Jodi Foster – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

New York Film Festival 2025 Roundup – Margaret Barton-Fumo reports

October 15, 2025October 24, 2025 Margaret Barton-Fumo A House Full of Dynamite, A Private Life, After the Hunt, claire denis, Duse, Geeta Gandbhir, Jodi Foster, kathryn bigelow, Miroirs No. 3, New York Film Festival, nina hoss, NYFF 2025, Rebecca Zlotowski, Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value', the fence, The Perfect Neighbor, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

This year, the 63rd annual New York Film Festival boasted an impressive roster of women-produced and women-prominent features, spanning across a variety of different genres. In general, this year’s more anticipated, big-ticket films turned out to be less remarkable than some of the quieter releases, as we’ll address in this roundup. The festival opener, for example, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, while an apt showcase for Julia Roberts, was a coolly received treatise on cancel culture told from within the confines of the ivory tower of academia. Other films in the Main Slate, like Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, while more understated features, received greater praise from audiences and critics alike.

Festivals Reviews

A PRIVATE LIFE (NYFF 2025) – Review by Margaret Barton-Fumo

September 30, 2025October 10, 2025 Margaret Barton-Fumo A Private Life, Daniel Auteuil, Frederick Wiseman, french films, Jodi Foster, NYFF 2025, Rebecca Zlotowski, Vie Privée

A Private Life is an engaging but purposefully jumbled film, following Jodi Foster’s Dr. Lilian Steiner, a confused expat psychoanalyst whose life turns upside-down when one of her patients unexpectedly commits suicide. Living and working in a gorgeous, book-filled Parisian apartment, Lilian tends to her patients distractedly, relying perhaps too heavily on her outdated mini-disc recorder. Abruptly dumped by her longstanding patient Pierre in favor of a hypnotist who apparently helped him quit smoking, Lilian handles the sudden rejection with a slightly befuddled ease—but when she discovers that another one of her patients, Paula has recently died, her reaction is more profound.

Festivals Reviews

A PRIVATE LIFE (TIFF 2025) Review by Leslie Combemale

September 6, 2025September 6, 2025 Leslie Combemale A Private Life, Daniel Auteuil, french films, Jodi Foster, Rebecca Zlotowski, TIFF 2025, Vie Privée

A Private Life is a genre-bending mashup of an absurdist comedy, a romance, a murder mystery, and a surreal examination of self and mortality, It follows expat therapist Lilian as she falls down an emotional and intellectual rabbit hole, the result of losing a longterm client to suicide. A stoic woman who takes self control to the logical absurdity, she finds she can’t stop crying.