Currents Program 6: Site Specific
61st New York Film Festival
September 29 - October 15, 2023
Featuring the North American premiere of Dane Komljen’s Projekt, the U.S. premiere of Ayo Akingbade’s The Fist, and the North American premiere of Huw Lemmey and Onyeka Igwe’s Ungentle.
Q&A with Ayo Akingbade and Huw Lemmey on Oct. 9 & 11
Projekt
Dane Komljen, 2023, Germany/Nigeria, 26m
Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin, and English with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Forty-six years after its completion, the International Trade Fair Complex in Lagos, Nigeria, lies waterlogged and in disrepair, its modernist concrete pavilions flooded and overgrown with vegetation, and its shopping stalls and convention centers now serve as makeshift workshops, bike repair stalls, and playgrounds. Shooting in a soft-edged standard-definition video, Komljen observes the complex’s grounds with equanimity and warmth, marking both its history as a former utopian project and its present-day vernacular uses.
The Fist
Ayo Akingbade, 2022, U.K./Nigeria, 24m
U.S. Premiere
Filmmaker Ayo Akingbade’s lush 35mm-shot portrait of the Guinness factory in Ikeja, Nigeria—the first of Guinness’s breweries built outside Ireland and the U.K.—is at once a closely observed process film about industrial production, an intimate glimpse into the sociality of assembly-line labor, and an incidental measure of globalization.
Ungentle
Huw Lemmey and Onyeka Igwe, 2022, U.K., 37m
North American Premiere
Like a clandestine encounter between the worlds of John le Carré and Alan Hollinghurst, Ungentle lingers in cruising spots, historic sites, and the enclaves of British espionage. With a droll, urbane narration read by Ben Whishaw, Huw Lemmey and Onyeka Igwe’s collaborative film brings the covert fraternities of spies and homosexual men into an unlikely proximity, mapping an obscure and enigmatic landscape of loyalty, secrecy, and desire.
Read More
Lucrecia Martel on Our Land (Nuestra Tierra), the Filmmaker’s First Feature Documentary
On the latest episode of FLC Luminaries, our video series that spotlights talent at all levels of the filmmaking process who uplift the art and craft of cinema, Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) director Lucrecia Martel discusses her expansive and enlightening first feature documentary.
Carla Simón on Her Poignantly Autobiographical Romería
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Romería director Carla Simón, moderated by NYFF Main Slate selection committee member Florence Almozini.
FLC and NYAFF Announce Lineup and Awards of the 25th New York Asian Film Festival, July 10–26
The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) and Film at Lincoln Center today unveil the second wave of programming for its landmark 25th edition, adding more than 40 films to an already wide-ranging lineup, with very special final titles still to come.