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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

New York Film Festival

Sept 17 – Oct 11, 2020

The New York Film Festival usually takes place at Lincoln Center, but the 58th edition has morphed into a multi-borough initiative, with the festival’s virtual cinema offerings supplemented by drive-in venues at the Bronx Zoo, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the New York Hall of Science in Queens. Highlights include Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock, which looks at West Indian immigrants living in the U.K.; David Dufresne’s The Monopoly of Violence, about Paris’s Yellow Vest movement; Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI, on the F.B.I.’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.; Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand in an exploration of Americans on the road; and Spike Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia, a documentary on Byrne’s sensational 2019 Broadway show. —J.V.

Frances McDormand in Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland.” Photo: Searchlight Pictures.