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Ralph Arlyck, a filmmaker living in New York’s Hudson Valley, confronts his own mortality in the documentary I Like It Here. Released in 2022, this intimate portrait follows 78-year-old Arlyck as he reflects on a life spent capturing everyday moments on film. Through both his narratives and those of neighbors and loved ones, themes of aging, memory, and legacy emerge.

Arlyck’s observant lens has, for decades, documented the rhythms of rural life among the farms and fields near his home. As he enters his eighth decade, he consciously trains that lens inward, inviting audiences to join his personal reflections on life’s passages.

With humor and wisdom, Arlyck considers what it means to grow older in a community where friendship and family have been steadying presences for many years. His interviews touch on facing end-of-life realities while still finding fulfillment in present joys, such as family gatherings where multi-generational bonds are celebrated.

Two very different indies circling a cantor and slasher debut in moderate to wide release along with a handful of limited openings from Close Your Eyes to Paradise Is Burning on this late summer weekend with the fall festival season about to kick off.

Sony Pictures Classics launches Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane-starring Between The Temples on 576 screens. Directed by Nathan Silver, written by Silver and C. Mason Wells with Schwartzman as a cantor losing his voice, and maybe his faith. His world turns upside down when his grade school music teacher (Kane) re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student. SPC acquired the thoughtful comedy out of Sundance. Also stars Robert Smigel (Leo), Madeline Weinstein (Beach Rats), and Matthew Shear (Mistress America). It played Sundance and Berlin to strong reviews (sits at 87% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes) and made its New York debut at Tribeca.

Veteran...

In Ralph Arlyck’s “I Like It Here” – his first film in 18 years – the U.S. documentary filmmaker reflects on his life while spending time with neighbors, friends, colleagues, children and grandchildren, and at the same time making peace with the physical and emotional obstacles of growing old, and pondering on the serenity and fulfilment that come with entering one’s final years. The film plays in the International Competition at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival on March 10.

At first, Arlyck thought he would make a film about his neighbor Ernie, a Hungarian hermit who lived north of his farm, but “it quickly became clear that he wasn’t going to go for that,” he tells Variety. “At that point, I realized that it really wasn’t Ernie that was gnawing at me. It was what we all confront: aging and these questions that become very prominent in front of your face.

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival kicks off its 25th edition Thursday at a time when the nonfiction genre has arguably reached unprecedented heights.

This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews).

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the...

A meditation on growing old, growing wiser, and all of life’s transitions, Ralph Arlyck’s personal documentary I Like It Here is a warm, witty, loose, discursive essay film that jumps between past and present, old and new friends, lover, colleagues, neighbors, and family. And a portrait of a life well-lived: Arlyck meditates on growing old while still having the capacity to care for others, including his sons, grandchildren, wife, friends, and Ernie, a self-sufficient neighbor who lives in a remote cabin into his 90s.

A pioneer of experimental documentary, Arlyck draws upon an obsessive archive of life’s moments and material captured by others. Opening with drone footage shot by a filmmaker friend—presumably who dropped by to show off his technology—Arlyck finds simple poetry in everyday surroundings. It of course doesn’t hurt that he lives on a gorgeous upstate New York farm, not far from...

• THINKFilm has not only got a winner on its hands â€. but may we dare say - its got the sort of potential that might see it cross into the mainstream golden evening of the award season â€. yep the Oscars might not look unattainable as I had first predicted. Given out last night, the Independent Film Project awards were prety much a Half Nelson tribute type of affair - winning in the breakthrough actor, director and picture categories with its closest rival being Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrituâ€.s Babel which picked up 2 awards. Note: Rinko Kikuchi (the naked Jap) from Babel and the (always play the same role twice) young Shareeka Epps shared the same award. Filmmaker Amy Bergâ€.s Deliver Us from Evil - a doc that unfortunately in my area spent very little time in theatres around my neighborhood lost out to the little seen Iraq in Fragments by James Longley.

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Actor-director Marty Sader's Most High took home the prize for best narrative film at the 12th annual Hamptons International Film Festival. The award -- dubbed the Golden Starfish Award for best narrative and worth $180,000 in goods and services -- was presented at closing ceremonies Sunday. Awards were presented by the fest's executive director Denise Kasell, board chairman Stuart Match Suna, programmer Rajendra Roy and emcee Bob Balaban, among others. The Golden Starfish short film award, plus $5,000 in cash, was presented to Gary Lundgren for Wow and Flutter. The Spike TV best documentary award, with a prize of $5,000 in cash and postproduction services, was awarded to Leslie Sullivan's A Touch of Greatness. Honorable mention was given to Ralph Arlyck's Following Sean. The Golden Starfish Award for international film, with a prize of cash and airline tickets worth $10,000, was presented to Reza Bagher's Capricciosa, a Swedish entry.