NYFF: Preview

I don't know how the time went so fast but somehow the New York Film Festival is back and I'll be making my return tonight. Over the next few days (Oct 3-6), I'll be checking out a variety of interesting films including documentaries, foreign films and one very special world premiere. I've learnt a few things from my previous few festivals and thus will be keeping my schedule conservative at 8 films, which seems to be the maximum I can manage over the period (in addition to 1 or 2 non-festival screenings). It promises to be a fun time, especially with all of the amazing talent on hand for those post-screening press conferences. Here's what I have lined up:
Friday, October 3rd
RED ARMY

Director: Gabe Polsky
Starring: Scotty Bowman, Mark Deakins, Vyacheslav Fetisov
Plot: Red Army is a feature documentary about the Soviet Union and the most successful dynasty in sports history: the Red Army hockey team.
MR. TURNER

Director: Mike Leigh
Starring: Timothy Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson
Plot: An exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner's life.
THE WONDERS

Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Starring: Alba Rohrwacher, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck
Plot: Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, Alice Rohrwacher’s follow-up to Corpo celeste (NYFF 2011) is a vivid story of teenage yearning and confusion that revolves around a beekeeping family in rural central Italy: German-speaking father (Sam Louwyck), Italian mother (Alba Rohrwacher), four girls.
Saturday, October 4th
INHERENT VICE

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin
Plot: In 1970, drug-fueled Los Angeles detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend.
Sunday, October 5th
THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE

Director: Matías Piñeiro
Starring: Julián Larquier Tellarini, Agustina Muñoz, Alessio Rigo de Righi
Plot: Matías Piñeiro’s dazzling fifth feature, which follows a group of young people involved in a radio production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, doesn’t transplant Shakespeare to the present day so much as summon the spirit of his polymorphous comedies.
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Pili Groyne
Plot: A factory worker on the verge of being laid off (Marion Cotillard) has 48 hours to convince her co-workers to forego their bonuses so that she might keep her job.
HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT

Director: Ben Safdie, Joshua Safdie
Starring: Eleonore Hendricks, Arielle Holmes, Caleb Landry
Plot: A vagabond couple in NYC battling addiction amidst a manic love affair.
Monday, October 6th
TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER

Director: Nick Broomfield
Plot: Nick Broomfield digs into the case of the notorious serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper, who terrorized South Central Los Angeles over a span of twenty-five years.