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Florentina Holzinger Makes Everybody Uncomfortable

Florentina Holzinger Makes Everyone Uncomfortable

BERLIN – In a rehearsal hall on the outskirts of the city, Xana Novais hung on his teeth. On a recent night, the tattooed 27-year-old actor hung inches off the ground, bit down on a piece of leather hanging from a rope, and perfected a new skill called “Iron Jaw”. It didn’t look easy.

Novais was practicing for a sequence in Ophelia’s Got Talent, a new work by Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger, which premieres Thursday at Berlin’s Volksbühne. As part of the performance, which mixes dance, stunts, and sideshow-inspired acts, Novais was expected to hang like a fish on a hook for about half a minute. But after 20 seconds she let go, settled and grimaced. “This is about learning to deal with complaints,” she said.

Discomfort is central to the work of Holzinger, 36, who has recently become a star of the European dance and performance world by pushing the boundaries of what performers – and audiences – can endure. Holzinger, whose interest in physical extremes stems from her own training as a dancer, has found recognition for work that features large casts of nude female performers and explores sublime ideas about art and gender, while showing acts that sometimes involve bodily fluids that erase that limits of good taste.

In “Apollon,” a 2017 play that explores the work of choreographer George Balanchine and notions of artist and muse, performers bled and defecated onstage. “A Divine Comedy,” a 2021 riff on Dante’s epic poem about the circles of hell, included a scene in which a woman ejaculates explosively while using a vibrator. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of her performances are interrupted by spectators walking out.

Ophelia’s Got Talent – an exploration of myths and tales about women and water, including mermaids, sirens and the tragic, drowning character from Hamlet – is the first of several original works Holzinger is creating under a multi-year agreement with the Volksbühne , one of the most influential theaters in the German-speaking world.

René Pollesch, the theater’s artistic director, said he was drawn to Holzinger’s work in part because she was interested in showcasing a variety of strong female performers, including older women and women with disabilities, who put on daring and challenging performances on stage accomplish. “This is radical feminism, not reform feminism,” he said.

Holzinger, who has a self-deprecating wit and the physical intensity of a boxer, explained in an interview that during the show she and her cast would thread fish hooks through their skin and hold their breath underwater for up to five minutes. At one point, she said, performers would form the shape of a fountain and spurt water from their noses. “It’s going to be a beautiful picture,” she said.

She added that while she drew inspiration from dance history, mythology and action films, including the James Bond franchise, she viewed the stage as a “laboratory” where supposedly taboo acts could be freely performed. “I might be able to educate people about what forms of shame are necessary and which aren’t,” she said.

Living under capitalism encourages individuals to perfect themselves, Holzinger said, adding that her work was about the way this shaped women’s bodies. “We’re in a society where you can buy and create your own femininity and tweak yourself in whatever way the system wants you to be,” she said. In her work, she added, she tried to find “unexpected” ways to use the body that was conditioned by social pressures to look and move a certain way.

Barbara Frey, the artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale, a major arts festival in Germany that commissioned Eine Divine Comedy, said Holzinger created a “new form” of performance that combined “dance, exuberant wit, great tenderness” and “the Roman gladiator arena” and explores “the male gaze – and the female gaze – of the female body”.

Some have compared her work to the Vienna Actionists, an Austrian art movement of the 1960s and 70s whose (predominantly male) followers staged performances in which they engaged in extreme acts, including self-mutilation, in order to confront viewers with what they were seen as repressed elements of Austrian society. Although Holzinger has previously said she takes little inspiration from the movement, her association with the Actionists, who are now a revered part of Austrian art history, helped her gain early respect in her home country, she explained.

Born in Vienna as the son of a pharmacist and a lawyer, Holzinger started dancing late. She said that shortly after beginning her training at the age of 17, she realized that it was too late for her to perfect the skills needed for a classical dancing career and that she was “too strong, too muscular for it.” Ballet” was.

After being rejected by several traditional European dance academies, she enrolled at the School for New Dance Development, an experimental school in Amsterdam, where she began exploring alternative ways of using her body as a vehicle for spectacle. “When I train my body to pee on command, I exercise control over my body,” she said. “It could be considered a form of dance technique, even if it’s not a grand jeté or tendu.”

After several eyebrow-raising collaborations with Vincent Riebeek, a Dutch choreographer, Holzinger said she reached a turning point in her career after a near-death experience during a performance at an arts festival in Norway in 2013, during which she fell from a height of 16 years had feet in the air during a stunt. Although she survived with a concussion and a broken nose, the accident caused by a loosening bolt holding her weight led her to take a more diligent approach to her work and safety.

Since then she has focused on creating her more elaborate works for all-female ensembles. Four years after the accident, she debuted with “Apollon,” a play that wrestled with what Holzinger called the “lived experience of ballet” and the “exaggerated femininity of ballerinas.” The show was widely acclaimed and toured internationally. This piece, as well as its 2019 follow-up Tanz, drew parallels between the suffering of dancers – including through the ballet shoe, which she described as an “object of torture” that often deforms and bleeds dancers’ feet – and the staged violence of less sophisticated ones Acts like sword swallowing or body hanging shows.

Finding performers for her work, she admitted, wasn’t always easy. Some, like Novais, have a theater background, while others are sex workers or supporting actresses. As part of her recruiting efforts, she said, she once advertised on Craigslist for “women with special talents.”

But her work has also attracted artists from more traditional dance backgrounds, including Trixie Cordua, 81, a former soloist with the Hamburg Ballet who has worked with John Cage. Cordua, who has Parkinson’s and sometimes uses a motorized wheelchair to move around on stage, said in a telephone interview that she was drawn to working with Holzinger because she has “the ability to combine things that don’t normally go together, to form a whole new constellation” and because of their willingness to go “very, very far”.

Holzinger said she was comfortable with the fact that the extreme elements of her works often caused people to leave her performances. “When people come to me expecting an evening of abstract postmodern dance, I totally respect their decision to leave,” she said. “I’d rather have 10 people in the audience who think it’s cool.”

Ophelia’s Got Talent
Sept. 15 to Oct. 25 at the Berlin Volksbühne; volksbühne.berlin.

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LeBron James’s Household Picture Shoot For Self-importance Truthful

LeBron James and his family were photographed by Gillian Laub for Vanity Fair at their LA home.

Can you believe LeBron James and his beautiful family just got their first ever magazine photoshoot? The Los Angeles Laker; his wife Savannah; sons Bronny and Bryce; and daughter Zhuri all posed together for a lavish “photo extravaganza” at their Los Angeles home for Vanity Fair’s October 2022 issue just ahead of LeBron’s 20th NBA season. They all gathered for the fun family event in what Savannah described to the outlet as a “transitional moment” for her and her husband’s three children.

Bronny, the couple’s oldest and current guardian for their high school basketball team in Sierra Canyon, turns 18 next month and “is coming to a place where he can start making decisions about his career and where he wants to go in his life,” according to the statement his statement mother. Vanity Fair reports that LeBron intends for the father-son duo to one day play together in the NBA, a hope the sports media has raved about for years. LeBron and Savannah’s youngest, 7-year-old Zhuri, is also keeping busy with her YouTube lifestyle show called “All Things Zhuri” (and her 205,000 YouTube subscribers). Meanwhile, 15-year-old Bryce, whom Savannah calls “the mystery of the family,” is another potential basketball teen who “could go in any direction.”

LeBron and Savannah have now been together for 20 years, and the high school sweethearts tied the knot in September 2013 before starting their family. Though the James clan has shared many happy moments together over the years, her new profile shows Savannah’s hope in their momentum as they all continue to grow.

“Since LeBron is her dad, it’s just automatic,” she told Vanity Fair of her kids’ celebrity status. “It’s not something we pushed on them or told them they had to do or anything like that. It just happened.” She also said of the family’s “quiet dynamic” at home, “Everything isn’t for everyone,” adding that she wanted her photoshoot to “reflect the bonds that underlie the family’s influence lying” and “showing the world its center of gravity”. “Excuse my language, but we are a crazy family.”

On September 13, LeBron and Savannah celebrated the release of their photoshoot by sharing their stylish photos on Instagram. “There’s also King’s and Queen’s/Royalty in America and I hope I can be one of those who show that on a daily basis🤴🏾👸🏾🤴🏾🤴🏾👸🏾 James Gang at home!!!” the former captioned his post. “I love our family so damn much!!!!! @mrs_savannahrj @bronny @_justbryce @allthingszhuri 🤎🤎🤎🤎 Many thanks to @gigilaub and the entire @vanityfair team for this beautiful route. 🙏🏾 👑 #ThekidsfromAKRON #BlackExcellence✊🏾 .”

In her own post, Savannah wrote, “Wow!! was great, but to see us in this light blows my mind! 🤯 Representation matters🤎.”

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Tina Ramirez, Founding father of a Main Hispanic Dance Troupe, Dies at 92

Tina Ramirez, Founder of a Leading Hispanic Dance Troupe, Dies at 92

Tina Ramirez, who founded Ballet Hispánico in New York on a small budget more than 50 years ago and grew it into the nation’s premier Hispanic dance performance and education troupe, died Tuesday at her home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She was 92.

Verdery Roosevelt, longtime executive director of the Ballet Hispánico, announced the death.

Ms. Ramirez, who came to New York from Venezuela as a child, was a dancer herself when, in 1963, she took over the studio of one of her teachers, flamenco dancer Lola Bravo, and turned to teaching. Many of her students came from low-income Latino households, and she saw dance transform them.

“The kids started concentrating better and collaborating better with other people,” she told The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, NY in 1981. “You just need to feel better.”

