Spotlight
Bucking Fastard
Werner Herzog
New York Premiere
The oddball brilliance of Werner Herzog—returning to NYFF for the first time since 1982’s Fitzcarraldo (NYFF20)—is in full effect in this tale of two sisters (Kate and Rooney Mara, in total sync) who live by their own social and emotional standards and rules.
- Runtime
- 109 min
- Country
- Ireland/
U.S. - Language
- English
- Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
The oddball brilliance of Werner Herzog is in full effect in this tale of two sisters, Jean and Joan Holbrooke, who live entirely by their own social and emotional rules. They speak in unison, fall in love with the same man, and try to fulfill the same wild dreams and ambitions. As played by Kate and Rooney Mara, in total sync, the driven, single-minded Jean and Joan become classic Herzogian outsiders, like Kaspar Hauser or Fitzcarraldo, daring to transcend the limitations of everyday living and language. Shot across the teeming city streets and the majestic underground caves of Ireland, Bucking Fastard features operatic imagery from the director’s longtime cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger. It’s an uncanny, funny, properly eccentric film that moves from the comic to the grandly pastoral.
The oddball brilliance of Werner Herzog is in full effect in this tale of two sisters, Jean and Joan Holbrooke, who live entirely by their own social and emotional rules. They speak in unison, fall in love with the same man, and try to fulfill the same wild dreams and ambitions. As played by Kate and Rooney Mara, in total sync, the driven, single-minded Jean and Joan become classic Herzogian outsiders, like Kaspar Hauser or Fitzcarraldo, daring to transcend the limitations of everyday living and language. Shot across the teeming city streets and the majestic underground caves of Ireland, Bucking Fastard features operatic imagery from the director’s longtime cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger. It’s an uncanny, funny, properly eccentric film that moves from the comic to the grandly pastoral.