New York Film Festival seeks to shake up award season

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/filmfestivals/la-et-mn-nyff-curtain-20140925-story.html#page=1

The time for the New York Film Festival has come again and the films lined up are a variety of diverse and most likely award-winning films. The festival has showcased the Oscar winners of past years such as "Her" and "Life of Pi". This season will bring a lot of premieres of many different films by many different actors. "Gone Girl" is a widely anticipated one directed by David Fincher. Others are "Birdman", "Inherent Vice", "Citizenfour", and more. The secret-screening film is rumored to either be "Fury" or "Still Alice". Other than the films, the chief who runs the festival will change again after a recent four year run by Kuo in December. This caught my eye because I've always been curious about the film festivals, especially New York's. I have also been interested and anticipating the film "Gone Girl" so I'm glad to see it premiere at this festival and gain recognition possibly and preferably for the upcoming award season. As a filmmaker, I can see the parallels being drawn for two major American directors, Fincher and Anderson, who are both making a film relating in crime drama. But instead of seeing the similarities, it's the contrast between these two directors that make all the difference. Festival director, Kent Jones, comments, "Paul is an immersive filmmaker who gets into gestures and tone of the time so that film itself becomes a kind of time machine‎. David has a completely different way of making a movie where things become much more complex and layered in the structure of the film. With Paul," he added, "a lot of that happens within the frame." As a student, it's good to learn about where the films receive their most recognition and lead into box office sales and oscar nominees with festival such as these. As a consumer, it helps me see which films are truly the ones worthwhile watching and will open my eyes and mind. Seeing "Gone Girl" as one of their top premieres makes me want to see it even more. A question I do have is who chooses the films being put into this festival and how exactly does that process work?