NYFF Currents Slate: Bardi, At Night & More

The New York Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its Currents section, a program dedicated to bold, unconventional works, and this year’s selection promises a blend of established avant-garde voices and emerging talents. Among the featured films are Tala Hadid’s Bardi and Beatrice Gibson’s At Night, two projects that have already generated quiet buzz within the international festival circuit for their distinct visual languages and thematic ambition.

The Currents slate, announced Wednesday, is curated to sit alongside the festival’s main slate, offering a platform for artists who push against traditional narrative structures. This year’s program appears particularly focused on the intersection of personal memory and collective history, with several films exploring how individuals navigate the lingering weight of place and politics. Hadid, a Moroccan-British filmmaker known for her lyrical documentaries such as I Am the People, returns with Bardi, a work that continues her fascination with marginalized communities and the landscapes they inhabit. While plot details remain under wraps, the film’s title, which references a form of oral poetry in the Amazigh tradition, hints at a meditation on storytelling itself as a mode of survival.

Gibson’s At Night marks another significant entry in the lineup, arriving after her celebrated short films that often blend scripted dialogue with spontaneous, documentary-style observation. The new work is expected to follow her signature approach - melding sound, text, and raw performance - though specifics about its narrative have been kept intentionally vague. What is clear is that Gibson, who has exhibited at major art institutions like the Tate and the Venice Biennale, treats cinema less as a delivery system for plot and more as a sensory experience, a sensibility that aligns perfectly with the Currents ethos.

The selection also includes a diverse range of international productions, from experimental essays to hybrid fiction, reflecting the festival’s growing commitment to showcasing cinema that defies easy categorization. Several of the announced titles have already screened at other prestigious events earlier this year, but the NYFF presentation will offer U.S. audiences their first opportunity to see them in a theatrical setting. The festival’s programmers emphasized in the release that this year’s Currents section was chosen not for thematic unity but for the strength of individual voices, each offering a distinct response to the present moment.

For Hadid, Bardi represents a return to North Africa after years of filming in other regions, and early reviews from its premiere at a European festival praised its hypnotic pacing and stark, beautiful imagery. The film reportedly follows a young man’s journey through a remote village, but in true Hadid fashion, the narrative is less about destination than about the texture of daily life - rituals, silences, and the slow erosion of tradition. Critics have drawn parallels to the work of Abbas Kiarostami, though Hadid’s lens carries its own particular warmth and political undercurrent.

Gibson’s At Night, meanwhile, is said to be one of her most personal works to date, drawing on her experiences as a mother in London. Known for collaborations with poets and musicians, Gibson often allows her subjects to speak at length, creating a sense of intimacy that feels almost intrusive. In a recent interview with a British arts magazine, she described her new film as “a letter to the future,” a phrase that touches on anxieties about climate, parenthood, and the act of making art in uncertain times. The NYFF screening will be accompanied by a conversation with the filmmaker, a common feature for Currents selections.

Tickets for the Currents program will go on sale to the general public later this month, following a priority window for festival members. The section typically runs concurrently with the main festival, with screenings scheduled across multiple venues in the city, including the Film at Lincoln Center complex. Given the relatively small number of titles in the lineup, demand is expected to be high for the most anticipated works, particularly Bardi and At Night, both of which have limited distribution deals pending.

The announcement is the latest in a series of reveals leading up to the festival’s full program unveiling next week. While the main slate often grabs headlines with star-studded premieres, the Currents section has become a reliable barometer for where cinema is heading next, championing artists who operate on the fringes of the industry. This year’s selection appears to double down on that mission, favoring rigor and risk over accessibility. For attendees willing to embrace the unfamiliar, the lineup offers a rare chance to see filmmakers working at the height of their formal powers, unburdened by commercial expectations.

As the festival prepares to open its doors in late September, the Currents titles will join a broader conversation about the role of experimental cinema in an era of streaming and short attention spans. The NYFF has long been a venue where such questions are debated, not just through panels, but through the very act of programming. With Bardi and At Night leading the charge, this year’s section seems poised to remind audiences that the most vital cinema often arrives without a roadmap.

Source: Variety