Columbia Filmmakers Shine Bright at the 63rd New York Film Festival

The 63rd New York Film Festival, taking place from September 26 to October 13, 2025, will spotlight works by Columbia alums, placing their stories at the heart of one of global cinema’s most prestigious events. 

The annual film festival presented by Film at Lincoln Center every fall is New York City’s most awaited film event of the year. Since its inception in 1963, the festival champions both bold emerging voices as well as auteurs that have carved out a niche for themselves. The Main Slate section of the festival, a program typically featuring 25-30 feature length films, showcases a mix of major art house films from the festival circuit, new discoveries, and studio releases. The section this year includes A House of Dynamite by Kathryn Bigelow '81 and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, associate-produced by Mark Sean Haynes '17. 

A House of Dynamite

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow '81

At a remote military outpost, an unidentified incoming missile is detected, setting in motion an escalating series of actions and reactions across all levels of the United States government in this kinetic thriller by Academy Award-winning director, Bigelow. The film features a terrific ensemble cast led by Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, and Gabriel Basso.

Mariane Tremblay, reviewer for the Venice Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere wrote, “After Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Detroit (2017), Bigelow returns, and she strikes once again, confronting us with the terrifying immediacy of nuclear threat. No one directs war films like Bigelow, and no one captures human emotion and urgency quite like she does. For 112 minutes, I was on the edge of my seat with a lump in my throat. A House of Dynamite is more than just a thriller—it’s a visceral meditation on fear, responsibility, and the fragility of modern life. Kathryn Bigelow proves once again why she is a master of her craft, creating a film that is as thrilling as it is terrifyingly real.”

The Mastermind

Associate Producer Mark Sean Haynes '17

Against a Nixon-era backdrop of alienation and disillusionment, a taciturn family man (Josh O’Connor) makes the rash, largely inscrutable decision to orchestrate a heist at the local art museum in this restrained and often funny anti-thriller from director Kelly Reichardt.

This is not the first collaboration Reichardt and Haynes have embarked on. Haynes was the Post Production Supervisor and the Associate Producer on Reichardt’s Showing up (2022) and was the Production Manager on First Cow (2019). 

Variety wrote, “The Mastermind is a canny rejoinder to the glamorous high drama of the traditional robbery-gone-wrong plot, in which an extraordinary act gradually comes undone when exposed to nothing more malign than the everyday forces of ordinary life, and the fatal flaws of an ordinary man. The film is hardly moralistic, but it is a gentle, cautionary hand-on-the-arm for ordinary men who believe they are somehow entitled to more than the everyday blessings of home and family that they have grown used to.”

See the full festival lineup and buy tickets for the films here!