by Ray Rogers
Shorts Program 8: Top of the World
From directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West, the Oscar-nominated team behind RBG, this documentary short revisits Windows on the World, the restaurant that once sat 107 stories above Manhattan atop the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Built on firsthand accounts from the restaurant’s former staff, the film traces its rise as a symbol of the city’s ambition before recounting the morning it was lost, along with 79 of its employees and 91 guests. “On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I can’t help but feel especially moved by this shorts program about Windows on the World and other restaurant stories,” says Nugent. “They are beautifully and movingly told.”
Iron Boy
Winner of the Special Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, this hand-painted animated film trades the CGI director Louis Clichy used on Pixar’s WALL-E and the Astérix franchise for ink brushes and watercolor. It follows 11-year-old Christophe, voiced by the director’s own son, who develops scoliosis and is fitted with the iron brace that gives the film its name, forcing him away from his family’s struggling farm and into the unlikely refuge of the church organ. Nugent’s take: “A handcrafted, family-friendly French film.”
Tender Loving Care
At 83, Mike Leigh, the seven-time Oscar-nominated writer-director behind such searing, insightful social dramas as Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake, may have made his final film with Tender Loving Care. Kate O’Flynn stars as a London social worker whose aging parents, played by Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson, face a crisis of their own. “One of the most beautiful films I’ve seen about what it means to live in our world,” says Nugent. “A reminder that caring for others is the most important thing we do.”
Spin Wars
Director Philip Byron traces SoulCycle’s rise from a small studio to a multimillion-dollar empire, alongside its fierce rivalry with Flywheel and Peloton. Indoor-cycling pioneer Marion Roaman opened one of her first studios in East Hampton before Flywheel acquired the business; she later became a founding member of Peloton’s team. Katie Couric, who lived through New York’s boutique-fitness boom firsthand, is among the film’s colorful chorus of insiders. “This documentary will really resonate with our audiences, as much of the action depicted began right here in the Hamptons cycling world,” says Nugent.
Mouse
Set in 2002 in North Little Rock, Arkansas, this coming-of-age drama traces a fractured teenage friendship and the unlikely bond that grows in its place, anchored by a breakout performance from newcomer Katherine Mallen Kupferer opposite a devastating, understated turn from Sophie Okonedo. Written by Kelly O’Sullivan and co-directed with Alex Thompson, the team behind 2024’s Ghostlight, the film carries the same tenderness that’s become their signature. It makes its New York premiere here after debuting at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. “From our 2020 Screenwriters Lab, this NY premiere is one of the most moving films in the entire lineup,” Nugent notes.
Burgundy
Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, the duo behind the Oscar-shortlisted The Truffle Hunters (which showed at HIFF in 2020), turn their lens on France’s storied wine region, following a vineyard patriarch, a young cellar hand and an apprentice sommelier, among others, through a year of grand cru viticulture. “For lovers of fine wine, France, classic cinema and so much more,” says Nugent, “this love letter to the Burgundy region is pure joy.”
Everest: The Other Side
Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the directors behind Free Solo, follow ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson as they train for an unprecedented goal: climbing Everest’s treacherous north face and skiing back down a route no one has ever completed. Nelson died in an avalanche on Manaslu while training for that climb; the film follows Morrison as he finishes it in her memory. HIFF hosts the film’s first U.S. IMAX screening. Nugent’s take: “A stunning film from the Oscar-winning team behind Free Solo.”
Best in Show with Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Bob Balaban
HIFF honors longtime East End resident Bob Balaban with its Lifetime Achievement Award this year, marked with a screening of Christopher Guest’s iconic 2000 mockumentary, in which Balaban plays the president of a kennel club on the competitive dog show circuit. Balaban has become one of the great straight men of American comedy, playing pompous authority figures with total, deadpan sincerity across four Guest films. “Balaban is a national treasure and one of our own,” says Nugent. “This is a wonderful reminder of his great work and of how beloved Christopher Guest films are.”
Sara Bareilles: Good Grief
Director Josh Alexander spends six days in an upstate New York studio with Grammy winner Sara Bareilles as she records Good Grief, her first album in seven years, written in the wake of losing two close friends—her former manager, Chad Joseph, to cancer in 2020, and Broadway co-star Gavin Creel in 2024. “An incredibly moving film,” Nugent says. “We’re thrilled that Sara will be joining us for the screening.”
The Oldest Person in the World
Documentarian Sam Green, an Oscar nominee for The Weather Underground, spent a decade traveling the globe to meet each successive record holder for the world’s oldest living person. The film is as much a meditation on mortality, fate and Green’s own life as it is a study of longevity. “Nobody makes films like Sam Green,” enthuses Nugent. “This one-of-a-kind film is not to be missed.”
Anatomy of a Scene: Project Hail Mary
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the directing/producing duo behind The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, sit down at HIFF to unpack their $684 million sci-fi hit, starring Ryan Gosling as a lone astronaut racing to save Earth. “A rare opportunity to hear directly from the two filmmakers behind one of the best films of the year on how they put it all together,” says Nugent.
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