Things to look for­ward to at the Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val 2016

Octo­ber is always a great month for UK fes­ti­val­go­ers. The fact that the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val has rolled up its red car­pets, isn’t going to stop us from seek­ing out our five-a-day fest diet else­where. A return flight to Wrocław, Poland works out cheap­er than a train to Man­ches­ter and back, and next week sees this year’s Euro­pean City of Cul­ture play host to its sec­ond major film fes­ti­val of 2016.

The Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val may be the younger sib­ling to the city’s enor­mous New Hori­zons Fes­ti­val that takes place over the sum­mer, but its pro­gram­ming proves just as excit­ing. Host­ing key awards con­tenders and inde­pen­dent dis­cov­er­ies alike, it’s a mea­sure of the AFF’s eclec­tic pro­gram­ming that select­ing what to see across the six days proves a chal­lenge and a half. As ever, this year’s series of ret­ro­spec­tives are impos­si­ble to ignore; one could spend the entire trip just watch­ing old movies and leave suit­ably nour­ished. We’ll be in Wrocław for the dura­tion, report­ing back on some high­lights as we find them, but in the mean­time, here’s a few bits and pieces we’re espe­cial­ly look­ing for­ward to.

A chance to get ahead of the crowd with a series of films like­ly to prove key play­ers in the upcom­ing awards sea­son. The AFF opens this year with Jim Jarmusch’s report­ed­ly mag­nif­i­cent, Pater­son (his Stooges doc, Gimme Dan­ger also plays), and clos­es six days lat­er with Tom Ford’s fol­low-up to A Sin­gle Man, Noc­tur­nal Ani­mals. Two of the year’s very best films receive their Pol­ish pre­mieres in the form of Kel­ly Reichardt’s swoon-wor­thy Cer­tain Women and Ken­neth Lonergan’s heart-wrench­ing Man­ches­ter by the Sea, while Clint East­wood makes a smooth land­ing with the Tom Han­ks-star­ring Sul­ly. Still unseen in the UK, we’re espe­cial­ly look­ing for­ward to Jeff Nichols’ peri­od dra­ma, Lov­ing, along with the chance to catch up with Olivi­er Assayas’ Per­son­al Shop­per – the lat­est in Kris­ten Stewart’s sen­sa­tion­al run of films – not due to hit UK screens until Feb­ru­ary 2017.

A stel­lar ret­ro­spec­tive that charts the Amer­i­can films made by a series of Euro­pean auteurs. If you know how big the screens were at the fes­ti­val hub, you’ll not want to miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch Ser­gio Leone’s mas­ter­piece, Once Upon a Time in the West (fin­gers crossed for the 70mm road­show print!) A Wednes­day morn­ing dou­ble-bill of desert-based nihilism has us first in line, as Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point plays after Bruno Dumont’s vast­ly under­rat­ed Twen­ty­nine Palms; here’s hop­ing we’ll be sat next to a first time view­er for the lat­ter. Bertrand Tavernier’s Mis­sis­sip­pi Blues sees the French film­mak­er sur­vey the music of the epony­mous delta, while Emir Kusturica’s Ari­zona Dream reminds us of the days when John­ny Depp pic­tures could still be enjoyed – watch out for Vin­cent Gallo’s hilar­i­ous reimag­in­ing of the crop-duster sequence from North by North­west. Top of our list though is the haunt­ing dou­ble from Chan­tal Aker­man in News From Home and Mon­terey Hotel, as well as a first time view­ing of Swedish film­mak­er Bo Widerberg’s Joe Hill.

The cen­tre­piece of the Euro­peans in Amer­i­ca strand is a series of screen­ings from Wim Wen­ders. With his focus on doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing in recent years, and 2015’s dis­as­trous Every Thing Will Be Fine, it’s easy to for­get how great the Ger­man film­mak­er could be in the ear­li­er stages of his career. His obses­sion with the cul­tur­al accou­trements of Amer­i­cana stretch all the way back to his 1974 film Alice in the Cities, peak­ing with his 1984 mas­ter­piece Paris, Texas. The AFF will be play­ing the lat­ter on one of their biggest screens, along with a selec­tion of Amer­i­can pic­tures culled from the cinema’s com­plete, ongo­ing retrospective.

Now this is excit­ing. A gen­er­ous selec­tion of the films Hollywood’s orig­i­nal enfant ter­ri­ble made while in effec­tive exile in Europe, any oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch these on the big screen sim­ply has to be tak­en up. Not only are the mag­nif­i­cent likes of The Tri­al, Oth­el­lo and F for Fake includ­ed in the pro­gramme, but also the film now con­sid­ered by many to be Welles’ mas­ter­piece, Chimes at Mid­night. Along­side the fea­tures, AFF offers a rare selec­tion of the filmmaker’s work for tele­vi­sion, as well as an entic­ing glimpse of frag­ments from unfin­ished projects.

Con­tin­u­ing the theme of screen­ing the State­side work of Euro­pean film­mak­ers, the great Agnès Var­da has all five of her Cal­i­forn­ian films screen­ing at the fes­ti­val. Recent­ly col­lect­ed togeth­er by the Cri­te­ri­on collection’s Eclipse imprint, this offers a very rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to see them on the big screen. By turns charm­ing, eccen­tric and end­less­ly reflex­ive, the films range from short doc­u­men­tary por­trait in Uncle Yan­co, via obser­va­tion­al polit­i­cal activism (Black Pan­thers), through to her rich, unclas­si­fi­able ​“emo­tion pic­ture” she made on return­ing to the US in the ear­ly ​’80s, Doc­u­menteur. The grand-dame of French film­mak­ing will be on hand for an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion on her time in the States fol­low­ing a screen­ing of her eye-pop­ping 1969 col­lab­o­ra­tion with Shirley Clarke, Lions Love (…and Lies).

The 7^th Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val runs from 25 – 30 Octo­ber in Wrocław, Poland. The full pro­gramme can be explored at www​.amer​i​can​film​fes​ti​val​.pl