Films this week 11/6/2026 to 11/12/2026
by Gary Palmucci | 9th November 2026 | Gary's Corner
We have a powerhouse, seven-film lineup this weekend at New Plaza Cinema- let’s get to it.
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My Undesirable Friends – Part 2: Exile – our ‘full house’ who attended Part One of this epic documentary last winter has not, I suspect, forgotten the chronicle of a courageous band of Russian journalists who ultimately had to flee their country after unsparingly reporting on the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Part Two, screening in a pair of three-hour episodes, tells us what happened after their ‘diaspora;’ they scattered to various locales to dodge death threats, and find safety and work, including here in NYC, in an inspiring saga of pungent humor, courage and survival. The first installment will be presented on Saturday Nov 7 at 12 Noon; the second on Sunday Nov 8 at 530 pm, followed by a Q&A with director Julia Loktev. Please note that this is a change in the Q&A schedule announced here last weekend. Separate admission tickets will be sold for each of the two parts.
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Fjord – Palme d’or Winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the latest from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (multi-award-winning Four Weeks, Three Months and Two Days; his more recent R.M.N., which we screened here) depicts a family plunged into crisis over their Norwegian community’s reaction to evidence that the father has administered corporal punishment to at least two of his five children.
But as the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis notes in her review,
“Nothing…is incidental in director Mungiu’s filmmaking, including in this exactingly constructed movie. Each word and shot, every glance and gesture – the father’s (Sebastian Stan) sober mien, the mother’s (Renate Reinsve) yielding smilee, the looming mountains, all their enormous picture windows – serve as revelatory pieces in the complicated whole. “
A recent, separate NYT profile of the director was headlined “He Won’t Tell You
What to Think. Some Viewers Can’t Forgive HIm for That.” That’s as strong a recommendation as any I can think of, for this utterly compelling work.
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Filipinana – another surprising downtown art house (and Sundance) revelation, this Filipino drama of dark secrets and injustice is representing that nation in this year’s Academy Awards competition for Best International Feature. Director Rafael Manuel will host a special screening on Friday Nov 6 at 6 pm.
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Paris Was a Woman – this 1996 documentary on the many writers, artists and other unforgettable ladies who populated Paris in the 1920s was an art house hit on its original release. It has had a recent digital restoration, which will be presented on Sunday at 315 pm by director Greta Schiller and producer Andrea Weiss, longtime friends of New Plaza Cinema.
Holding over this weekend: John Wilson’s droll The History of Concrete, the piercing documentary NAZA, our biggest box office attraction of the year to date, and the uproariously comic Yaniv, set in the shadowy world of Hasidic card-sharking. Its filmmaking team will again be present for Q&A after Saturday afternoon’s show.
And coming next weekend:
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Local Hero, Scottish director Bill Forsyth’s sylph-like classic, with Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster and Fulton Mackay. At New Plaza Cinema we’ve witnessed via previous podcasts the literally worldwide appeal of this movie- order your tickets accordingly.
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Rediscovering Fanon – following its sold-out summer premiere at Symphony Space, two screenings of a feature documentary that examines the life and ideas of revolutionary psychiatrist and philosopher Franz Fanon, linking his analyses of race, colonialism and human liberation to contemporary struggles across the globe.