Hoping to reach more students, she arranged some money from the city’s Office of Economic Opportunity and in 1967 started a summer program called Operation High Hopes to introduce children to dance and other arts. The program’s dance performances proved popular, and in 1970, when some of these youth were in their teens, Ms. Ramirez founded Ballet Hispánico with a $20,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

“I wanted to give Hispanic dancers employment,” she told The Democrat and Chronicle. “I didn’t want them to have to dance in nightclubs. They were serious dancers and deserved the opportunity to be treated as such.”

She also wanted to make the cultural influences she was familiar with accessible to a broader public.

“In the early days, I just wanted Hispanics to have a voice in the dance and for people to get to know us as people,” she told The New York Times in a 2008 article marking her retirement. “Because, you know, you went to a ballet and there was someone squatting in a sombrero, and that’s not us.”

The “ballet” in the troupe’s name sometimes threw off people expecting classical ballet. Mixing styles and influences, her company leaned more towards Latin folk and modern dance.

“Ballet means everything with action and music,” she once said. “That doesn’t mean pointe shoes and tutus.”

In the beginning, the troupe had limited resources and performed wherever they could – in prisons, hospitals and often outdoors, in parks and on the streets.

“Those were the days when the streets were burning,” Ms. Ramirez said. “It was so bad that if you looked the wrong way, you could start a riot. But we toured everywhere.”

The company grew in prestige and reach, eventually touring the country and Europe and South America.

Ms. Ramirez “was very proud of her heritage and her community,” Ms. Roosevelt, the company’s longtime executive director, said via email. “She had a great eye for choreographers who could combine dance forms, music and aesthetics from the Spanish-speaking world with contemporary dance techniques. When she started, there was nothing like it.”

Just as important as the company’s achievements were its educational efforts. It had its own school and also sent its dancers to schools in New York City or wherever it stopped on tour. Joan Finkelstein, former director of dance education for the New York City Department of Education, witnessed the impact of Ms. Ramirez firsthand.

“Tina understood that Ballet Hispánico could not only edify general audiences, but also instill pride and appreciation for Latin dance and cultural heritage, and empower all of our children for future success,” Ms. Finkelstein said via email.

Ernestina Ramirez was born on November 7, 1929 in Caracas, Venezuela. Her father, José Ramirez, was a well-known Mexican bullfighter by the name of Gaonita. Her mother, Gloria, who was from Puerto Rico, was a homemaker and community leader.

Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother took the family to New York, where she remarried and became known as Gloria Cestero Diaz for her advocacy for the city’s Puerto Rican people.

Beginning in 1947, Ms. Ramirez toured for several years with dancers Federico Rey and Lolita Gomez, whose show was often dubbed the “Rhythms of Spain.” From 1949 to 1951 she lived and studied in Spain.

When she returned to the United States, she began performing with her sister, Coco. In 1954, the pair took the stage at a St. Louis club with comedian Joey Bishop and singer Dorothy Dandridge and performed a flamenco routine. In 1956, a headline in the Louisville, Kentucky Courier Journal of a touring theatrical production proclaimed, “Two Daughters of Famous Matador Will Play Princesses in ‘Kismet,'” and they did so for years.

When that show was playing at the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ, in 1960, Carole Cleaver wrote in a review for The Wyckoff News, “Tiny Tina and Coco Ramirez dance themselves to exhaustion as the difficult Ababu princesses and bring the house down.”

Mrs. Ramirez is survived by her sister, Coco Ramirez Morris.

Alongside her studies with Ms. Bravo, Ms. Ramirez studied with classical ballerina Alexandra Danilova and modern dance pioneer Anna Sokolow. She was able to bring these influences to the Ballet Hispánico, which presented new works and interpreted older ones through the lens of Latin American culture. In the beginning it was an identity yet to be formed.

“When I started Ballet Hispánico in 1970, there was no dance company that represented the Hispanic people,” she told the Times in 1984. “Back then, people didn’t know what Hispanic meant — not even Hispanics.

“I’ve been criticized for naming the company Ballet Hispánico,” she continued. “People said I should name it after a country or a city or a place. But I said no because we are 21 nations, all Spanish speaking – and we should all belong.”

Among the myriad of dancers who studied with Ms. Ramirez early in her career was Nelida Tirado, who has enjoyed an acclaimed career as a flamenco dancer.

“Tina Ramirez taught us to be proud and to commit to excellence regardless of our line of work,” Ms. Tirado said via email. “She taught us the importance of preparation, discipline, hard work and living bravely from the mundane to the stage. Because opportunities don’t come easily to us – but if they do, they should be seized.”

Ms. Ramirez’s company has garnered good attention from the start.

“Tina Ramirez’s Ballet Hispánico of New York is a company of 13 dancers from the city’s barrios,” Jennifer Dunning wrote in a 1974 Times review, “and on Saturday night they brought the Clark Center for the Performing Arts their very youthful Vibrant energy and charm.”

Ms. Ramirez was an energetic woman who, after a day working with dancers and taking care of administrative matters, often spent her evenings in the audience of dance shows scouting new choreographic talent.

“It’s very important to me to connect to what’s happening right now,” she told the Times in 1999. “I think that’s why audiences everywhere are so drawn to us. We reflect on what they know about life – the difficulties and the joys.”

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Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay Fly to the Emmys Collectively

Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay Fly to the Emmys Together

Friends who fly together stay together. In honor of the upcoming Emmys, Chris Meloni posted pictures from his flight to Los Angeles with fellow Law & Order: SVU co-star Mariska Hargitay. His Instagram shows the pair first leaning in to speak to each other from either side of the aisle, then holding hands from opposite sides of the plane. “Talk Emmy stuff to a random lady,” Meloni joked in his caption. “We became friends #OfftoLA.”

This post is further testament to the off-screen friendship Meloni and Hargitay have developed over the many years playing Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson. “From the second we met, the bells rang. We knew we were going to be a huge force in each other’s lives,” Hargitay told TV Insider in 2018 about meeting Meloni for the first time. “He was intense and spirited, but also funny.” And it seems Meloni feels the same way.

“She and I hit it off from the start,” he told Cinema Blend in a 2020 interview. He also told Entertainment Tonight that same year that their friendship is unlike most other relationships because it’s so simple feels. “We just pick up right where we left off and we’ve said it’s like we don’t have that relationship with anyone else… it’s unique, it’s full of laughter, it’s full of love.” We just seamlessly fall into this place every time we see each other.”

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Mentors Named for Subsequent Class in Rolex Arts Initiative

Mentors Named for Next Class in Rolex Arts Initiative

Ghanaian-born visual artist El Anatsui, British writer Bernardine Evaristo, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, French architect Anne Lacaton and American jazz singer Dianne Reeves are the new mentors in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, a program launched by Rolex was established in 2002 to nurture new generations of outstanding talent.

The names of the new mentors and their protégés, who will work together for two years, were announced Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where the Arts Initiative is celebrating the culmination of its current program cycle. This cycle featured Lin-Manuel Miranda, the first mentor in a recently added open category that includes multidisciplinary artists.

The protégés are architect Arine Aprahamian, writer Ayesha Harruna Attah, visual artist Bronwyn Katz, filmmaker Rafael Manuel and singer-songwriter Song Yi Jeon. In addition to travel and expenses, the protégés each receive a grant of around 41,000 US dollars.

The new group of mentors and protégés hail “from nine different countries in Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and the Middle East,” said Rebecca Irvin, Rolex’s head of philanthropy, in an email. “And her artistic work reflects many of the most pressing issues of our time, including sustainability, diversity and social change.”

Evaristo, who wrote in a statement that she had mentored the program “since Toni Morrison 20 years ago,” said that the “very close and personal attention” the mentee receives was very different from attending workshops or the writing courses. “It could also include career advice and personal development, as well as opening up conversations about creativity and society, and drawing inspiration from other art forms,” ​​she said.

Twenty years after its inception, the Arts Initiative, which uses influential advisors to select mentors and protégés, now has a bold list of alumni including David Adjaye, Alfonso Cuarón, Brian Eno, Lara Foot, Stephen Frears, Nicholas Hlobo, David Hockney , Joan Jonas, Anish Kapoor, Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Crystal Pite, and Tracy K Smith.

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159 Movies, for Each Style, Coming This Fall

159 Films, for Every Taste, Coming This Fall

Steven Spielberg returns to his childhood, Ryan Coogler returns to Wakanda and James Cameron returns to Pandora in just some of the films coming out this fall, following what was generally perceived as a blah summer for movies. And these listings are just a start. Some titles, like “Causeway,” with Jennifer Lawrence, and the Cannes prizewinner “Close,” hadn’t settled on release dates by press time.

And it should be noted: This is a highly select list of noteworthy films. Release dates are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.

