NYFF: No Surprises

To no one’s surprise, Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” will be the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival, and the list released today includes Steven Soderbergh’s two-part “Che” as well as Mike Leigh’s “Happy Go Lucky,” Wong Kar Wei’s “Ashes of Time Redux” and Arnaud Desplechin’s “A Christmas Tale.” The closer will be Darren Aronofky’s “The Wrestler” starring Mickey Rourke. The list is on the jump. FRENCH AND U.S. PRODUCTIONS HIGHLIGHT

46TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL SLATE, SEPT. 26 – OCT. 12

Centerpiece: “Changeling”

Closing Night: “The Wrestler”

Retrospective: “Lola Montès”

NEW YORK, Aug. 12, 2008–– The North American premiere of Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” will be featured as Centerpiece of the 46th New York Film Festival and Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is the festival’s Closing Night selection, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today. A newly restored print of Max Ophuls’s final masterwork “Lola Montès” will be featured as the festival’s spotlight retrospective. All three films headline the festival’s 28-film main slate, which will screen at the Ziegfeld Theatre, Sept. 26 – Oct. 12.

Clint Eastwood’s provocative period drama “Changeling” stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a single mother in 1928 Los Angeles who returns home to find her nine-year-old son missing. The police return five months later with a child claiming to be her son, but despite the affirmation of the media, she remains unconvinced. After she unites with community activist Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), Collins’s desperate search for her child becomes an unlikely campaign against institutional corruption and a vigilant stand for equality under the law. The film was written by J. Michael Straczynski and produced by Eastwood, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Robert Lorenz, with Tim Moore and Jim Whitaker as executive producers. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released by Universal.

In the title role of Darren Aronofsky’s Closing Night film “The Wrestler,” actor Mickey Rourke gives “a performance of a lifetime,” says the Film Society’s Kent Jones. He plays once-popular pro Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who now ekes out a living performing for diehard wrestling fans in small-town venues throughout New Jersey. A heart attack forces him to reconsider his life, but his attempts to reconnect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and start a relationship with stripper Pam (Marisa Tomei) cannot outshine the allure of the ring. The film was written by Robert D. Siegel and produced by Scott Franklin and executive producer Jennifer Rother.

“Changeling” and “The Wrestler” follow on the notable success of last year’s Centerpiece and Closing Night selections: the Academy Award-winning “No Country for Old Men” and Oscar-nominated “Persepolis,” respectively.

France is represented in the festival’s main slate through four French films and eight international co-productions. Alongside the previously announced Opening Night film—Laurent Cantet’s “The Class”—French entries include Arnaud Desplechin’s star-studded family drama “A Christmas Tale,” Agnès Jaoui’s story of aspiring filmmakers following a rising female politician “Let It Rain” and Olivier Assayas’s moving introspection on time and mortality “Summer Hours.” Israeli director Ari Folman’s animated wartime autobiography “Waltz with Bashir” is one of several prominent French co-productions. The United States is the slate’s second most represented country, with “Changeling,” “The Wrestler,” Antonio Campos’s “Afterschool,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Wendy and Lucy,” and Alexander Olch’s “The Windmill Movie” all featured in the festival.

The Film Society welcomes a group of well-established alumni back to the New York Film Festival with new features, including Jia Zhangke (“24 City”), Wong Kar Wai (“Ashes of Time Redux”), and Mike Leigh (“Happy-Go-Lucky”). Steven Soderbergh also returns to the festival with “Che,” a controversial, two-part biography whose star, Benicio del Toro, won the Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Other prominent Cannes prizewinners in the slate include Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” (Grand Prize), Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” (Camera d’Or), Sergey Dvortsevoy’s “Tulpan” (Un Certain Regard Prize) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Tokyo Sonata” (Jury Prize, Un Certain Regard).

Additionally, Max Ophuls’s final masterpiece “Lola Montès” will be screened at the New York Film Festival for the third time, now as the spotlight retrospective. A biography told in flashbacks of notorious dancer and courtesan Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert—aka Lola Montès—Ophuls’s film is a meditation on time and the evanescent nature of fame and riches. Several earlier attempts to restore prints of “Lola Montès” have encountered difficulties due to Ophuls’s use of the relatively unstable Eastmancolor process. The 46th New York Film Festival will screen a gleaming new restoration from the Cinémathèque Française, which incorporates all available footage.

Tickets for the festival will go on sale Sunday, Sept. 7, at 12:00 noon at Avery Fisher Hall, corner of Columbus Avenue and 65th St.; Monday, Sept. 8, online at filmlinc.com; and on Saturday, September 27 at the Ziegfeld Theater, 141 West 54th St. For all other details and further information, please visit filmlinc.com.