Take in the audience favorite and award-winning films from the 2023 New York International Children’s Film Festival! These amazing short films inspire curiosity and conversation for viewers big and small. With animation, live action, and documentary shorts, Kid Flicks programs offer a chance to explore new frontiers from around the world, across the street, and the ever-expanding boundaries of our own perspectives.  

Whether dreaming up the fantastical, like a spider’s goal to capture the moon, or the practical, like a young animator’s future stardom, the shorts in Kid Flicks One are sure to enchant and delight all audiences (but especially our youngest!) 65min.

Designed for ages 5 to 10, but fun for all ages. 

Registration encouraged.

The New York International Children’s Film Festival’s collection of Spanish-language shorts spans genres, styles, and geographic regions to present a rich slice of Hispanic and Latinx storytelling that is perfect for celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.  

These amazing short films were audience favorites and award winners at the 2022 New York International Children’s Film Festival, and are sure to inspire curiosity and conversation for viewers big and small. 

For ages 9 and up. In Spanish, Portuguese, and O'odham with English subtitles. (66min.) 

Advanced registration is encouraged.
 

France / 2023|Dir. Frederick Wiseman

Legendary film documentary maker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the equally legendary La Maison Troisgros, the family-owned Paris restaurant that has held 3 Michelin stars for an unheard-of 55 years.

In his uniquely quiet, observational way, Wiseman goes inside the establishment, getting to know Troisgros family, and the chefs, food suppliers, vineyards, and servers that have built a world where a magical dining experience happens nightly—this time, before our eyes.

In French with English subtitles. (240 min.)
 

The trans writer and activist Paul B. Preciado used Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando, in which the title character starts life as a woman and then becomes a man, as a starting point in his documentary to look at the lives of trans people, past and present.

He cast 26 trans and non-binary people as different versions of Woolf’s famous gender nonconformist, using the book’s themes to talk about gender, social norms, and what it means to be trans.

In French with English subtitles. (98 min.) 

“A bracingly intelligent, delicate and detailed work.” –Screen International
 

India/2022 | Dir. S.S. Rajamouli

This exhilarating, action-packed spectacular was always conceived as a big-screen theatrical experience, and the DFT is proud to present it as it was intended to be seen!

Set in the 1920s before the fight for independence began, RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) imagines a fictional meeting between two real-life freedom fighters, set into motion when a young girl is stolen from her village by British soldiers.

With a powerful message, mind-boggling choreographed action sequences, and amazing musical numbers (including Naatu Naatu, winner of the 2023 Oscar® for Best Song), RRR is sheer big-screen joy from start to finish. To end the year properly, DFT audiences will have one more chance to see it as big and as loud as its creators intended. 

In Telugu and English with English subtitles (187 min.) 

“Such an irresistible and intoxicating celebration of cinematic excess that even after 187 minutes (including intermission or, as the title card announces, “InteRRRval”), you are left exhilarated, not exhausted.” —Joe Leydon, Variety

2023 | Dir: Aki Kaurismäki

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the first film in six years from Finland’s renowned Aki Kaurismäki (The Man Without a Past, Leningrad Cowboys Go America), Fallen Leaves follows Ansa and Holappa, two lonely people in dead-end jobs who meet at a karaoke club, followed by a first date in a movie theater, and onward toward romance — or not?

Kaurismäki’s films are sometimes described as deadpan, but that does them a disservice; he portrays his off-kilter characters with a deep empathy and affection.

In Finnish with English subtitles. (81 min.)  

“Kaurismäki’s beguiling and delightful cinephile comedy is romantic and sweet-natured, with springtime in its heart.” –Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Dir. Rodrigo Moreno, 2023

Timid bank clerk Morán (Daniel Elías), fed up with his middle-management  job, walk into the vault, pack a bag with enough cash to get him to retirement, and walks out.

He knows there are security cameras, and the police are coming, so he stows the cash with his coworker Román (Esteban Bigliardi), who grudgingly agrees to hold onto the money until Morán gets out of prison in three and a half years, or so he hopes.

Moreno takes this familiar heist plot structure and builds out a very different kind of film, with pastoral interludes, characters whose lives mirror and double back, and more.  

“This is a deadpan comedy which strides off down its own confident, eccentric path…”  —The Guardian
 

USA/1936 | Dir. Charles Chaplin

Modern Times, Chaplin’s last outing as the “Little Tramp,” puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard).

With its barrage of unforgettable visual gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, Modern Times pushes boundaries in every way.

It’s mostly a silent film, but with a synchronized Chaplin score that includes the melody “Smile”, as well as a startling comic song from Chaplin  near the end, yet it was made and successfully released almost a decade after sound came to the movies. 

Admission is free. (87 min.)

“A masterpiece. The opening sequence is possibly Chaplin’s greatest encounter with the 20th century.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

USA/1931 | Dir. Charles Chaplin

Releasing a silent film years after the introduction of sound was an astonishing risk for Chaplin, yet City Lights is anything but old-fashioned. A poor tramp (Chaplin) encounters a blind flower-seller (Virginia Cherrill) on a busy city street.

She believes he’s wealthy, and rather than disillusion her, he vows to keep his status a secret, and somehow find enough money to pay for the operation that will restore her sight. His comic genius is at its height in legendary sequences, but the final moments are what it’s all about.

Admission is free; our holiday gift to you. (86 min.)

“Magical… comes closest to representing all the different notes of Chaplin’s genius.” —Roger Ebert, The Great Movies
 

France/Italy/1963 | Dir: Jean-Luc Godard

Godard’s foray into lush color and CinemaScope moviemaking stars the great Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter caught in a tangle of deceit and ambition between a difficult, demanding director (Fritz Lang), a crude, snarling American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey.

A pillar of the French New Wave, Godard’s cinematography with its sun-soaked settings, dazzling seascapes, and complex color scenes, are spectacularly refreshed in a dazzling new restoration. In French, German and Italian with English subtitles. (104 min.) 

“A masterwork…a many-layered odyssey of intelligence and sensuality.” –Phillip Lopate, The New York Times