TERRA FEMME Courtney Stephens (a director of the experimental documentary “The American Sector”) presents travelogues shot by women from the 1920s to the ’50s. It’s an essay film, of sorts, although Stephens will narrate it in person at two screenings at Anthology Film Archives. (Sept. 15 in theaters)

THE AFRICAN DESPERATE The artist Martine Syms makes her feature-directing debut with this film about a graduate student (Diamond Stingily) on her last day of art school. It closed last spring’s edition of the New Directors/New Films series. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

CASABLANCA BEATS Nabil Ayouch directed this drama about a former hip-hop artist teaching Moroccan youth to rap. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

CONFESS, FLETCH Is Jon Hamm the 2022 equivalent of Chevy Chase circa 1985? Not exactly: Greg Mottola (“Superbad”) directed Hamm as the sleuth I.M. Fletcher in a fresh adaptation of the second novel in the author Gregory Mcdonald’s mystery series. The comedian Roy Wood Jr. and Kyle MacLachlan are in the cast. (Sept. 16 in theaters and on demand)

DO REVENGE Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke put a high school comedy spin on “Strangers on a Train”; each one plays a student who sets out to get payback on the other’s enemies. (Sept. 16 on Netflix)

DRIFTING HOME Hiroyasu Ishida directed this anime feature about two friends in a housing complex that somehow winds up floating through an ocean. (Sept. 16 on Netflix)

FOUR WINTERS Julia Mintz directed this documentary, which features interviews with surviving partisans who fought the Nazis from the woods of Eastern Europe. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

FROM THE HOOD TO THE HOLLER Charles Booker, the Democratic candidate running to unseat Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky this fall, is profiled in a documentary. (Sept. 16 in theaters, Sept. 30 on demand)

GOD’S COUNTRY Thandiwe Newton plays an academic in a remote area of the West who faces hostility from hunters who insist on parking on her property. Julian Higgins directed. (Sept. 16 in theaters, Oct. 4 on demand)

GOODNIGHT MOMMY Naomi Watts stars in a remake of an Austrian horror film released here in 2015. In that movie, which Jeannette Catsoulis praised in The New York Times as a “carefully controlled creep-out,” twins begin to suspect that the woman who has returned from the hospital, her face wrapped in bandages, is not, in fact, their mother. (Sept. 16 on Amazon)

MOONAGE DAYDREAM Brett Morgen (“Jane”) compiled this prismatic, all-archival survey of the career of David Bowie. It’s said to be the first cinematic portrait supported by the singer’s estate and uses what are described as rare materials. Screenings in Imax theaters are planned. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

PEARL If you saw Ti West’s retro-horror film “X” in theaters earlier this year and stayed through the credits, you would have caught a surprise teaser for this prequel, which stars West’s co-writer, Mia Goth, as a younger version of the farmer’s wife she also played — albeit unrecognizably — in one of her two roles in the first movie. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

RIOTSVILLE, U.S.A. When this nonfiction feature from Sierra Pettengill played at the New Directors/New Films series last spring, Manohla Dargis described it as “a mesmerizing documentary essay that tracks American anti-Black racism through a wealth of disturbing, at times super-freaky 1960s archival footage.” (Sept. 16 in theaters)

SEE HOW THEY RUN Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell plays police partners investigating a murder in the 1950s London theater scene. Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson and David Oyelowo also star. Tom George directed. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

THE SILENT TWINS Based on the 1986 nonfiction book by Marjorie Wallace, this drama concerns twins who for much of their lives did not speak, except with each other. Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance star. Agnieszka Smoczynska (“The Lure”) directed. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

THE WOMAN KING In a drama drawn from the history of the Agojie, also known as the Dahomey Amazons, Viola Davis plays a general leading an army of women in a fight to protect their West African kingdom from slavers in the 19th century. Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and John Boyega also star. Gina Prince-Bythewood directed. (Sept. 16 in theaters)

WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND The documentarian Iliana Sosa pays tribute to her grandfather, who is nearly 90, as he builds a house in Mexico. (Sept. 16 in theaters and on Netflix

ME TO PLAY This documentary watches as two actors with Parkinson’s disease prepare a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame.” (Sept. 20 on Fandor)

ESCAPE FROM KABUL A year after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, this documentary assembles footage and recollections from people who were present during the evacuation at the airport in Kabul. (Sept. 21 on HBO Max)

MEET CUTE Per the title, Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson meet in a manner that is cute. Or have they already met cute? A time machine is involved. (Sept. 21 on Peacock)

RAVEN’S HOLLOW That’s not just any raven. William Moseley plays Edgar Allan Poe during his time as a West Point cadet, before he found fame as a writer. The young Poe stumbles into a mystery. (Sept. 22 on Shudder)

THE AMERICAN DREAM AND OTHER FAIRY TALES Abigail E. Disney, who directed with Kathleen Hughes, serves as an onscreen guide to an examination of income inequality in the United States, not sparing her family’s own business ventures. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

ATHENA Dali Benssalah plays a young man whose brother dies after an encounter with police. His other brothers and his neighborhood grapple with their response. Romain Gavras directed. The filmmaker Ladj Ly, who shared a prize at Cannes in 2019 for “Les Misérables,” is among the screenwriters. (Sept. 23 on Netflix)

BANDIT In a feature inspired by a real case from the 1980s, Josh Duhamel plays a robber who pulls off heists across Canada. He also goes into business with a loan shark (Mel Gibson). Elisha Cuthbert co-stars. (Sept. 23 in theaters and on demand)

BLANK A writer secludes herself to get some work done, and the android there, having gone on the fritz, really wants her to finish her project. Natalie Kennedy directed. (Sept. 23 in theaters and on demand)

CARMEN Natascha McElhone plays a woman in Malta who, at 50, leaves the church she has pledged herself to since her teenage years and finds romance. (Sept. 23 in theaters and on demand)

CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY When you hear the name Lena Dunham, you don’t exactly think 13th century — but that’s when this irreverent costume picture, which Dunham adapted from Karen Cushman’s novel and directed, is set. Bella Ramsey plays a rebellious teenager whose father tries to marry her off. With Lesley Sharp, Sophie Okonedo and Joe Alwyn. (Sept. 23 in theaters, Oct. 7 on demand)

DON’T WORRY DARLING Florence Pugh plays a 1950s housewife who lives with her husband (Harry Styles) in a company town that, apart from the desert scenery, has a certain affinity with Stepford, Conn., judging from the trailer. Olivia Wilde co-stars and directed this thriller, which also features Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne and Chris Pine. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER You thought Smokey and the Bandit had the greatest beer run? Not so. Zac Efron plays Chick Donohue, a New Yorker who in 1967 traveled to Vietnam to bring brews to his American soldier pals. Peter Farrelly, seemingly splitting the difference between his comedies and the earnestness of “Green Book,” directed. With Russell Crowe and Bill Murray. (Sept. 23 in theaters; Sept. 30 on Apple TV+)

INVISIBLE DEMONS The documentarian Rahul Jain (“Machines”) looks at the impact of pollution and climate change in Delhi. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

A JAZZMAN’S BLUES Tyler Perry wrote, produced and directed this decades-spanning story of two lovers (Joshua Boone and Solea Pfeiffer) in the South. (Sept. 23 on Netflix)

THE JUSTICE OF BUNNY KING In a drama from New Zealand, Essie Davis (“The Babadook”) plays a down-and-out mother scrambling to avoid breaking a promise to her daughter. Thomasin McKenzie plays her niece. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

LOU Jurnee Smollett plays the mother of a kidnapped girl and Allison Janney the neighbor who helps her retrieve her. Anna Foerster directed, and J.J. Abrams is among the producers. (Sept. 23 on Netflix)

MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY The celebrated Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán directed this documentary about the efforts for social change catalyzed by the protests that began in his country in 2019. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

NOTHING COMPARES Sinead O’Connor looks back on her singing career and the height of her fame in the 1980s and ’90s. Kathryn Ferguson directed. (Sept. 23 in theaters, Sept. 30 on Showtime)

ON THE COME UP Based on a novel by Angie Thomas (“The Hate U Give”), the actress Sanaa Lathan’s feature-directing debut centers on a teenage rap artist (Jamila C. Gray) who is faced with pressure to sell out. (Sept. 23 on Paramount+)

PETROV’S FLU The dissident Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov directed this fever dream of a film, based on a novel by Alexey Salnikov and centered on a comics artist (Semyon Serzin) in the grip of the grippe. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

RAILWAY CHILDREN In Britain this was known as “The Railway Children Return,” a sequel to the 1970 film “The Railway Children.” It’s set in 1944 and finds Jenny Agutter playing an older version of a character she originated as a teenager. (Sept. 23 in theaters)

SIDNEY Reginald Hudlin directed this documentary on the career of Sidney Poitier, who died in January. It includes interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and Spike Lee. (Sept. 23 in theaters and on Apple TV+)

BLONDE A faintly recognizable Ana de Armas embodies one of the most recognizable women on the planet — Marilyn Monroe — in this much-anticipated, NC-17-rated adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel. The film comes from Andrew Dominik (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”), in his first dramatic feature in a decade. Bobby Cannavale and Adrien Brody also star. (Sept. 28 on Netflix)

ARGENTINA, 1985 The Argentine director Santiago Mitre (“Paulina”) directed this legal drama based on the work of Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who prosecuted members of the junta that had controlled the country from 1976 to 1983. (Sept. 30 in theaters, Oct. 21 on Amazon)

ART & KRIMES BY KRIMES Alysa Nahmias directed this portrait of Jesse Krimes, who made artwork in prison and managed to get it to the world outside. Now out of prison, he had his work featured in an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

BROS Billy Eichner stars in — and wrote, with the movie’s director, Nicholas Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) — this rom-com about two men, seemingly opposites, falling for each other. Universal is billing it as the “first romantic comedy from a major studio about two gay men maybe, possibly, probably, stumbling towards love.” Judd Apatow is among the producers. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

DEAD FOR A DOLLAR One of the few remaining filmmakers who knows his way around a western, Walter Hill directed this story of a bounty hunter, an outlaw and an abducted woman. Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan star. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

GOD’S CREATURES In an Irish village that runs on oyster harvesting, a mother (Emily Watson) has to face a truth about her son (Paul Mescal), who has just returned home. Aisling Franciosi (“The Nightingale”) also stars. Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, who collaborated on “The Fits,” directed. (Sept. 30 in theaters and on demand)

THE GOOD HOUSE An alcoholic Massachusetts real estate agent (Sigourney Weaver) and a man from her past (Kevin Kline) get back together. Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky directed. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

HOCUS POCUS 2 Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy reprise their roles as witches in a sequel to “Hocus Pocus” (1993). (Sept. 30 on Disney+)

I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE In an essay film that considers how the disabled perceive the world and are perceived, the director Reid Davenport shot this debut feature from his own perspective as a wheelchair user. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON A woman who has escaped from a mental institution (Jong-seo Jun, from “Burning”) joins forces with a heavily Brooklyn-accented mother (Kate Hudson) in New Orleans for a crime spree in the latest film from Ana Lily Amirpour (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”). (Sept. 30 in theaters and on demand)

MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM Elsie Fisher (“Eighth Grade”) finds out how to get her pal (Amiah Miller) a — well, you know. (Sept. 30 on Amazon)

SIRENS Rita Baghdadi directed this documentary, well regarded at Sundance, about an all-female thrash metal band in Lebanon. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

SMILE You’ve heard of six degrees of Kevin Bacon? How about six degrees of a … weird chain curse that causes victims to see creepy smiling faces before they die? Into this chain enters a doctor played by Sosie Bacon, daughter of the actor and Kyra Sedgwick. It sounds like “The Ring” with grins instead of a videotape. (Sept. 30 in theaters)

October

MR. HARRIGAN’S PHONE Jaeden Martell plays a teenager whose friendship with a billionaire (Donald Sutherland) continues after the older man dies and is buried with an iPhone. John Lee Hancock directed this adaptation of a novella by Stephen King. (Oct. 5 on Netflix)

AMSTERDAM Based on a trailer, the writer-director David O. Russell’s first feature since “Joy” (2015) will be maddeningly difficult to classify, genre-wise. It comes described as a historical crime epic involving three friends (played by Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington). A dead body is involved, as are many other starry names: Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert De Niro and even Taylor Swift. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

BATTLEGROUND This documentary from Cynthia Lowen had its world premiere at Tribeca in June, less than two weeks before the Supreme Court handed down its decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The movie chronicles the work of anti-abortion activists who were trying to achieve that goal. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

HELLRAISER The director David Bruckner (“The Night House”) resurrects a gender-swapped Pinhead (now played by Jamie Clayton) in a remake. (Oct. 7 on Hulu)

LAST FLIGHT HOME The documentarian Ondi Timoner made this portrait of her father, Eli Timoner, who chose to end his life under a California law that permits certain terminally ill patients to do so. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE Mila Kunis stars in this adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s 2015 novel, about a magazine writer coping with the aftermath of a sexual assault she experienced as a teenager. Knoll wrote the screenplay. Mike Barker directed. (Oct. 7 on Netflix)

LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE The titular anthropomorphic reptile of Bernard Waber’s children’s books comes to the screen as a computer-generated creation surrounded by real actors. The pop star Shawn Mendes provides his voice and sings songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“The Greatest Showman”). Javier Bardem and Constance Wu are among the actors appearing in the flesh. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

ONODA: 10,000 NIGHTS IN THE JUNGLE This epically scaled yet cerebral biopic tells the story of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who until 1974 labored under the delusion that World War II was still happening and continued to prosecute it in his way from an island in the Philippines. (Coincidentally, Onoda is also the subject of Werner Herzog’s recent debut novel.) Arthur Harari directed. Yuya Endo and Kanji Tsuda play Onoda at different ages. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

THE REDEEM TEAM Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and others look back on how the United States’ basketball team won the gold in the 2008 Olympics. Jon Weinbach, a producer on the Michael Jordan series “The Last Dance,” directed. (Oct. 7 on Netflix)

TÁR The actor-filmmaker Todd Field won acclaim for directing “In the Bedroom” (2001) and “Little Children” (2006) but hasn’t stepped behind the camera to make a feature since then. That changes with this film, about the (fictitious) conductor of a German orchestra. Cate Blanchett no doubt brings the requisite intensity to the title character. (Oct. 7 in theaters)

TO LESLIE Andrea Riseborough plays a Texas mom who wins the lottery, squanders the proceeds, turns to booze — then tries to get her life back in order. Allison Janney, Stephen Root and Marc Maron also star. (Oct. 7 in theaters and on demand)

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS The Swedish director Ruben Ostlund won his second Palme d’Or at Cannes (his first was for “The Square” in 2017) for this sendup of the very, very, very wealthy and vain, a group that includes two models (played by Charlbi Dean, who died at 32 in August, and Harris Dickinson) and a Russian oligarch (Zlatko Buric) — all passengers on a cruise liner with a Marxist captain (Woody Harrelson). (Oct. 7 in theaters)

DARK GLASSES The giallo maestro Dario Argento is still spilling blood in his 80s. His new thriller concerns a prostitute and a boy who are on the trail of a serial killer who wronged them both. Asia Argento, Dario’s daughter, has a supporting role. (Oct. 7 in theaters; Oct. 13 on Shudder)

THE CURSE OF BRIDGE HOLLOW Marlon Wayans and Priah Ferguson play a father and daughter who try to save Halloween from vivified holiday decorations. (Oct. 14 on Netflix)

DECISION TO LEAVE The South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (“The Handmaiden”) won the best-director prize at Cannes for this labyrinthine thriller, which centers on a detective (Park Hae-il) who becomes infatuated with a woman (Tang Wei) who may or may not have murdered her husband. (Oct. 14 in theaters)

HALLOWEEN ENDS Does it really? Come now. This franchise will never end. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) takes one more whack at killing the killer. David Gordon Green takes one more whack at directing. (Oct. 14 in theaters)

THE OTHER TOM Laura Santullo and Rodrigo Plá directed this drama about an El Paso mother who stops medicating her son for A.D.H.D. and risks losing custody of him. (Oct. 14 in theaters)

PIGGY A girl (Laura Galán) who is bullied by her peers lucks out, in a way, when they are kidnapped. She has to decide whether to reveal the culprit. Carlota Pereda directed. (Oct. 14 in theaters and on demand)

ROSALINE Tom Stoppard gave us “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” Now Hulu gives us “Rosaline,” which in the same spirit views the events of a major play (“Romeo and Juliet”) from the perspective of a peripheral character: the Capulet girl Romeo pined for before Juliet. And in this telling, Rosaline (Kaitlyn Dever) tries to get him back. Isabela Merced and Kyle Allen play the star-cross’d lovers. (Oct. 14 on Hulu)

SELL/BUY/DATE In a movie said to combine documentary and dramatization, Sarah Jones, who wrote and performed a 2016 show of the same title at City Center, investigates the nature of sex work. (Oct. 14 in theaters)

SEPA: OUR LORD OF MIRACLES When it was shown at MoMA’s To Save and Project series earlier this year, this little-known 1987 documentary was billed as “having languished in a closet for 30 years.” Directed by Walter Saxer, a longtime production manager for Werner Herzog, it captures life at a penal colony in the Peruvian jungle. (Oct. 14 in theaters)

STARS AT NOON The second English-language feature from the French director Claire Denis (and her second feature of the year, after “Both Sides of the Blade”) pivots on the relationship between an American journalist (Margaret Qualley) and a British oil company consultant (Joe Alwyn) in Nicaragua. Their sweaty trysts play out against a backdrop of international intrigue. Denis shared the Grand Jury Prize (basically second place) at Cannes this year. (Oct. 14 in theaters and on demand)

TILL Chinonye Chukwu, who won the top prize at Sundance for “Clemency,” directed this biopic, centered on the efforts of Mamie Till Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) to seek justice after the lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall). (Oct. 14 in theaters)

THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL The children’s book series by Soman Chainani becomes the start of a potential “Harry Potter”-esque movie franchise. Sophia Anne Caruso and Sofia Wylie star as best friends at a new (and magical) school. Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington chaperone. (Oct. 19 on Netflix)

V/H/S/99 If the fifth film in this horror-anthology franchise has already reached 1999, we must be due for “D/V/D” soon. (Oct. 20 on Shudder)

AFTERSUN The Scottish director Charlotte Wells’s debut was one of the big discoveries in Cannes this year. It follows a young father (Paul Mescal) and his daughter (Frankie Corio), who normally lives with her mother, on a vanishingly brief resort getaway that will lastingly shape her impressions of her dad. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

ALL THAT BREATHES Shaunak Sen’s documentary, which won the top international-documentary prize at Sundance, concerns two brothers in India who work to protect and care for black kites, a type of bird. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

AMERICAN MURDERER An F.B.I. agent (Ryan Phillippe) pursues a con artist (Tom Pelphrey). Idina Menzel and Jacki Weaver also star. (Oct. 21 in theaters, Oct. 28 on demand)

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Martin McDonagh’s new film isn’t a sequel to his “In Bruges,” but it does reunite Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, who resume their acerbic bantering as two friends who no longer get along. With Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

BLACK ADAM Dwayne Johnson plays the latest DC Comics character — who has the powers of Egyptian gods — to get a big-screen feature. Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan co-star. Jaume Collet-Serra directed. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER In a documentary version of a talk she has given, the filmmaker Nina Menkes (“Queen of Diamonds”) takes viewers through a wide variety of film clips to examine how sexism has been encoded in basic film grammar. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

DESCENDANT Margaret Brown’s documentary involves the search for the Clotilda, the last-known ship that brought enslaved people to the United States, and the Mobile, Ala., residents who are descendants of those aboard. (Oct. 21 on Netflix)

FACE A 2009 feature from the director Tsai Ming-liang gets a belated run in New York, as part of a retrospective of Tsai’s work at the Museum of Modern Art that was itself postponed by the pandemic. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

MY POLICEMAN The lives of a policeman, a teacher and a curator intertwine in the 1950s and again in the 1990s. Harry Styles ages into Linus Roache, Emma Corrin into Gina McKee and David Dawson into Rupert Everett. Michael Grandage directed this adaptation of the novel by Bethan Roberts. (Oct. 21 in theaters, Nov. 4 on Amazon)

RAYMOND & RAY Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor play half brothers. Their father’s funeral offers an opportunity to figure out where they stand. Rodrigo García directed. (Oct. 21 on Apple TV+)

THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER — FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE This documentary concerns the cross-generational friendship between the two singers of the title — Tucker a pioneering country-music star, Carlile a fan who wrote an album for her. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

