OPENING NIGHT
The Class / Entre les murs
Laurent Cantet, France, 2008; 128m

CENTERPIECE
Changeling
Clint Eastwood, USA, 2008; 140m

CLOSING NIGHT
The Wrestler


Ther rest:
24 City / Er shi si cheng ji
Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 2008; 112m
Sat Sep 27: 3:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
The dean of Chinese independent cinema, Jia Zhangke is a poet of facts. Read more...


Afterschool
Antonio Campos, USA, 2008; 122m
Mon Oct 6: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Wed Oct 8: 9:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Independent director Antonio Campos’s hypnotically concentrated first feature is set in the insulated world of a New England prep school. Read more...


Ashes of Time Redux
Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 2008; 93m
Sat Oct 4: 6:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sat Oct 4: Midnight Walter Reade Theater
Wong Kar-wai has restored, rescored, expanded and re-edited his legendary 1994 exercise in swordplay pyrotechnics and melancholy temps perdu. He’s also digitally colorized the film, rendering master cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s images even more insanely gorgeous. Read more...


Bullet in the Head / Tiro en la cabeza
Jaime Rosales, Spain/France, 2008; 85m
Sun Oct 12: 2:30pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Someone is watching––all the time––as a middle-aged Spanish man buys a newspaper, meets another man in a cafe, attends a dinner party, has sex with a woman, listens to music in a CD shop, makes a pay phone call. Read more...


Che
Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain, 2008; 268m
Tue Oct 7: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
This screening will include a 30-minute intermission. The most eagerly awaited event at Cannes last May, Steven Soderbergh’s sweeping, Spanish-language meditation on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare focuses on the two key episodes in Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s military career. Read more...


Chouga / Shuga
Darezhan Omirbaev, France/Kazakhstan, 2007; 91m
Sat Oct 11: 3:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Kazakh master Darezhan Omirbaev’s new film is about a well-to-do woman named Chouga (Ainur Turgambaeva, in a quietly compelling performance) who leaves her callous husband and beloved son for a charismatic, but equally callous, younger man named Ablai. Read more...


A Christmas Tale / Un conte de Noël
Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2008; 150m
Fri Oct 10: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sat Oct 11: 11:15am Ziegfeld Theatre
Arnaud Desplechin comes home for Christmas in his outrageous, daring and emotionally bountiful new movie. Read more...


Four Nights with Anna / Cztery noce z Anna
Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France, 2008; 87m
Fri Oct 3: 9:30pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Oct 5: 3:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
The first film in 17 years by the great Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski is more than worth the wait. Read more...


Gomorrah / Gomorra
Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2008; 137m
Fri Oct 3: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Oct 5: 9:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
From Roberto Saviano’s bestselling 2006 book about the international influence of the Italian organized crime empire known as the Camorra, Matteo Garrone (The Embalmer, ND/NF 2003) has made an electrifying mob movie set in Naples that will impress and unnerve even the most demanding aficionados of the genre. Read more...


Happy-Go-Lucky
Mike Leigh, UK, 2008; 118m
Sat Sep 27: 6:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Sep 28: 12:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
You’ve never met a woman in bloom quite as fresh as Poppy Cross, the radiant north Londoner whose militantly upbeat embrace of life is reflected in the title of Mike Leigh’s irresistible new work. Read more...


The Headless Woman / La mujer sin cabeza
Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain, 2008; 87m
Mon Oct 6: 9:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Wed Oct 8: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
A middle-aged woman (Maria Nieto) is driving alone on a dirt road. Suddenly, she hits something––perhaps a dog, perhaps a boy, perhaps something more mysterious. Read more...


Hunger
Steve McQueen, UK, 2008; 96m
Sat Sep 27: 12:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Sep 28: 6:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
A pair of bloodied hands immerse themselves in a basin. Contraband packages pass silently, imperceptibly between inmates and their loved ones in the visiting room of Her Majesty’s Maze prison. Read more...


I’m Gonna Explode / Voy a explotar
Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico, 2008; 106m
Sun Sep 28: 9:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Mon Sep 29: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Was this the movie we secretly wanted to live? Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo hits his stride and promptly accelerates with this boldly hectic youth film. Read more...


Let It Rain / Parlez-moi de la pluie
Agnès Jaoui, France, 2008; 110m
Fri Oct 10: 9:45pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Oct 12: 11:15am Ziegfeld Theatre
The urbane social satirist Agnès Jaoui (The Taste of Others, NYFF 2000; Look At Me, Opening Night, NYFF 2004) is at the height of her powers, both as a filmmaker and as an actor, in this deftly structured comic study of self-delusion set in an unexpectedly rainy southern France. Read more...


Night and Day / Bam guan nat
Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008; 144m
Sat Oct 4: 2:30pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sung-nam is a 40ish, married painter who takes it on the lam to Paris after getting caught smoking pot with some American tourists in Seoul. Read more...


The Northern Land / A Corte do Norte
João Botelho, Portugal, 2008; 122m
Tue Sep 30: 9:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Portuguese director João Botelho returns to the festival with this magnificent adaptation of a novel by Agustina Bessa Luis (also a great favorite of Manoel de Oliveira). Read more...


Serbis
Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France, 2008; 90m
Sun Oct 12: 5:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Raw and uncompromising, the seventh feature by Brillante Mendoza (Foster Child, ND/NF 2008), channeling both Fassbinder and John Waters, follows the travails of the Pineda family in the Filipino city of Angeles. Read more...


Summer Hours / L’heure d’eté
Olivier Assayas, France, 2008; 103m
Wed Oct 1: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Thu Oct 2: 9:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
How much or how little are we obliged to honor the wishes of our parents after they’re gone? This is the painful question posed by Olivier Assayas in his rueful and wise new film. Read more...


Tokyo Sonata
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Netherlands, 2008; 85m
Thu Oct 9: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sat Oct 11: 9:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Kiyoshi Kurosawa delves into a different kind of horror with his surprising and exquisitely crafted new film. Read more...


Tony Manero
Pablo Larrain, Chile/Brazil, 2008; 98m
Mon Sep 29: 9:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Tue Sep 30: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s second feature is a spiky whirling dervish of a movie, filled with deadpan humor and unexpected moves. Read more...


Tulpan
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzerland, 2008; 100m
Thu Oct 9: 9:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sat Oct 11: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Celebrated Kazakh documentarian Sergey Dvortsevoy won the Prix Un Certain Regard for this, his first feature—an astonishing ethnographic drama-cum-wildlife movie. Read more...


Waltz with Bashir
Ari Folman, Israel/Germany/France, 2008; 90m
Wed Oct 1: 9:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Thu Oct 2: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Intrigued by the recurring nightmare of a friend who’s chased in his dream by the ghosts of the dogs he shot in Lebanon during the ’82 war, director Ari Folman comes to realize how much he has suppressed of his memories as a soldier. Read more...


Wendy and Lucy
Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2008; 80m
Sat Sep 27: 9:30pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Sun Sep 28: 3:15pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Girl, Wendy, loses dog, Lucy. Girl looks for dog. Girl (the always surprising Michelle Williams, with heartrending gumption) is all alone and counting pennies in a nowhere Oregon town, on the road to somewhere in Alaska. Read more...


The Windmill Movie
Alexander Olch, USA, 2008; 80m
Sun Oct 5: 6:00pm Ziegfeld Theatre
Richard P. “Dick” Rogers was a respected filmmaker and film teacher. Following his death in 2001, his former student Alexander Olch began unearthing boxes of footage Rogers shot for a long-planned autobiography. Read more...