Alice Rohrwacher returned to the New York Film Festival for the third time with her third feature, Happy as Lazzaro. The premiere of the Italian writer-director’s transfixing new film held a special meaning for NYFF, as she wrote it while serving as our Filmmaker in Residence in 2016. We spoke with her about the film’s mix of pessimism and optimism and what it means to show the film for the first time in America.

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