ROUGE The Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan’s 1988 feature — with Anita Mui as a ghost looking for the man (Leslie Cheung) she loved in the 1930s — finally gets a New York run. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

2ND CHANCE Turning to documentaries, Ramin Bahrani — nominated for an adapted screenplay Oscar for “The White Tiger” — examines the legacy of Richard Davis, who devised the contemporary version of the bulletproof vest. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

SLASH/BACK Aliens arrive at 66 degrees north — or more specifically, a hamlet in Nunavut where teenagers are prepared to fend them off. Nyla Innuksuk directed. (Oct. 21 in theaters and on demand)

TICKET TO PARADISE Julia Roberts and George Clooney play ex-spouses who hate each other but join forces on the cusp of the wedding of their daughter (Kaitlyn Dever) to prevent her from getting married. Ol Parker directed. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

VOODOO MACBETH Made by a whopping 10 directors working collaboratively, this film dramatizes the making of Orson Welles’s famed “voodoo Macbeth” production, staged in 1936 in Harlem with an all-Black cast. With Inger Tudor and, as Welles, Jewell Wilson Bridges. (Oct. 21 in theaters)

THE GOOD NURSE Jessica Chastain is the title character, who investigates whether a string of patient deaths might have been murder. Eddie Redmayne plays the object of her suspicions. It’s based on a nonfiction book. Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“Last Night in Soho”) wrote the screenplay. Tobias Lindholm directed. (Oct. 26 on Netflix)

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT The latest screen version of Erich Maria Remarque’s chronicle of German soldiers during World War I has the soldiers speaking their native language. (Lewis Milestone’s Oscar-winning 1930 film with Lew Ayres was in English.) The cast includes Felix Kammerer and Daniel Brühl. Edward Berger directed. (Oct. 28 on Netflix)

ARMAGEDDON TIME James Gray’s latest film, filled with elements of barely veiled autobiography, centers on an artistically inclined Jewish boy (Banks Repeta) growing up in Queens in 1980, and on his friendship with a Black classmate (Jaylin Webb) who doesn’t get the same breaks he does. Anthony Hopkins plays the protagonist’s British-born grandfather, and Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong play the boy’s parents. (Oct. 28 in theaters)

CALL JANE The second of two films to be released this year about the Jane Collective, a group of women in Chicago who provided abortions before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973. “The Janes” was a documentary; this is a dramatization, with Elizabeth Banks as a woman who seeks out the group for an abortion and subsequently joins the women who run it. Sigourney Weaver co-stars. Phyllis Nagy (the screenwriter of “Carol”) directed. (Oct. 28 in theaters)

HOLY SPIDER Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the best-actress prize at Cannes for playing a journalist in Iran on the trail of a serial killer the police seem to be in no hurry to catch. Ali Abbasi (“Border”) directed. (Oct. 28 in theaters)

THE NOVELIST’S FILM It’s the South Korean director Hong Sangsoo’s custom to premiere two films every year. (“Walk Up,” his other 2022 offering, is playing at fall festivals.) Lee Hyeyoung plays a writer who aspires to make a movie. The Hong regular Kim Minhee co-stars. (Oct. 28 in theaters)

PLEASE BABY PLEASE A couple of Lower East Siders (Andrea Riseborough and Harry Melling) witness a gang killing in the 1950s. Amanda Kramer directed. (Oct. 28 in theaters)

RUN SWEETHEART RUN Long-delayed since its premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, this thriller stars Ella Balinska as a woman terrorized by her date (Pilou Asbaek). Shana Feste directed. (Oct. 28 on Amazon)

WENDELL & WILD Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key reunite to provide voices for two demons who try to persuade a teenager to help break them out of their demonic realm. Peele wrote it with Henry Selick (“Coraline”), who directed. Angela Bassett and James Hong are also in the vocal cast. (Oct. 28 on Netflix)

November

THE BOX In Mexico, a teenager preparing to bury his father begins to wonder if his dad is still alive. Lorenzo Vigas directed. (Nov. 4 in theaters)

ENOLA HOLMES 2 Millie Bobby Brown returns as a sister of Sherlock Holmes who now has a detective agency of her own. Henry Cavill, David Thewlis and Helena Bonham Carter also star. (Nov. 4 on Netflix)

GOOD NIGHT OPPY “Oppy” is Opportunity, a rover that roamed Martian craters from 2004 until its “death” in 2019. This documentary tells Oppy’s story. (Nov. 4 in theaters, Nov. 23 on Amazon)

I’M TOTALLY FINE Jillian Bell plays a woman who believes her best friend (Natalie Morales) has died — only to have the pal return, possibly as a space alien. (Nov. 4 in theaters and on demand)

MEMORIES OF MY FATHER Fernando Trueba directed this adaptation of a book by the Colombian novelist Héctor Abad Faciolince, about the author’s father (played by Javier Cámara), a doctor engaged in political activism in the 1970s. (Nov. 4 in theaters)

SALVATORE: SHOEMAKER OF DREAMS Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) directed this biographical portrait of the shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo, working from his 1955 memoir. Michael Stuhlbarg narrates. (Nov. 4 in theaters)

SOMETHING IN THE DIRT The directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson also wrote and star in this determinedly lo-fi and paranoid science-fiction feature. It revolves around two men who witness what they think is a supernatural occurrence, an event that sends them spinning into elaborate theorizing. (Nov. 4 in theaters, Nov. 22 on demand)

UTAMA The winner of the top prize for an international dramatic feature at Sundance, Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s film is set in the Bolivian highlands, where an Indigenous couple (José Calcina and Luisa Quispe) confront the problems posed by a drought. (Nov. 4 in theaters)

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY Daniel Radcliffe dons some seriously curly locks to play the parodist singer, in a movie that is itself a parody of a biopic. (Nov. 4 on Roku)

FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS A skiing accident results in amnesia (and, presumably, the possibility of a fresh start) for a vain hotel heiress (Lindsay Lohan). (Nov. 10 on Netflix)

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER After Chadwick Boseman’s death in 2020, Marvel Studios opted not to recast his role, King T’Challa, in this sequel to “Black Panther.” The character is dead in the new film, which concerns how Wakanda moves forward without him. It also stars Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o. Ryan Coogler returns as director. (Nov. 11 in theaters)

A COUPLE In a career that includes more than 40 documentaries, Frederick Wiseman has seldom made features that could qualify as dramatized. But in “A Couple,” the actress Nathalie Boutefeu, who shares screenplay credit with the director, plays Sophia Tolstoy, wife of Leo Tolstoy, to explore a famous marriage. (Nov. 11 in theaters)

THE FABELMANS If Steven Spielberg’s last name evokes the idea of a story, it’s not too much of a stretch to get from there to “Fabelman” — the surname of Spielberg’s alter-ego family in an autobiographical feature inspired by his childhood. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Gabriel LaBelle star. Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay with Spielberg. (Nov. 11 in theaters)

IS THAT BLACK ENOUGH FOR YOU?!? Elvis Mitchell, a former film critic for The New York Times, directed this documentary on the American revolution in Black filmmaking in the 1970s. Among the interviewees are the filmmaker Charles Burnett (“Killer of Sheep”), Samuel L. Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg. (Nov. 11 on Netflix)

MY FATHER’S DRAGON Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 children’s book — about a boy who ventures off to rescue a baby dragon — becomes an animated film directed by Nora Twomey, of the Oscar-nominated “The Breadwinner.” (Nov. 11 on Netflix)

THE SON In a companion piece to “The Father,” which won Anthony Hopkins a second Oscar, this Florian Zeller film concerns, naturally, the relationship between a father (Hugh Jackman) and his troubled teenage son, who returns to his life just as he is settling in with a new son and a new partner (Vanessa Kirby). Hopkins and Laura Dern also star. (Nov. 11 in theaters)

IN HER HANDS The documentarians Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen assemble a portrait of Zarifa Ghafari, the mayor of the Afghan city of Maidan Shahr at the time of filming — and, not incidentally, in her 20s and a woman in a country without many women in power. The documentary follows her through American forces’ withdrawal from the country last year. (Nov. 16 on Netflix)

BAD AXE That’s Bad Axe, Mich., where the documentarian David Siev’s parents, one a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, own a restaurant and must grapple with the economic realities of the pandemic and the protests that convulse the city in the wake of the George Floyd killing. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)

EO The Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski (“Deep End,” “Moonlighting”) riffs, with a bit of a hallucinatory spin, on Robert Bresson’s French classic “Au Hasard Balthazar” with the tale of an itinerant donkey who along its journeys becomes a passive witness to human cruelty. When Skolimowski shared the jury prize at Cannes, he thanked all six donkeys who played the role by name. (Nov. 18 in theaters)

THE INSPECTION For his first dramatic feature, Elegance Bratton, who has worked as a documentarian and street photographer, wrote and directed this autobiographically inspired film about a gay Black man’s time in basic training in the Marines. Jeremy Pope plays Bratton’s alter ego, Bokeem Woodbine a sergeant and Gabrielle Union the protagonist’s mother. (Nov. 18 in theaters)

THE MENU Mark Mylod, a regular director on “Succession,” is at the helm of this story of a couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) who travel to an island for an evening of molecular gastronomy and end up getting something closer to “The Most Dangerous Game.” Ralph Fiennes plays the chef. (Nov. 18 in theaters)

THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING Nuptials become the occasion for an airing of intrafamilial loathing and reconciliation in a comedy that stars Kristen Bell and Ben Platt as siblings and Allison Janney as the matriarch. (Nov. 18 on Amazon)

SHE SAID The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book on how they broke their landmark article about sexual harassment by Harvey Weinstein gets a film adaptation. Zoe Kazan plays Kantor and Carey Mulligan plays Twohey as they try to convince women to talk on the record. Maria Schrader directed. (Nov. 18 in theaters)

