The 46th New York Film Festival line-up was announced yesterday and while it isn’t as exciting as I hoped, there is still a lot to look forward to. I love the NYFF and more than that, it is a great place to find TakePart worthy films - films that open your eyes, ears and hearts to social issues and countries you may not normally think about.

takepart to read about all the films being featured at this year’s fest and read below for some highlights of the films I am especially excited about

“24 City” (Er shi si cheng ji)
Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 2008; 112m
The rise and fall of a Chinese factory town is chronicled in this film, straddling the border between fiction and documentary.

“Che”
Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain, 2008; 268m
Steven Soderbergh’s two-part Spanish-language epic about Che Guevara’s revolutionary military campaigns in Cuba and Bolivia features a brilliant lead performance by Benicio del Toro.

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The Palme D’Or (and the rest of the prizes at Cannes) was given out on Sunday and this time around the winner was Laurent Cantet’s “Entre Les Murs” (”The Class”), a story about a teacher teaching in the 20th quarter and the difficulties his students face in terms of French identity. “The docudrama was shot in a raw, improvisational style to chronicle the drama that unfolds over one school year.” [AP] “Based on a best-selling autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, who plays the main character, “The Class” is given great life by the performances of the nonprofessional actors playing the students. Mr. Cantet brought them onstage with him to accept the prize, and they brought the entire Palais des Festivals to its feet. [NYTimes]

to listen to a podcast with the director.

The other prizes included the following:

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Jeremy Gilley has spent the past 10 years campaigning for one international day of “ceasefire” - it’s been tiring, but thankfully he now has someone with a little star power on his side, Jude Law:

It was the day movie celebrity met world peace. Jude Law yesterday swept into the Cannes film festival to explain why he was helping a documentary-maker who for the last 10 years has campaigned for an official day of ceasefire and non-violence.

Law said he had become a “sounding board” and “therapist” to campaigner Jeremy Gilley and ended up travelling with him to Afghanistan to help spread his message for a world peace day to be held every year, on September 21.

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“Tyson”, the new documentary about the troubled career of boxer Mike Tyson, made its debut last week at the Cannes Film Festival. Filmmaker James Toback uses his second documentary to take an intimate look at a subject he knows well, the former Heavyweight Champion of the World. The two first met in 1987 when actor Anthony Michael Hall brought Tyson to the set of “The Pick Up Artist”, which Toback was directing. What has ensued is a 20+ year friendship culminating in the film.

There is only one interview in “Tyson”, with Tyson himself, who with a Maori tattoo surrounding his left eye, gives often shocking, profanity laced accounts of a life filled with enormous ups and downs. Stories of becoming Heavyweight Champ, blowing through $300-400 Million, being convicted of raping ex-wife Robin Givens (a charge denied by both Tyson and Toback), and biting Evander Holyfield’s ear of, not once, but twice are all recounted by the former boxer.

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Woody Harrelson apparently forgot his vegan shoes and belt as part of his Cannes Film Festival ensemble last week. When his assistants couldn’t find replacements for them, he had the accessories flown to France. Says Ecorazzi:

“Now, in the scheme of things, having an extra pair of shoes and a belt on an overnight FedEx plane that was bound for France anyways is not going to kill a polar bear. But it’s the environmentally insensitive request from someone who truly lives the green lifestyle that has us puzzled. And that’s a first coming from someone like Harrelson.”

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Here’s the main competition line-up - I’m personally most excited for the films by Jia Zhangke, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Arnaud Desplechin and Lucretia Martel. I’m least excited for the Clint Eastwood…

In Competition

Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Three Monkeys
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne - Le Silence De Lorna
Arnaud Desplechin - A Christmas Story
Clint Eastwood - Changeling
Atom Egoyan - Adoration
Ari Folman - Waltz With Bashir
Philippe Garrel - La Frontiere De L’Aube
Matteo Garrone - Gomorra

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