Tell Me a Riddle
61st New York Film Festival
September 29 - October 15, 2023
Lee Grant’s theatrical directorial debut is a moving meditation on aging and coming to terms with the past, about an elderly couple (Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova) who set out on a pilgrimage to visit their children and grandchildren. Screening with Grant’s 1976 short, The Stronger.
Q&A with Lee Grant, Brooke Adams, and Fred Murphy on Sept. 30
In her theatrical directorial debut, Lee Grant and screenwriters Joyce Eliason and Alev Lytle adapt Tillie Olsen’s O. Henry Award-winning novella as a moving meditation on aging and coming to terms with the past. Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova star as elderly Midwestern Jewish couple David and Eva; when David learns that Eva has terminal cancer, the two set out on a pilgrimage to visit their children and grandchildren, occasioning a reflection on the unexamined corners of their souls they’ve too long neglected in order to raise their family. Also featuring performances by Brooke Adams, Peter Coyote, and Zalman King, Grant’s touching and richly traced directorial debut is notable for having been directed, written, and produced exclusively by women.
Restored in 2022 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation. Restoration funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Special thanks to Mindy Affrime, Rachel Lyon, and Susan O’Connell.
Preceded by:
The Stronger
Lee Grant, 1976, U.S., 30m
The result of Grant’s participation in the American Film Institute’s first directing workshop for women, her debut short adapts August Strindberg’s play of the same title, in which Susan Strasberg and Dolores Dorn play a wife and her husband’s mistress, respectively.
Restored in 2022 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation.
The NYFF61 Revivals presentations of Tell Me a Riddle and The Stronger are sponsored by:
Read More
Kamal Aljafari on With Hasan in Gaza and ‘The Camera of the Dispossessed’
Our 63rd New York Film Festival Talks featured a special conversation with With Hasan in Gaza director Kamal Aljafari, moderated by Film Comment editor Devika Girish.
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.