SLUMBERLAND The “Red Sparrow” filmmaker Francis Lawrence directs Jason Momoa as an outlaw in a fairy tale of sorts in which he assists a girl in navigating a dream world. (Nov. 18 on Netflix)

THERE THERE Working under pandemic restrictions, Andrew Bujalski (“Support the Girls”) makes a film that consists entirely of conversations; it’s best not to say anymore. Lili Taylor and Lennie James play a couple whose post-one-night-stand discourse kicks off the movie; Molly Gordon and Jason Schwartzman appear elsewhere. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)

DEVOTION Jonathan Majors stars as Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the first Black aviator in the United States Navy, and Glen Powell — barely out of the skies since “Top Gun: Maverick” — plays Lt. Thomas J. Hudner Jr., his partner on a dangerous mission during the Korean War. J.D. Dillard directed. (Nov. 23 in theaters)

BONES AND ALL Timothée Chalamet bites into a meaty role as a cannibal drifter. Taylor Russell plays the woman who loves and road-trips with him in a film that reunites Chalamet with his “Call Me by Your Name” director, Luca Guadagnino. It’s based on the novel by Camille DeAngelis. (Nov. 23 in theaters)

NANNY Nikyatu Jusu’s debut feature, the winner of this year’s United States dramatic competition at Sundance, concerns a Senegalese immigrant (Anna Diop) who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy white family. During the festival, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film kept her “rapt from the start with its visuals and mysteries, its emotional depths and the tight control” maintained by Jusu. (Nov. 23 in theaters, Dec. 16 on Amazon)

STRANGE WORLD Disney pays tribute to 1950s science fiction movies with an animated feature about the Clade family, a clan of explorers investigating an uncharted region. Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid and Gabrielle Union provide some of the Clades’ voices. (Nov. 23 in theaters)

THE SWIMMERS Sally El Hosaini directed the opening-night film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, a dramatization of the story of Yusra and Sarah Mardini, two sisters from Syria. Yusra competed on the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Olympics. (Nov. 23 on Netflix)

DISENCHANTED After finding a storybook life in New York in “Enchanted,” Giselle (Amy Adams), finds that many years later, the bloom is off the rose. So she and her husband (Patrick Dempsey) move to the suburbs. With Maya Rudolph. Adam Shankman directed. (Nov. 24 on Disney+)

December

FRAMING AGNES Using the story of Agnes, a transgender woman who took part in studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s, as a jumping-off point, this combination of documentary and dramatization examines how trans history is written. (Dec. 2 in theaters)

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER This time, Emma Corrin embodies D.H. Lawrence’s unfulfilled British noblewoman. Jack O’Connell plays the gamekeeper she takes up with. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre directed. (Dec. 2 on Netflix)

SPOILER ALERT: THE HERO DIES Michael Showalter, who mined thematically similar territory in “The Big Sick,” directed this adaptation of Michael Ausiello’s memoir of a longtime relationship altered by a terminal illness. Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge and Sally Field star. (Dec. 2 in theaters)

VIOLENT NIGHT You might have thought the weirdest appearance of Santa Claus this season was by the actual democratic socialist of that name from North Pole, Alaska, who ran for a seat in Congress. But it could be in this movie, which stars David Harbour as Santa Claus, who is fortunately making his rounds when mercenaries attempt a home invasion. The “Atomic Blonde” and “John Wick” producers had a hand in this. (Dec. 2 in theaters)

WOMEN TALKING Women in a religious colony wrestle with their beliefs after a series of sexual assaults by the men. Sarah Polley directed and wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel. The cast is formidable: It features Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, among others. (Dec. 2 in theaters)

THE WONDER When an 11-year-old girl in the Irish Midlands seems to live for months without eating food, a British nurse (Florence Pugh) investigates. Sebastián Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman”) directed this adaptation, set in the 19th century, of a novel by the “Room” author Emma Donoghue. (Dec. 7 on Netflix)

EMPIRE OF LIGHT The writer-director Sam Mendes, reuniting with the cinematographer Roger Deakins (who has hopefully gotten some rest after the gymnastics of “1917”), directs what is described as story about the “magic of cinema.” It’s set in Britain in the 1980s. Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward star. (Dec. 9 in theaters)

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO The “Nightmare Alley” filmmaker, who shares directorial credit (if not the title) with the animation director Mark Gustafson, mounts a stop-motion version of the story of the puppet who became a boy. Gregory Mann, Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton are in the vocal cast. (Dec. 9 on Netflix)

SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S “And I said, ‘What about ‘Something From Tiffany’s’?” Zoey Deutch stars in a comedy about an errant engagement ring. Daryl Wein directed. (Dec. 9 on Amazon)

THE WHALE The plot of Darren Aronofsky’s latest movie bears more than a slight resemblance to that of his film “The Wrestler” (2008). Brendan Fraser plays an overweight teacher who wants to make amends with his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink, from “Stranger Things”). Samuel D. Hunter wrote the script, adapting his own play. (Dec. 9 in theaters)

A MAN CALLED OTTO In what, after “Elvis,” is turning out to be a year of stunt casting for America’s most affable actor, Tom Hanks has to be convincing as, get this, a curmudgeon, albeit one who thaws a bit when he meets a new neighbor. Mariana Treviño also stars. Marc Forster directed. (Dec. 14 in theaters)

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER It is now 2022. More years have elapsed between the release of “Avatar” (2009) and this much-awaited sequel than had elapsed between “Avatar” and “Titanic” (1997) — and that was considered a very long gap. Is James Cameron working faster or slower than the technology evolves? He’d better pick up the pace on “Avatar 3” if he hopes to finish it while movie theaters still exist. (Dec. 16 in theaters)

BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s feature “Birdman,” was subtitled “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.” But as a phrase, “False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” definitely rivals that in sheer opacity. The film’s plot involves a journalist who returns to his native Mexico, where he is, per the official summary, pushed to “an existential limit.” Daniel Giménez Cacho stars. (Dec. 16 on Netflix)

THE VOLCANO: RESCUE FROM WHAKAARI Rory Kennedy, the documentarian who earlier this year made a case (or, rather, a movie) against Boeing, memorializes a deadly volcanic eruption that occurred in New Zealand in 2019. (Dec. 16 on Netflix)

I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY Naomi Ackie stars as Whitney Houston in this biopic of the soaring-voiced pop star. Stanley Tucci plays the architect of her career Clive Davis, who is one of the movie’s producers. Kasi Lemmons directed, from a screenplay by Mr. Biopic, Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Darkest Hour,” “The Theory of Everything”). (Dec. 21 in theaters)

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH Antonio Banderas once again lends his voice to the footwear’d feline — not the fairy-tale character, exactly, but a part of the extended “Shrek” cinematic universe. Olivia Colman and Salma Hayek Pinault purr alongside him. (Dec. 21 in theaters)

CORSAGE Technically, in 1878, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps) could not have heard “As Tears Go By” with a harp as instrumentation — or, for that matter, been photographed as a movie subject on flexible film. (This was still the era of plates.) But these sorts of anachronisms crop up periodically throughout the director Marie Kreutzer’s interpretation of Elisabeth’s life. (Dec. 23 in theaters)

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc, the detective with a French name and a Foghorn Leghorn drawl, as a character in “Knives Out” put it, has another mystery on his hands. The cast (and, probably, suspect list) includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kathryn Hahn and Jessica Henwick. (Dec. 23 on Netflix)

LET IT BE MORNING A Palestinian man returns to the village of his upbringing for a wedding, and he is trapped there, with the rest of the residents, when Israeli forces blockade the area. Eran Kolirin directed this adaptation of a novel by Sayed Kashua. (Dec. 23 in theaters)

LIVING The director Oliver Hermanus and the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, serving here as the screenwriter, remake Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” in an idiom not wildly removed from that of Ishiguro’s “The Remains of the Day.” Bill Nighy plays a postwar civil servant in London whose great ambition, after receiving a terminal diagnosis, is to build a playground. Aimee Lou Wood and Tom Burke co-star. (Dec. 23 in theaters)

THE PALE BLUE EYE Adapted from the novel by Louis Bayard, this is the second fall film set against the backdrop of Edgar Allan Poe’s formative years at West Point. Like “Raven’s Hollow” (see above), “The Pale Blue Eye” has the precocious Poe finding himself in the middle of a mystery. Harry Melling plays Poe, Christian Bale is a detective, and Gillian Anderson and Lucy Boynton co-star. Scott Cooper (“Black Mass”) directed. (Dec. 23 in theaters)

BABYLON The writer-director Damien Chazelle returns to La La Land — or, more precisely, Hollywood — to imagine the drama that unfolded in the movie industry during the transition to sound. Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva have their names on the marquee. (Dec. 25 in theaters)

ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL The stage musical version of Dahl’s novel gets the screen treatment (with the same director, Matthew Warchus). Alisha Weir plays the title character and Lashana Lynch the warmhearted Miss Honey. Emma Thompson — whose fat suit has already prompted chatter over questions of representation — plays the gorgonlike Miss Trunchbull. (Dec. 25 on Netflix)

THEY CLONED TYRONE John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris play characters who stumble on some sort of government conspiracy. It’s a secret, even from us, but an educated guess is that it involves someone named Tyrone getting cloned. Juel Taylor directed. (Dec. 30 on Netflix)

TURN EVERY PAGE Lizzie Gottlieb, daughter of the famed editor Robert Gottlieb, directed this portrait of her father and his friendship with Robert A. Caro, who is still toiling away on the final volume of his multi-book Lyndon Johnson biography, a volume that Gottlieb, in his 90s, hopes to edit. (Dec. 30 in theaters)

WHITE NOISE Adam Driver plays the chairman of a college department in the field of “Hitler studies”; Greta Gerwig is his wife, who may be experiencing strange memory lapses. Together, with children from other marriages and the TV always humming, they confront environmental disaster and their fear of mortality in Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 postmodern novel. Don Cheadle and Raffey Cassidy co-star. (Dec. 30 on Netflix)

Compiled with the assistance of Gabe Cohn and Shivani Gonzalez.

