NYFF's lineup digs Baumbach, Haneke, and Assayas

After a week of slowly revealing the three exclusive premieres of their festival, New York Film Festival has now unveiled the Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, and Venice scattered main slate for their 50th run. Amongst the already announced primary three, "Life of Pi", "Not Fade Away", and "Flight", also chosen for this year's festival are Cannes champion "Amour", Christian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills", Leos Carax's apparent fireball of "Holy Motors", and Pablo Larrain's universally acclaimed "No". Also of close interest from Cannes is "Like Someone in Love", a film that split critics decisively at Cannes, which promises an experience that's captivating at minimum.

From Berlin this year are "Barbara", "Caesar Must Die" (No, it's still not a sequel to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), and "Tabu", the last of which has had quite a few very outspoken champions. Out of Toronto are quite a few interspersed foreign features, plenty of which are likely to emerge as prominent candidates for this year's Foreign Language Film race. Fixed along with them are Noah Baumbach's rather secretive new project "Frances Ha", which instantly receives my attention based on up-and-comer Greta Gerwig's central role in the film. Less interesting is Oscar bait "Hyde Park of Hudson", which seems all too much like the "Albert Nobbs" of this year.

Finally from Venice are the significant additions of Olivier Assayas' "Something in the Air", which is as solid a bet as any based on the general acclaim of "Carlos" two years ago, and Brian de Palma's "Passion". It seems, based on the grand lineup, that this festival won't be so hollow a dumping ground from past festivals as it has had reputation for being in past years. The effort of the crew behind this festival is not only noticeable, but absolutely outstanding and officially has my full and complete attention. Check out the full lineup below!

Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria/France/Germany)
Araf—Somewhere In Between (Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Turkey/France/Germany)
Barbara (Christian Petzold, Germany)
Beyond the Hills/După dealuri (Cristian Mungiu, Romania)
Bwakaw (Jun Robles Lana, The Philippines)
Camille Rewinds/Camille Redouble (Noémie Lvovsky, France)
Caesar Must Die/Cesare deve morire (Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, Italy)
The Dead Man and Being Happy/El muerto y ser feliz (Javier Rebollo, Spain/Argentina)
Fill the Void/Lemale et ha'chalal (Rama Burshtein, Israel)
First Cousin Once Removed (Alan Berliner, USA)
Flight (Robert Zemeckis, USA)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, USA)
The Gatekeepers/Shomerei Ha’saf (Dror Moreh, Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)

Ginger and Rosa (Sally Potter, UK)
Here and There/Aquí y Allá (Antonio Méndez Esparza, Spain/US/Mexico)
Holy Motors (Léos Carax, France)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, USA/UK)
Kinshasa Kids (Marc-Henri Wajnberg, Belgium/France)
The Last Time I Saw Macao/A Última Vez Que Vi Macau (João Pedro Rodrigues)
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, USA)

Life of Pi (Ang Lee, USA)

Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, Japan/Iran/France)
Lines of Wellington/Linhas de Wellington (Valeria Sarmiento, France/Portugal)
Memories Look at Me/Ji Yi Wang Zhe Wo (Song Fang, China)
Night Across the Street/La Noche de enfrente (Raul Ruiz, Chile/France)
No (Pablo Larrain, Chile/USA)
Not Fade Away (David Chase, USA)
Our Children/À perdre la raison (Joachim Lafosse, Belgium)
Passion (Brian de Palma, France/Germany)
Something in the Air/Après Mai (Olivier Assayas, France)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes, Portugal)
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet/Vous n'avez encore rien vu (Alain Resnais, France)