Hotel New York
“Hotel New York humorously relays the adventures of Lulu (Jackie Raynal), a French filmmaker whose U.S. visit assumes permanence when she settles down to the ins and outs of living, New York style. Housing,...film jobs, critics, men (straight and gay), romance (marriage and ensuing boredom)--Raynal filters these experiences through a foreigner's eye with a deftly surreal touch. Raynal matches her idiosyncratic approach to narrative with the talents of cinematographer Babette Mangolte (Jeanne Dielman), dialogue writer/actor Gary Indiana, and her off-screen husband, Sid Geffen (as Lulu's husband Sid). Never losing her humor or feminist edge, Raynal offers a refreshing antidote to gloomy visual treatises on survival in that apotheosis of the ‘urban.' A segment of Hotel New York (New York Story, 1980) won the Grand Prize for short films at the Melbourne Festival.” Laura Thielen
French film director, editor and actress Jackie Raynal has lived in New York since 1975. She has edited films by Chabrol, Rohmer, Godard, Garrel and others. Her first feature was Deux Fois (1973). Raynal has been an active advocate of independent cinema as film exhibitor and programmer for two New York theaters owned by her husband Sid Geffen, Bleecker Street Cinema and Carnegie Hall Cinema.