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At Lincoln Heart, Hooked on Swing and Again on the Dance Flooring

At Lincoln Center, Addicted to Swing and Back on the Dance Floor

Three summers ago, on a mid-July evening, Margaret Batiuchok was teaching the basics of Lindy Hop on an outdoor stage at Lincoln Center when her microphone went dead.

It was the final night of Midsummer Night Swing, a tradition spanning more than 30 years that saw New Yorkers obsessed or just curious about partner dancing flock to a massive dance floor on the Upper West Side.

Batiuchok switched to a megaphone, but it quickly became clear that the problem went beyond technical difficulties: part of Manhattan’s West Side had lost power and would not regain it for several hours.

The dancers were asked to disperse before sunset that night, and some are now joking that the 2019 blackout was a bad omen.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit the city, forcing Lincoln Center to cancel Midsummer Night Swing for the first time since it began in 1989. It was canceled again in 2021.

Lana Turner, 72, a Harlem resident who has been dubbed the doyenne of Lincoln Center’s swing dance community, recalled the days when she and her fellow dancers didn’t have their usual summer spot.

“There was a lot of pent-up energy,” Turner said.

In June, that energy was released again: the dance floor returned to Lincoln Center and regulars reunited with friends and familiar faces. They didn’t necessarily know each other’s last names, but they were long-standing fixtures in each other’s lives.

“You realize you care about them even though they’re semi-strangers,” said Mai Yee, who has danced with Midsummer Night Swing for more than 20 years. “It was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re here — we survived that!'”

One of the people Yee usually only sees dancing is Turner, who started attending Midsummer Night Swing around the same time. Yee remembers Turner hitting the ground running year after year, always wearing something exquisite. (Turner’s flashy fashions once caught the attention of New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham.)

On a tango night this summer, Yee and Turner, wearing a floor-length yellow peacock-print dress, chatted with other longtime participants and discussed how far they would go to partner dancing during the pandemic. Some held one end of a ribbon or rope while their partner held the other so they could connect without touching. Some attended classes virtually, and once they were able to dance in person with others, they wore gloves and masks for protection.

“It’s not an addiction; I can stop anytime!” said Anahý Antara as couples hugged and danced the tango around her.

Back when she was dancing five nights a week during Midsummer Night Swing, which typically lasted three weeks, Antara said she had a voicemail message that simply said, “You know where I am.”

The event to which the dancers returned was different from previous times. For years, the Midsummer Night Swing took place in Damrosch Park; This year, the dancing was back in the square where it began 33 years ago when a big band anniversary party at Lincoln Center became an annual tradition. (It moved to Damrosch Park in 2008 due to construction work on the square.)

For the program’s grand return, Lincoln Center hired Clint Ramos, a Broadway costume and set designer, to create a performance in the plaza between the grand buildings that house the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the New York Philharmonic to create eye-catching outdoor dance hall. Dubbed the Oasis, it featured a 10-foot diameter disco ball, a mirrored stage, and an electric blue dance floor that drew passers-by, many of whom preferred to sit on the sidelines sipping wine and watching the spectacle.

“It’s more like a party, like a celebration,” said Batiuchok, the ultimate Midsummer Night Swing veteran, after performing at the first two events with swing dance champion Frankie Manning.

Another important change this year: Admission was free. Originally, visitors who wanted to dance on the ground floor paid an entrance fee, while others could dance salsa and rumba on the sidelines while the band blasted music into the park.

The free dance events, which ended Aug. 6, drew more people than in previous years, not all of them serious dancers, leading to some grumbling among regulars that it was harder to find qualified partners. Lincoln Center estimated this year’s attendance at 54,000. In 2019, Midsummer Night Swing drew around 15,000 ticket holders to the dance floor, with an additional 23,000 people on the periphery, the organization said.

And perhaps the biggest change: the name Midsummer Night Swing has disappeared, at least for the time being. This year, ballroom dancing was part of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Festival, which also included workshops for children, orchestral concerts and poetry readings.

The dance styles were still diverse. Among this season’s offerings: Lindy Hop, Afrobeat, House, Salsa, Zydeco, Disco, Merengue, Tango, Flamenco, Freestyle and Ballroom.

The dancers came with all sorts of backstories: a 67-year-old woman who convinced her husband to move away from Paris so she could dance with the salsa greats of New York City; a 24-year-old doorman who began attending events with his church friends; a 53-year-old mother with stage 4 cancer who dances to find joy and calls it a “life force”.

They danced to connect with their cultural history.

“Having a dance created by our community, created by our ancestors, is a form of resilience,” said Taneeka Wilder, 41, a Bronx resident who started dancing lindy hop, a form, about six years ago , who was born in Harlem in the late 1920s .

They danced for their health.

“At 72, my blood pressure is excellent,” said Joanne Swain, who has been dancing since she was 14, as she sneaked into the Palladium nightclub on East 14th Street. “My doctor said to me, ‘Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.'”

And they danced for human connection, something many felt deprived of during the height of the pandemic. It’s normal here to take a stranger’s hand and let yourself be carried away for a song or two. (Even these reporters were lured onto the dance floor.)

“During Covid, I realized that apart from the human touch, what I missed the most was dancing,” said Veronica Cabezas, 42, who was beaming with excitement at a salsa night last month. “It puts you in a state of readiness to meet a new person.”

Few attendees wore masks at the events, and everyone agreed: Zoom couldn’t compare himself to dancing under the stars, nor could he dance at home with a broomstick as a partner, which Swain recalled doing at their house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

On one of the final nights of the season, just days before the Oasis was demolished, swing dancers gathered for the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, the same group that was performing in 2019 when the power went out.

WR Tucker, 88, whose dance name is Tommy Tucker, courted partners in a cream linen suit and matching fedora.

After moving to New York from Florida in 1954, he was a regular at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Tucker, who has attended Lincoln Center’s social dance events for about a decade, credits the dancing with keeping him “out of trouble.” He hasn’t stopped during the pandemic, even if he had to do it alone at home.

“New York was dying, but I was dancing in the house,” Tucker said. “Being here now feels like a new life.”

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How Many Children Does Mindy Kaling Have?

How Many Kids Does Mindy Kaling Have?

As an incredibly private mom, we weren’t too surprised when Mindy Kaling announced on an episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that she secretly welcomed a baby boy in September 2020.

While we don’t know much about her family life, “The Office” alum has shared tidbits here and there about raising her children that have kept our curious minds at bay. Kaling was most recently featured on Meghan Markle’s Archetypes podcast series, where she spoke candidly about the stress she endured as a single woman becoming a mother. “There’s also a whole Indian angle to choosing to have your own kids,” she told Markle. “I haven’t been to India since then [I was] 14 but you start thinking, ‘OK, what do my relatives in India think about this? Does this embarrass our family immensely that I made this decision?’”

She continued, “And I think I can drive myself crazy if I think about these things too much… I can’t think about it anymore. I just have to live my life to make myself and the people in my immediate family happy.”

Read on to find out everything we know about Mindy’s two children.

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Shakespeare or Bieber? This Canadian Metropolis Attracts Devotees of Each

Shakespeare or Bieber? This Canadian City Draws Devotees of Both

STRATFORD, Ontario – It’s a small town that practically screams “Shakespeare!”

Majestic white swans swim in the Avon River not far from Falstaff Street and Anne Hathaway Park, named after the playwright’s wife. Some residents live in Romeo Ward while young students attend Hamlet Primary School. And the school’s eponymous play is often performed as part of a renowned theater festival that draws legions of Shakespeare fans from around the world from April to October.

Steeped in references and reverence for the bard, Stratford, Ontario has counted on its association with Shakespeare for decades to reliably bring millions of tourist dollars to a city that would otherwise have little appeal to travelers.

“My dad always said we had a world-class theater housed in a farming community,” said Frank Herr, second-generation owner of a boat tour and rental business along the Avon River.

Then, about a dozen years ago, a new and usually much younger breed of culture enthusiast emerged on Stratford’s streets: Beliebers, or fans of local talent, pop star Justin Bieber.

Local residents don’t have much trouble telling the two types of visitors apart. A hint: look at what they are wearing.

“You have the Shakespeare books in your hands,” said Herr Herr of those who are here for the love of the theatre. “They’re just serious people.”

Beliebers, on the other hand, always have their smartphones handy to excitedly document the pop star’s otherwise boring sights: the location of his first date, the local radio station that first played his music, the diner where he was rumored to be eating.

Unlike Shakespeare – who never set foot in this town, named after his birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon, England – Mr. Bieber has real and deep connections: he grew up here and is familiar to many.

“I know Justin,” said Mr. Herr. “He used to skateboard on the cenotaph, and I used to kick him off the cenotaph,” he added, referring to a World War I memorial in the gardens next to Lake Victoria.

Diane Dale, Mr. Bieber’s maternal grandmother, and her husband Bruce lived a 10-minute drive from downtown Stratford, where the young singer, now 28, could often be found busking and collecting on the steps of the Avon Theater under her supervision up to $200 a day, she said in a recent interview.

Those moves became something of a pilgrimage for Mr. Bieber’s fans, particularly those vying to become “One Less Lonely Girl” during his teen-pop dreamboat era.

Another popular stop on the pilgrimage was Mrs. Dale’s front door. After fans rang her doorbell, she reassured them that her grandson wasn’t home, but that didn’t stop her from snapping selfies in front of the red-brick bungalow.

“Justin said if you don’t move, we won’t come see you anymore,” recalled Ms. Dale, a retired seamstress at a now-closed auto factory in town. In the meantime she has moved.

