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NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

In anticipation of The Jag, a new play produced by yours truly, Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo present Jean-François Stévenin’s Mountain Pass on Friday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Films by Antonioni, Buñuel, and more play in a retrospective of Monica Vitti.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by Stan Brakhage play in Essential Cinema.

Roxy Cinema

Tongues Untied screens on Friday; Dressed In Blue, Three Bewildered People In the Night, and The Wild Boys show Saturday; Ratcatcher plays on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Raid, District 13, Stagecoach, and Jackass 3D screen in “See It Big: Stunts!“; Alien shows Saturday and Sunday.

IFC Center

Ran continues in a 40th-anniversary restoration; Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Happiness play daily; Romeo + Juliet, To Live and Die in L.A., Audition, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang show late.

Mubi has unveiled next month’s streaming lineup, featuring David Cronenberg’s recent short Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection and Julie Dash’s 1977 short Diary of an African Nun. Other highlights include Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, on the occasion of Mubi’s theatrical release of Bird, alongside May Harron’s Psycho, Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s excellent indie Slow Machine, and a new restoration of Tunç Başaran’s Turkish classic Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite.

They are also spotlighting Alanis Obomsawin in a special series, as their synopsis reads, “November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States, and Mubi is celebrating by spotlighting six films by Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. Obomsawin’s prolific documentary practice encompasses dozens of short and feature films produced across the past 50-plus years. This collection features six of Obomsawin’s most...

After sold-out showings of Godard and Rohmer my screening series Amnesiascope closes out this summer with a personal 2020s favorite that still demands proper place and consideration. On Wednesday, August 28––that’s eight days from now––the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research will present Slow Machine with filmmakers Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo in attendance alongside star Scott Shepherd (most recently seen in Killers of the Flower Moon and The Last of Us) for a post-screening Q&a.

Premiering at Rotterdam about a month before the onset of Covid-19, showing in a predominantly online NYFF, and given a hybrid theatrical-virtual release by Grasshopper Film during the pandemic’s waning days, Slow Machine has experienced a life cycle that’s made discovery somewhat difficult. But the work’s far from impenetrable, its many shapes––simmering thriller, Rivettian game of shifting identity, and musical documentary shot on 16mm that puts recent “gritty...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke

One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)

In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...

The U.S. lineup for films coming to Mubi this September has been announced, featuring some of my personal favorites of the last few years, notably Philippe Lesage’s severely overlooked coming-of-age drama Genesis, John Gianvito’s Helen Keller documentary Her Socialist Smile, Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten’s formally thrilling Slow Machine, and Robert Greene’s documentary Bisbee ’17, as well as Jia Zhangke’s latest release Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue.

Also in the lineup is Bill Forsyth’s delightful Gregory’s Girl, Ari Folman’s hybrid feature The Congress, and Manoel de Oliveira’s Visit, or Memories and Confession, which was made in 1982, and only allowed to screen after his death.

See the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

September 1 | Yellow Cat | Adilkhan Yerzhanov | Festival Focus: Venice

September 2 | Visit, or Memories and Confessions | Manoel de Oliveira | Rediscovered

September 3 | Slow Machine | Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten | Mubi Spotlight

September...

Originally published out of Rotterdam 2020, this interview with the creators and star of Slow Machine is being republished today alongside the film’s release from Grasshopper Film. It is currently available for streaming through Metrograph. Kudos to the author of the unusually compelling copy for Slow Machine in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s catalogue. The elephantine program, encompassing more than 500 films whose wild assortment of lengths, genres and formats defies any attempt at meaningful categorization (its four main sections this year were split into 23 subsections) is filled with gems, but offers scant assistance in discovering those not already […]

The post “Our Crew was Three People”: Slow Machine’s Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo and Stephanie Hayes on Their Rivette-Inspired Punk Thriller first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Originally published out of Rotterdam 2020, this interview with the creators and star of Slow Machine is being republished today alongside the film’s release from Grasshopper Film. It is currently available for streaming through Metrograph. Kudos to the author of the unusually compelling copy for Slow Machine in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s catalogue. The elephantine program, encompassing more than 500 films whose wild assortment of lengths, genres and formats defies any attempt at meaningful categorization (its four main sections this year were split into 23 subsections) is filled with gems, but offers scant assistance in discovering those not already […]

The post “Our Crew was Three People”: Slow Machine’s Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo and Stephanie Hayes on Their Rivette-Inspired Punk Thriller first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

It’s rare that a new American film feels genuinely alive with possibility from beginning to end. So many of the logistical, economic, and technological decisions that go into making a movie in the United States are designed to suffocate artistic vision in favor of audience accessibility. Which means something infinitely strange and fractured like Slow Machine feels all the more essential, an eccentric celluloid shape-shifter shot on 16mm that playfully upends the tropes of narrative storytelling.

Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s low-fi genre buster follows Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes), a Swedish, Brooklyn-based actress of experimental theater who meets a mysterious government agent named Gerard (Scott Sheperd). Instead of being thrown into a world of intrigue and clandestine operations, Stephanie must endure Gerard’s casual seductions and awkward theorizing, much of which revolves around his unseen fiancé’s thesis on narrative archetypes in pornography.

Their interactions are depicted mostly in flashback,...

"What's her deal?" Grasshopper Film has unveiled a trailer for an intriguing, experimental indie film titled Slow Machine, the feature directorial debut of filmmakers Joe Denardo & Paul Felten. This premiered at the 2020 Rotterdam Film Festival last year, and also played at the New York Film Festival and Vienna Film Festival. After a brief relationship with intelligence agent Gerard ends terribly, tired & disillusioned actress Stephanie hides in a house where a band is working on a record, which proves to be less of an escape than she imagined. This one stars Stephanie Hayes, Scott Shepherd, Eleanor Friedberger, and Chloë Sevigny. Described as a "miniature epic of music, murder, espionage, and paranoia." Sounds freaky. This looks a bit too experimental for my tastes, but I still appreciate unique and creative cinematic work like this. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Joe Denardo & Paul Felten's Slow Machine, direct from YouTube: Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actress,...

An out-of-the-blue surprise from last year’s festival circuit, Slow Machine is a simmering thriller, Rivettian game of shifting identity, musical documentary, and showcase for 16mm photography that puts the recent spate of “gritty” indies to shame. At its heart is the stunning newcomer Stephanie Hayes, supported by Scott Shepherd (seen next year in Killers of the Flower Moon), musician Eleanor Friedberger (more or less playing herself), and a haunting appearance by Chloë Sevigny.

Calling Slow Machine a discovery would undersell it by leagues, so it’s our fortune the film arrives June 4 via Grasshopper Film, who’ve debuted a trailer evincing why our summer preview said Joe DeNardo and Paul Felten’s feature “sets a high bar for the fertile experimental New York indie scene.” And good luck getting that music out of your head.

Watch the trailer below:

The post Chloë Sevigny and Eleanor Friedberger Open a World...

Stephanie Hayes, Chloe Sevigny, Eleanor Friedberger and more star in the new trailer for Slow Machine, a thriller film co-directed by Joe Denardo and Paul Felten that saw its premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last year. The film also screened at the New York Film Festival last October.

Slow Machine centers on Stephanie (played by Hayes), a disillusioned actress whose tumultuous breakup with an intelligence agent, Gerard (Scott Shepherd), leads her to wanting an escape. Stephanie decides to hide inside a house where a band is recording an album,...

New York-based outfit Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Ephraim Asili’s debut feature, “The Inheritance,” following its premiere at Toronto and screening at the New York Film Festival.

Grasshopper Film is planning to have “The Inheritance” open on March 12 in New York at Film at Lincoln Center, as well as in other cities.

The ensemble film takes place almost entirely in a West Philadelphia house, where a community of young people come together to form a collective of Black artists and activists. Shot in 16 mm, the movie interweaves a scripted drama with a documentary recollection of the Philadelphia liberation group Move, which was the victim of a notorious police bombing in 1985.

A Pennsylvania-born filmmaker, Asili has been exploring different facets of the African diaspora for nearly a decade and “The Inheritance” is based on his own experiences in a Black liberationist group.

The film references legacies of the Black Arts Movement,...

New York-based distribution company Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Valentyn Vasyanovych’s sci-fi drama “Atlantis,” Ukraine’s official selection for next year’s Academy Awards.

Represented in international markets by Belgian sales group Best Friend Forever, “Atlantis” played at Toronto, Rotterdam and Venice, where it won the best film award in the Horizons Competition. The critically acclaimed film was also selected for New Directors/New Films.

The movie, which is expected to be released theatrically early next year, is set in 2025. Eastern Ukraine in a desert unsuitable for human habitation and water is an expensive commodity brought by trucks. As a wall is being built on the border, Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to this new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming war corpses. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which...

Grasshopper Film has picked up North American distribution rights to Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s “Slow Machine,” ahead of the film’s premiere at the 58th annual New York Film Festival this week.

Set to release theatrically next year, the film is billed as a “miniature epic” of paranoia, espionage, subterfuge, music and performance on 16mm. It first bowed at January’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the few physical film fests to take place ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Slow Machine” follows Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actor, who meets a troubled counter-terrorism specialist who’s also an aficionado of experimental theater. Their relationship ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the ramshackle home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, where she’s haunted by violent memories of her past life.

“As moviegoers, we’ve seen the ‘Grasshopper Film’ logo in front of some of our favorite new and restored...