cinema—was presented on 35mm with digital sound (Dolby Digital and SDDS). This new 70mm print features Datasat audio and full-frame imagery (2.20:1) blown up from anamorphic 35mm (directly from the film’s original camera negative).

Opens August 25
Brief Encounters
Kira Muratova, 1967, USSR, 96m
Russian with English subtitles

Brief Encounters. Courtesy of Janus Films.

Following two features made with then-husband Aleksandr Muratov, Kira Muratova announced her unmistakable aesthetic with this solo-directed debut concerning two women whose lives unexpectedly intertwine. In one beautifully realized scene after another, Muratova gently defines a love triangle concerning a city planner (Muratova), her geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer and satirist Vladimir Vysotsky), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) hired as their housekeeper in Odessa. Shirking dominant socialist realist conventions with a near-dreamlike structure of flashbacks and shifts in points of view, Brief Encounters is an unfolding meditation on longing that incurred the wrath of censors, who promptly suppressed the film for 20 years. It’s precisely through Muratova’s formal experiments that the director unearthed unsentimental emotional truths and a daring political consciousness. A Janus Films release.

Restored in 4K by STUDIOCANAL in collaboration with the Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata/Éclair Classics

The Long Farewell
Kira Muratova, 1971, USSR, 97m
Russian with English subtitles

The Long Farewell. Courtesy of Janus Films.

Completed in 1971 but not released until 1987 after the start of perestroika, Kira Muratova’s fourth feature is a majestic psychodrama centering on the relationship between a mother and a son and rendered with a borderline avant-garde sense of aesthetic freedom and formal experimentation. Divorced Evgenia (Zinaida Sharko) has devoted her life to raising her son, Sasha (Oleg Vladimirsky), but their bond is tested when he becomes a teenager and visits his father in far-off Novosibirsk, planting seeds for the young man’s desire to move out from beneath his overbearing mother’s thumb. Muratova transfigures the resulting blowups and reconciliations as a kinetic and atmospheric symphony suffused with resentment and love, sensitivity and obliviousness, freedom and duty. A NYFF60 Revivals selection. A Janus Films release. 

Restored in 4K by STUDIOCANAL in collaboration with the Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata/Éclair Classics

September 1-17
Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade, 1960–1969
Long before Bong Joon Ho, Hong Sangsoo, and Park Chan-wook catapulted South Korean cinema onto the world stage, the foundation of their country’s film industry formed in the aftermath of the Korean War. The period kickstarted a wealth of eclectic and innovative filmmaking that culminated in the 1960s. Closer inspection of this decade, now widely considered Korea’s premier film renaissance, reveals the arrival of seminal works from auteurs such as Kim Ki-young, Shin Sang-ok, Yu Hyun-mok, Kim Soo-yong, and Lee Man-hee, alongside a meteoric rise and reinvention of genres—from melodramas and period epics to action, horror, war, and giant monster movies. Although the military dictatorship still imposed tight constraints throughout this era, what these filmmakers managed to accomplish under such conditions, in arthouse fare and unabashed popular entertainment alike, continues to reverberate and inspire to this day. This September, Film at Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema are thrilled to showcase this rich period and its remarkably varied films, encapsulating a generation’s collective endeavor to define a national cinema and featuring imported film prints seldom screened in the United States, premieres of new restorations, and more.

Organized by Young Jin Eric Choi, Goran Topalovic, and Tyler Wilson. Co-presented by Subway Cinema in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Center New York and the Korean Film Archive.

Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade, 1960–1969 is sponsored by MUBI, a curated streaming service for award-winning cinema.

Opens September 15
Remembering Every Night
Yui Kiyohara, 2022, Japan, 116m
Japanese with English subtitles

Remembering Every Night. Courtesy of PFF Partners.

A film that moves on the rhythms of a gentle breeze, Yui Kiyohara’s follow-up to her acclaimed Our House (ND/NF 2018) is an evocatively quotidian film that’s as mysterious and beautiful as everyday life itself. Kiyohara immerses viewers in the quiet pursuits of several women, including a wandering university student, a helpful neighborhood meter reader, and a middle-aged gentle soul seeking employment but finding herself agreeably lost instead. Their paths converge or just miss one another over the course of a single sunny afternoon, captured by Kiyohara with calming long takes and the occasional drifting camera that seems to have a perspective all its own. Remembering Every Night is a treasure of unconventional filmmaking that abounds with simple pleasures, reminding the viewer of the fragility of time, happiness, and love. A 2023 New Directors/New Films selection. A KimStim release.

September 29-October 15
61st New York Film Festival

Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema and takes place September 29–October 15. An annual bellwether of the state of cinema that has shaped film culture since 1963, the festival continues an enduring tradition of introducing audiences to bold and remarkable works from celebrated filmmakers, as well as fresh new talent. Secure your seats with an NYFF61 Pass, on sale now. Single tickets go on sale September 19 at noon. Learn more here.