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The New York Film Festival on Tuesday revealed its Spotlight section lineup, which includes the world premiere of She Said, Universal’s drama based on the work of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who investigated and wrote the bombshell 2017 Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse story.

Maria Schrader directed the pic starring Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan that features a cast including Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle. Adapted from the reporters’ book by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the film hits theaters November 18.

Other Spotlight world premieres set for NYFF, which runs September 30-October 16, includes Till, Chinonye Chukwu’s story of Mamie Till-Mobley, the Chicago woman whose son, Emmett, was lynched while visiting cousins in Mississippi in 1955. Also, a pair of documentaries: A Cooler Climate, James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s film that uncovers boxes of film Ivory shot during a trip to Afghanistan in 1960; and Personality Crisis: One Night Only,...

Following their stellar Main Slate lineup, the 60th New York Film Festival has unveiled its Spotlight section, featuring a number of notable world premieres. Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s David Johansen documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only will debut at the festival, along with Maria Schrader’s She Said, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, Elvis Mitchell’s Is That Black Enough for You?!?, and James Ivory and Giles Gardner’s A Cooler Climate.

Also in the lineup is Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Sarah Polley’s Woman Talking, a special 50th anniversary presentation of Solaris with a new live score, a new documentary on the late Robert Downey, Sr. by Chris Smith and new series from Lars von Trier and Marco Bellocchio.

“Ranging from illuminating portraits and affecting personal stories to uncomfortable histories that ignite change, the third edition of our NYFF Spotlight section is a curated mix of world premieres,...

Veteran Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio returned to Cannes this year with “Exterior Night,” a limited TV series about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists that, prior to playing on pubcaster Rai, is now on release in two installments via Lucky Red in Italian cinemas where it’s doing quite well.

Bellocchio, who previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction in the 2005 film “Goodmorning, Night” from the viewpoint of one of his captors, is taking a different narrative approach in this series consisting of six one-hour episodes that reconstruct the 55 days of Moro’s imprisonment from different points of view, including that of his family, his fellow high-echelon Christian Democrat politicians, and the ailing Pope Paul VI, played by Toni Servillo.

He spoke to Variety about what drove him to revisit Italy’s deepest recent collective trauma and why he thinks the crucial...

Most films ask nothing of you. You simply press play and watch the story unfold, gleaning context as the filmmaker colors in their narrative. But the occasional movie demands prerequisites to appreciate. Think: Dušan Makavejev’s Man Is Not a Bird, or last year’s competition title Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov’s mind-numbing swan dive into the socio-political climate of post-Soviet Russia whose commentary nearly requires a Ph.D. to unpack. Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night hovers somewhere in-between.

It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...

Marco Bellocchio’s vast body of work spans from “Fists in the Pockets” (1965) to “Sweet Dreams,” which launched at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2016. The auteur known for psychodramas and for bringing the complexities of Italian history, and hypocrisy, to the big screen returned this year to Cannes, this time in competition, with “The Traitor,” a biopic of Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence. He spoke to Variety about making his first film with “no direct link or identification with my personality.” The film screens this week at Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

What drew you to the story of Tommaso Buscetta?

What I like about this character is that he’s neither a victim nor a hero. He’s a very determined man, always on the run. He’s a survivor. Buscetta had to continuously navigate really dangerous situations.

Cannes veteran Marco Bellocchio’s vast body of work spans from “Fists in the Pocket” (1965) to “Sweet Dreams,” which launched at Director’s Fortnight in 2016. The auteur known for psychodramas and for bringing the complexities of Italian history, and hypocrisy, to the big screen is back, this time in competition, with “The Traitor,” a biopic of Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence. He spoke to Variety about making his first film with “no direct link or identification with my personality.”

What drew you to the story of Tommaso Buscetta?

What I like about this character is that he’s neither a victim nor a hero. He’s a very determined man, always on the run. He’s a survivor. Buscetta had to continuously navigate really dangerous situations. He fled to Brazil because he knew there was a war...