This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Omen director Baloji from the 2024 edition of New Directors/New Films.

The sense of dread that often accompanies being around blood relatives with whom you share no real connection is brought into vivid focus in songwriter and rapper Baloji’s debut feature, Omen. Having been banished to Europe as a baby after a birthmark convinced his mother that he must be a sorcerer, Koffi (Marc Zinga) and his white Belgian fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay) embark on a family reconciliation trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The kinetic chaos of the return—missed airport transfers and traffic, bloody noses, family gatherings and judgments––sets the stage for a visceral reimmersion tale. Winner of the New Voice Prize at Cannes and selected as Belgium’s entry for the 96th Academy Awards, Omen melds the modern and the mystical in mesmerizing fashion. A Utopia release.

This conversation was moderated by New Directors/New Films committee member Tyler Wilson.

#520 - Baloji on Omen

The Film at Lincoln Center Podcast is a weekly podcast that features in-depth conversations with filmmakers, actors, critics, and more.

TV & Film

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes from a recent advance screening of the highly anticipated new film Challengers.

From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist, West Side Story), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (Josh O’Connor, The Crown)–his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win?

The conversation was moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Madeline Whittle.

#524 - Justin Kuritzkes on Challengers

This week we’re excited to present a special podcast episode featuring the star-studded speeches from our recent Chaplin Award Gala. 

FLC was pleased to honor Jeff Bridges as the recipient of the 49th Chaplin Award, presented at a gala evening on April 29. The full house at Alice Tully Hall was treated to a joyful celebration of the actor’s incredible body of work with hilarious and heartfelt tributes by Bridges’s costars, culminating in Chris Pine presenting the Chaplin Award to the Dude himself.

The evening’s guest speakers included, in order of appearance, FLC President Lesli Klainberg; Sharon Stone, who starred in two 1999 films with Bridges: Matthew Warchus’s Simpatico and Albert Brooks’s The Muse; Rosie Perez, who appeared with Bridges in Peter Weir’s Fearless, for which Perez received a 1993 Academy Award nomination; Blythe Danner, who starred alongside Bridges in the 1975 film Hearts of the West; and Chris Pine, who co-starred with Bridges in the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water in 2016.

#523 - Jeff Bridges at the 49th Chaplin Award Gala

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 2024 edition of New Directors/New Films with Exhibiting Forgiveness director Titus Kaphar and lead actor André Holland.

One of the contemporary art world’s most important painters, Titus Kaphar creates powerful work that is multidisciplinary in nature and profound in historical meaning, often incorporating multiple layers and sculptural dimensions to his canvases. Kaphar brings the same sense of profoundly felt dynamism to his startlingly accomplished cinematic debut, Exhibiting Forgiveness, a wrenching work of emotional depth and visual flair starring the magnificent André Holland in one of the actor’s greatest screen roles so far. Painter Tarrell Rodin (Holland) is a loving and grounded husband to singer Aisha (Andra Day) and father to young Jermaine (Daniel Berrier), but he’s violently haunted by nightmares of his childhood. While preparing for a new gallery show, Tarrell finds his life upended by the sudden return of his father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks). His mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), has forgiven La’Ron for the abuse and addiction of their family’s troubled past, but Tarrell cannot bring himself to do the same.

While working on his large-scale canvases, Tarrell journeys to his past, wondering if he can alter the pain of his present. Kaphar’s film—as provocative in its depiction of unresolvable familial crises as it is about the meaning and co-opting of Black voices in the contemporary art scene—wrestles with difficult, personal questions without settling on easy answers.

The conversation was moderated by New Directors/New Films selection committee member Madeline Whittle.

#522 - Titus Kaphar and André Holland on Exhibiting Forgiveness

This week we’re excited to present two conversations: the first with Stress Positions director Theda Hammel, co-writer Faheem Ali, & lead actor John Early from Closing Night of the 2024 edition of New Director/New Films, and the second with The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed director Joanna Arnow & her cast from the 61st New York Film Festival.

The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed will open at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, April 26 with Q&As at select screenings opening weekend. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/feeling

Our Stress Positions conversation was moderated by ND/NF selection committee member Madeline Whittle.

Our The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed conversation was moderated by NYFF61 Currents programmer Tyler Wilson.

#520 - Baloji on Omen

Download our free app to listen on your phone