NYFF 2026 Main Slate Wrap Up – Margaret Barton-Fumo reports

Recently at the 83rd Venice Film Festival a controversy arose: only one film was solo-directed by a woman in the main Golden Lion Competition slate, May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown, out of a selection of twenty titles. Serving as the festival’s jury president, the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal criticized the glaring discrepancy, calling the issue a “systemic problem.” The lack of women directors in the festival’s main slate was truly surprising, given the current steady rise of women-directed films in both popular culture and on the art-house circuit. We at the AWFJ regularly track such releases, and they certainly represent more than a mere one in twenty films, or 5%.

The numbers at this year’s New York Film Festival (the 64th) were still meager, but more uplifting. Out of thirty-four films in the festival’s Main Slate, nine were directed by women, or just under 25%. Even more promising, a dozen male-directed films within the Main Slate focused on women’s themes and featured women in leading roles. Out of the festival’s three pinnacle films, the closing night selection, 14th, was directed by Ava DuVernay—although the premiere courted some controversy as many critics and viewers were uneasy with the director’s liberal use of AI to animate historical images. Aside from this definite flaw, 14th makes some effective points, paying special attention to contemporary threats to birthright citizenship under the Trump administration while employing a historical perspective. A couple other women-directed or co-directed documentaries made waves within the Main Slate: Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s Naza, is a ruthless, clear-eyed and methodical takedown of Israeli drone warfare and genocide, while Julia Loktev’s ” target=”_blank”>My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile follows up with the subjects from Part I, the Russian journalists who were forced to flee their own country.

Some of the most memorable women-directed films in the festival strayed far away from reality, even veering into the abstract. Sandra Wollner’s Everytime is one such film, spending its last third in the realm of something akin to magical realism. A mother and her young daughter deal head-on with heavy grief following the sudden death of their daughter/sister, finding solace in the company of the girl’s boyfriend. A probing and distinctly contemporary meditation on loss, Everytime takes a sharp turn in its final hour, bending the laws of reality. Less talked about but just as aesthetically and emotionally powerful, Jacqueline Lentzou’s A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra (which played in the Currents section of the festival) likewise employed its final third act to ascend into uncharted territory. Tapping into dreamlike imagery, music and sounds, Lentzou created a filmic representation of the spiritual realm that is both playful and profound, this reviewer’s favorite discovery out of the festival.

Accomplished cinematographer Marine Atlan’s feature debut La Gradiva maintained a straightforward dramatic path that still managed to shock in its final act. A largely realistic observation of teenagers on a school trip to Pompeii, La Gradiva ends on a melodramatic note that divided viewers at the NYFF press screening. Atlan shows immense promise as a new filmmaker, tuned in to the nuances of her young actors’ performances while unafraid to make bold directorial decisions.

An almost ten-year veteran of the NYFF, Valeska Grisebach returned to the fest with her sophomore feature The Dreamed Adventure, which previously won the Jury Prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Her debut, Western (2017), portrayed the growing tension among native Bulgarians and immigrant Germans at a construction site. With The Dreamed Adventure, Grisebach returned to Bulgaria, and once again used masculine generic tropes to tell her story, about widespread corruption and mafia rule in an otherwise quiet border town. Unlike Western, this film focuses on a female protagonist, the self-assured charismatic archaeologist Veska (Yana Radeva), who diligently excavates more than just ancient artefacts. She fearlessly digs up illicit information, mostly through a series of multilayered conversations with members of the borderland community. Unfolding at a casual pace that comes to invoke a palpable tension, The Dreamed Adventure is a remarkably feminist, thrilling slow burn, and one of the most thought-provoking films within the festival.

Also in the Main Slate, Markus Schleinzer’s Rose is another film that slyly inserts a woman directly into a hostile, male-dominated scenario. Playing the title character who disguises herself as a male soldier during the Thirty Years War, the incomparable Sandra Hüller carries the film with a powerful, understated performance. She also shines in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, as the daughter of German novelist Thomas Mann. The Main Slate was peppered with standout performances by women actors like Kim Minhee, who matched Hüller’s two-film run with Nowhere to Lay My Eyes and The Day She Returns, both directed by Hong Sangsoo. The British actress Rosalind Eleazar also wowed audiences as the title character in Chris Rock’s Misty Green, as did Sophie Okonedo in Arie and Chuko Esiri’s fantastic adaptation of Virgina Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa.

There were two films that stood out by veteran male directors, not only for their clear focus on women, but also their sensitive depictions of both aging and caregiving. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, which garnered the Best Actress Award for its dual leads at the Cannes Film Festival, and Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care, purported to be the director’s last film, both attuned realistically to delicate subject matter. All of a Sudden homes in on Mari and Marie-Lou (Tao Okamoto and Virginie Efira), a terminally ill artist and the director of an elder-caregiving facility. Tender Loving Care also boasts two powerhouse leads, Kate O’Flynn and Marion Bailey as a pair of social workers and best friends who support each other when one of their fathers suffers from dementia. Both films beautifully elucidate female friendship, while demonstrating the very identifiable trials and tribulations of the process of caregiving. They are films that will strike a chord with most members of the audience, as they address problems that occur everyday within most families. They both swell with emotion in the best way possible, creating a highly effective, moving viewing experience. The same can be said for many of the films previously mentioned in this female-focused wrap-up, proving that this year’s NYFF was largely a success. Representing women who are scattered across the globe, it is likely the premier festival for international cinema.