#577 - Oren Rudavsky and Annette Insdorf on Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2025 edition of the New York Jewish Film Festival with Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire director Oren Rudavsky and co-producer Annette Insdorf. This conversation was moderated by Rachel Chanoff.
With his unforgettable and shattering 1958 memoir Night, Elie Wiesel forever changed the way the Holocaust would be written about. A survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a teenager, the Romanian-born Wiesel became an international spokesperson and renowned author, eloquently transforming his trauma into literature of the highest and most profound order. In this enthralling new documentary, filmmaker Oren Rudavsky goes deeper into Wiesel’s philosophically abundant inner life, depicted with nuance and tenderness, and enriched by access to his personal archives. In many ways a private man despite being one of the most public voices of Holocaust remembrance, Wiesel is presented here in newly intimate ways known only to his closest friends. Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire stands as a crucial testament to an extraordinary man who helped shape our collective memory of the darkest chapter of the 20th century.
--------
19:26
#576 - Zeinabu irene Davis, John Earl Jelks, and More on Compensation
Director Zeinabu irene Davis, writer Marc Arthur Chéry, and cast members Michelle A. Banks & John Earl Jelks discuss Compensation, an NYFF62 Revivals selection, with moderator Racquel Gates.
Compensation opens at Film at Lincoln Center on February 21. Learn more at filmlinc.org/compensation
Inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem of the same title, Zeinabu irene Davis’s debut feature is an exploration of language, migration, illness, love, and ritual that likewise illuminates unique Black histories, cultures, and artistry. Starring Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks, the film follows two couples in different time periods between the early and late 20th century who must contend with their emotions, tensions between Deaf and hearing experiences, and the toll of structural racism on Black lives during major medical epidemics. Shot in luminous black-and-white and incorporating a rich trove of historical photos, an original ragtime score, and title cards, Compensation evokes both a sense of tragedy and a hopefulness for life that remains persistent in the hearts of Black Americans today. A Janus Films release.
--------
28:07
#575 - Fernanda Torres, Walter Salles, and Marcelo Rubens Paiva on I'm Still Here
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 62nd New York Film Festival with I’m Still Here director Walter Salles, lead actress Fernanda Torres, and Brazilian journalist & author Marcelo Rubens Paiva. This conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.
An NYFF62 Spotlight selection, I’m Still Here is now nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Best International Feature, and Best Picture.
One afternoon in 1971, Rubens Paiva, a former congressman and outspoken critic of Brazil’s newly instituted military dictatorship, was taken from his home in Rio de Janeiro by government officials, told nothing more than that he must give a “deposition” to authorities, and disappeared. Adapted from his son Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, this overwhelming, richly realized political drama from Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) stays tightly wedded to the perspective of Rubens’s wife, Eunice (a shattering Fernanda Torres), whose indefatigable search for the truth about her husband would stretch out for decades. A devastating true story, I’m Still Here is exhilarating in its portrayal of human tenacity in the face of injustice. Featuring a deeply affecting appearance from Fernanda Montenegro, Oscar nominee for Salles’s Central Station. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
--------
46:52
#574 - Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui on Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui of the new hit documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.
The story of Christopher Reeve is an astonishing rise from unknown actor to iconic movie star, and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today. Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down.
After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care - all while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera and dedicating himself to his beloved family.
From the directors of McQueen, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, this film includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children about their father, and interviews with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. The film is a moving and vivid cinematic telling of Reeve’s remarkable story.
This conversation was moderated by Melena Ryzik. Super/Man is now streaming on Max.
--------
31:32
# 573 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin on Hard Truths
This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Hard Truths actresses Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin.
A Main Slate selection of the 62nd New York Film Festival, Mike Leigh’s latest film Hard Truths is now playing at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/truths
Mike Leigh returns to a contemporary milieu for the first time since Another Year for this raw, uncompromising domestic drama that continues the great British filmmaker’s inquiries into the possibility for happiness and the limits of human connection. In a gutsy, excoriating performance, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Oscar nominee for Leigh’s Secrets & Lies) absorbs herself completely into the role of Pansy, a middle-aged, working-class woman whose emotional and physical health problems have metastasized into a profound and relentless anger that’s become toxic for everyone around her, including her husband, grown son, doctors, and even strangers on the street. Raging against every aspect of her domestic life and fearful of the world beyond, Pansy only finds potential solace in the unwavering love of her sister. Bringing his customary, thrilling eye for the details of human behavior and the complexities of social interaction, Leigh has created in close collaboration with his extraordinary cast a rigorous and unflinching look at a life in freefall.
This conversation between was moderated by Madeline Whittle.
Hören Sie Film at Lincoln Center Podcast, The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott und viele andere Podcasts aus aller Welt mit der radio.at-App