Stratford businesses that benefited from this second group of tourists began to speak of the “Bieber Effect,” a play on the “Bilbao Effect,” in reference to the Spanish city revitalized by a museum.

But one of the problems with pop fame is that it can be fickle. As fans have aged from their youthful infatuation with the musician, the “Bieber fever” has cooled and the number of pilgrims has dwindled.

The problems that have long plagued other Canadian cities, such as soaring home prices and drug addiction, are peeking more frequently through the picturesque veneer of Stratford, a city of about 33,000 surrounded by sprawling cornfields in southwestern Ontario’s farmland region.

But more than 400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s appeal is still fully intact.

The theater festival, which attracts over 500,000 visitors in a typical year and employs around 1,000 people, features Shakespearean classics, Broadway-style musicals and modern plays in its repertoire.

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the festival returned to its roots, holding a limited number of outdoor shows under canopies, as it did for the first four seasons beginning in 1953. In 1957 the Festival Theater building was inaugurated with a summer production of Hamlet, starring Canadian actor Christopher Plummer in the title role.

In this year’s production, a woman, Amaka Umeh, plays the first black actress to play Hamlet at the festival.

While it’s unknown how popular Mr. Bieber will be four centuries from now, the appeal of someone who’s sold over 100 million digital singles in the United States alone doesn’t fade overnight.

And Stratford has taken steps to permanently commemorate his youth here.

Mr. Bieber’s grandparents had kept boxes of his belongings, including talent show sheet music and a drum set, which were paid for by the community in a crowdfunding effort – until a local museum offered them a chance to display the items.

“It changed the museum forever in so many ways,” said John Kastner, general manager of the Stratford Perth Museum.

After telling the local newspaper that the museum was opening an exhibition called Justin Bieber: Steps to Stardom in February 2018, Mr Kastner said he was inundated with calls from international media.

“We wanted to make a room, like a 10 by 10 room,” said Mr. Kastner. He called his curator. “I said, ‘We have a problem.'”

They canceled the agricultural show planned for the adjacent space, which proved helpful in accommodating the 18,000 visitors in the first year of the Bieber show, a huge increase in attendance from the 850 who visited the museum in 2013.

The Bieber show, which will be on at least until next year, has generated thousands of dollars in merchandise purchases, Mr. Kastner said, giving the modest museum a welcome financial cushion.

Mr. Bieber has also made a handful of visits, chalked his name on the guest board and donated some recent memorabilia, including his wedding invitation and reception menu, which featured a dish called “Grandma Diane’s Bolognese.”

But even before the Beliebers came to town, organized school visits brought young people to Stratford in busloads, with 50,000 to 100,000 students arriving each year from across the United States and Canada.

Barring the pandemic border closures, James Pakala and his wife Denise, both retired seminary librarians in St. Louis, have come to Stratford for about a week every year since the early 1990s. Thirty years earlier, Ms. Pakala traveled to Stratford with her high school English literature class from Ithaca, NY, and the trip has become a tradition ever since.

“I love Shakespeare and I love Molière too,” said Mr Pakala, 78, who was studying his program ahead of a recent production of Molière’s comedy The Miser outside the Festspielhaus.

Other guests enjoy the ease of getting around Stratford. Traffic is fairly light, there is ample parking and most major attractions are a short walk from each other, with lovely views of the rippling river and picturesque gardens.

“It’s easy to go to theaters here,” said Michael Walker, a retired banker from Newport Beach, California, who visits with friends every year. “It’s not like New York, where it’s arduous, and the quality of the theater here is better than Los Angeles or Chicago, in my opinion.”

The Here for Now Theatre, an independent non-profit that opened during the pandemic and plays to a maximum of 50 people, has a “symbiotic relationship” with the festival, said its artistic director Fiona Mongillo, who compared the scale of their activities to a Fiat for the Festival freight train.

“It’s an interesting moment for Stratford because I think it’s growing and changing in a really beautiful way,” Ms. Mongillo said, noting the increasing diversity as Canadians have moved from neighboring cities to a previous city, she added , “very, very white.”

Longtime residents of Stratford, like Madeleine McCormick, a retired corrections officer, said it can sometimes seem like residents’ concerns are being sidelined in favor of tourists.

Nonetheless, Ms McCormick acknowledged the assets of the vibrant community of artists and creative people that captivated her musician husband.

“It’s a strange place,” she said. “Because of the theatre, there will never be a place like that again.”

And Mr. Bieber.

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Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich: A Marriage Constructed on Monsters

Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich: A Marriage Built on Monsters

Filmmaker Paul WS Anderson has directed Milla Jovovich in no fewer than four films in the apocalyptic Resident Evil franchise and has written two more in which she starred. He also directed Monster Hunter (2020) and a 2011 version of The Three Musketeers.

But what sounds like a series of genre nightmares is actually a dream arrangement: Anderson and Jovovich are married and have three children. A shared love of visual storytelling — often in the form of Jovovich’s slaying of monsters in Anderson’s post-industrial wasteland — has fueled them throughout a roughly 20-year collaboration that began with Resident Evil (2002), a video game adaptation they both had played. (A separate Resident Evil series is now available on Netflix.)

On a recent video call, I spoke to the happy couple about their partnership: Jovovich, 46, from Los Angeles, who recently completed Breathe, a dystopian thriller; Anderson, 57, from Kraków, Poland, where he is in pre-production on her next project, In the Lost Lands, based on a short story by George RR Martin. The family business continues with their daughter Ever Anderson appearing as Wendy in David Lowery’s upcoming Peter Pan & Wendy. This interview has been abridged and edited.

How did you meet each other?

PAUL WS ANDERSON We went to Pinewood Studios [outside London] to start production on Event Horizon and they ripped off these really cool looking sets for The Fifth Element. [starring Jovovich] that had just finished shooting. Our paths almost crossed there. And then we were at a premiere together, apart.

JOVOVICH MILE A premiere?

ANDERSON Yes! A Drew Barrymore film. “Unkissed.”

JOVOVICH I can’t imagine you watching a rom-com like this! This is hilarious.

ANDERSON It obviously attracted me for another reason, because you were there. Then I officially met Milla for the first time in 2000, just before we made Resident Evil. She was sitting on the steps in front of my office. I thought she was the coolest woman in the world. And I had just seen this really cool truck parked on the street outside – and it was her truck.

What was it like making notes on your first film together?

JOVOVICH Oh my god it was a disaster. I had read for a specific version of the film and I got the new rewrite the night before I had to go to Berlin [to shoot]. Paul pretty much wrote me out of the movie. I was the damsel in distress who kept saving Michelle Rodriguez—the “Look out! Behind you!” Girl. So when I got to the hotel, Paul’s very sweet producing partner was there with flowers, and I took the flowers and said, “I want to see Paul in my room within an hour. There are no script readings in the mornings!” Then I quickly got changed, put on my makeup, put on a really low-cut top and got together for some script editing. [Laughs] He said, “What’s the problem?” I said, “Okay, let’s get started: Page 1!”

Do you even work together now to write the stories?

JOVOVICH Paul is the writer, I’m just asking questions and trying to understand where my character fits. He does the heavy lifting and I come in and occasionally bring a kink to the work.

ANDERSON But it’s a hugely important part of the process, and Milla is really good at the script. I remember “Resident Evil: Afterlife” [2010], I had written the screenplay and Milla said: “There’s just something missing. It needs a characteristic action scene where I’m doing something, some kind of dogfight. And I had a dream last night: I jumped down an elevator shaft.” And I was like, oh my god, that’s a great idea. I went away and wrote a big rewrite. And Resident Evil: Afterlife starts off with this needle diving sequence, where it’s set in this underground skyscraper. She was right!

What do you think are each other’s strengths when it comes to filming action?

JOVOVICH Paul is the Action Master. It made a lot of sense when I found out he was the jailer [as a kid] because it takes that imagination to guide five nerds playing Dungeons & Dragons for 18 hours. And he still does it with our kids. It is so much fun. I’ve always been fascinated by the way Paul’s mind works because you’re the nicest guy but you have these horrific, disgusting visions and fantasies in your head.

ANDERSON Monsters from the ID!

JOVOVICH Who knows what would have happened if you couldn’t take it out in your films? You would have this conversation from prison.

Milla, your mother was an actress. Was that an influence for you?

JOVOVICH My mother was a movie star in the former Soviet Union. We defected to America in 1981 or so, my parents literally started from scratch. My mother tried to teach me what she knew to help us settle into a new country. So acting wasn’t really a choice for me. It was more of a necessity. I feel like maybe part of the reason I’m having such a hard time seeing myself on screen is because I never really believed in myself that I could be as good as her. But I don’t blame my mother; now i’m really thankful for that, because with my own daughter [Ever Anderson]I feel like I really nurtured her talent.

Paul, were there any filmmakers that inspired you?

ANDERSON The Scott brothers were a huge inspiration as Ridley and Tony were also from the north of England. It used to be shipbuilding and coal mining, and when I was a kid it was all industrial decay and unemployment.

Is industrial decay a key to all the post-apocalyptic landscapes in these movies?

JOVOVICH Paul is the king of industrial decay. My mother always complains. [Russian accent] “Why don’t you put an evening dress on her and do beautiful, glamorous hair. Always dirty. Always dirty. Always blood. Always terrible places. Disgusting.” [Anderson laughs]

ANDERSON I remember walking into the makeup trailer of Resident Evil: Extinction in the desert in Mexico [on a visit to the set of the 2007 film directed by Russell Mulcahy]. Milla is in there and the makeup artist has put on so much dirt. I think that’s enough dirt! And you could see that Milla was a little upset. A minute later I see her outside, chasing a truck around because it’s kicking up so much dust. And she’s just trying to get extra dirty!

JOVOVICH I’m telling you, nothing suits me better than blood and dust.