Film at Lincoln Center, the nonprofit organization that programs the New York Film Festival, has named the British movie executive Daniel Battsek its next president.
From 2016 until early 2024, Battsek, 66, was chairman of the British production company Film4, overseeing the financing of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), among other releases.
Battsek will succeed Lesli Klainberg, who had led Film at Lincoln Center since 2014 before stepping down last year.
In an interview, Battsek, who will take over in May, said the centrality of film in the New York City cultural landscape had always appealed to him.
“In many other cities, including London, film is much further down the culture ladder than it is here,” said Battsek, who was based in New York as president of Miramax Films before joining Film4. “I love that cinema is seen as being on a level with opera and ballet and theater.”
Battsek’s appointment comes amid an industrywide downturn as movie theaters struggle to attract an audience that has yet to return to prepandemic numbers and are increasingly contending with competition from streaming services.
While he acknowledged those pressures, he also sounded a note of optimism: There’s been rising interest in independent films, Battsek said.
“If you look at the independent releases like ‘Anora’ that have really, really done well both theatrically and on streaming, all of that builds toward the potential to capture a growing audience, as opposed to trying desperately to hold onto a shrinking audience,” he said, referring to this year’s best picture winner at the Oscars.
Founded in 1969, Film at Lincoln Center operates on an annual budget of $15.5 million with 85 employees, and has more than 5,300 members. Formerly known as the Film Society of Lincoln Center, it dropped the “society” part of its name in 2019 in an effort to broaden its appeal and reach a wider audience.
It is perhaps best known for the New York Film Festival, where “Anora,” the Sean Baker sex worker dramedy, played last fall along with “The Brutalist” and “Nickel Boys.” And the organization jointly programs the New Directors/New Films series with the Museum of Modern Art. But Film at Lincoln Center is also a year-round home for first-run indie releases; smaller events like Rendez-Vous With French Cinema; and the magazine Film Comment.
Last year, Film at Lincoln Center recorded the highest ticket sales in its history for the New York Film Festival and its highest grosses in a decade at its year-round screens.
“I think it’s in a really good place,” Battsek said. “The pandemic, like with many other forms of entertainment that involve people going out, was really, really hard, and it’s taken time to recover from that. But the New York Film Festival has gone from strength to strength.”
Battsek has a track record of championing new work. At Film4, which he joined as director in 2016 before being promoted to chairman in 2022, he oversaw the production of the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” the Emma Stone-led black comedy “Poor Things” and the metaphysical melodrama “All of Us Strangers.”
Before joining Film4, he served as the president of National Geographic films, where he acquired and developed projects that included the Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary “Restrepo,” which followed a company of American soldiers in Afghanistan.
He also led Miramax for five years after Harvey Weinstein left in 2005, signing off on or acquiring Oscar-winning films like the docudrama “The Queen” (2006), the neo-western crime thriller “No Country for Old Men” (2007) and the Paul Thomas Anderson epic “There Will Be Blood” (2007).
What does he hope to accomplish at Film at Lincoln Center?
“Sean Baker captured it very well when he accepted his Oscar and made such a point of talking about why seeing movies in a theater is a communal experience that you don’t get at home,” Battsek said. “And I think that’s something that we can be the vanguard for.
“There is a growing appreciation, understanding and connection of younger audiences with cinema,” he continued, “and not just the ‘Minecraft’ movie.”