{"id":9090,"date":"2018-03-08T18:35:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T23:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/?p=9090"},"modified":"2021-12-26T09:37:06","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T14:37:06","slug":"gregg-w-morris-annual-new-directors-new-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/gregg-w-morris-annual-new-directors-new-films\/","title":{"rendered":"47th Annual New Directors\/New Films Festival, March 28\u2013April 8, Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Stephen Loveridge\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3041550\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matangi\/Maya\/M.I.A.<\/a> has been selected for Opening Night,and RaMell Ross\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.halecountyfilm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hale County This Morning, This Evening<\/a> will close the festival. Features and shorts from 29 countries across five continents, with 10 North American premieres, 13 films directed or co-directed by women, and 14 works by first-time feature filmmakers.<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Press Release Edited for Style<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Throughout its rich, nearly half-century history, the festival celebrates filmmakers who represent the present and anticipate the future of cinema, daring artists whose work pushes the envelope in unexpected ways. This year\u2019s festival will introduce 25 features and 10 short films to New York audiences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe purpose of New Directors\/New Films is to seek out emerging filmmakers who are working at the vanguard of cinema,\u201d said Film Society Director of Programming Dennis Lim. \u201cThis is as diverse and wide-ranging a lineup as we\u2019ve assembled in years: full of pleasures and provocations and, above all, surprises \u2013 proof that film remains a medium ripe for reinvention in ways big and small.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Said Josh Siegel, Curator of the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art, \u201cThe filmmakers in this year&#8217;s New Directors are as imaginative, daring and restless as any we&#8217;ve seen, whether observing a world-famous rapper fighting injustices in Sri Lanka or prostitutes and holy men in Jamaica, a coal peddler in the Congo or a credit-card scammer in Switzerland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The opening and closing night selections are the New York premieres of two Sundance award-winning documentaries: Stephen Loveridge\u2019s Matangi\/Maya\/M.I.A., an intimate portrait of the global rap sensation via the artist\u2019s own video diaries, which won the festival\u2019s World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award; and RaMell Ross\u2019s Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a visionary and poetic look at resilient African American families in the titular Alabama region, winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s lineup boasts features and shorts from 29 countries across five continents, with 10 North American premieres, 13 films directed or co-directed by women, and 14 works by first-time feature filmmakers. <strong>Highlights include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pedro Pinho\u2019s surprising three-hour epic The Nothing Factory, which was voted number 1 on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.filmcomment.com\/best-undistributed-films-of-2017\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Film Comment magazine\u2019s Best Undistributed Films of 2017 list;.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The late Hu Bo\u2019s epic feature debut An Elephant Sitting Still, a masterpiece sure to be remembered as a landmark of modern Chinese cinema.<\/li>\n<li>New York-based filmmaker Ricky D\u2019Ambrose\u2019s dark, minimalist pseudo-detective tale Notes on an Appearance.<\/li>\n<li>Gustav M\u00f6ller\u2019s emergency call center thriller The Guilty, which won prizes at Rotterdam and Sundance.<\/li>\n<li>Our House, an evocative examination of female friendship by first-time Japanese filmmaker Yui Kiyohara.<\/li>\n<li>Acclaimed documentarian Emmanuel Gras\u2019s Cannes prizewinner Makala, which follows the monumental efforts of a young Congolese charcoal-maker at work.<\/li>\n<li>Khalik Allah\u2019s stylistically rich Black Mother, a close look at Jamaica via its holy men and prostitutes.<\/li>\n<li>Locarno prizewinner Milla, Val\u00e9rie Massadian\u2019s moving, visually striking meditation on young motherhood; and many more exciting discoveries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Press screenings will be held at MoMA and FSLC the weeks of March 12 and 19, respectively \u2013 full information will be announced in coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>The New Directors\/New Films selection committee is made up of members from both presenting organizations. The 2018 feature committee was comprised of Dennis Lim (Co-Chair, FSLC), Josh Siegel (Co-Chair, MoMA), Florence Almozini (FSLC), Sophie Cavoulacos (MoMA), La Frances Hui (MoMA), and Dan Sullivan (FSLC), and the shorts were programmed by Brittany Shaw (MoMA) and Tyler Wilson (FSLC).<\/p>\n<p>Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, March 16 at noon. Film Society and MoMA members receive an early access purchasing period starting on Monday, March 12 at noon. To become a member of the Film Society or MoMA, please visit filmlinc.org or MoMA.org, respectively. Plus, see more and save with a 3+ film discount package or brand new VIP All-Access Pass (quantities are limited).<\/p>\n<p>New Directors\/New Films is presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art and is supported by the Annual Film Fund of The Museum of Modern Art, Film Society\u2019s New Wave, The New York Times, American Airlines, The Village Voice, Shutterstock, and Hudson Hotel.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9155\" src=\"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1-560x315.jpg 560w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1-260x146.jpg 260w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/newdlogo1-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>FILMS &amp; DESCRIPTIONS<br \/>\nAll films are digitally projected unless otherwise noted<\/h3>\n<p><strong>OPENING NIGHT<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9092\" src=\"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"562\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still-560x315.jpg 560w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still-260x146.jpg 260w, https:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/mia-festival-still-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><br \/>\nMatangi\/Maya\/M.I.A.<br \/>\nStephen Loveridge, Sri Lanka\/United Kingdom\/USA, 2018, 95m<br \/>\nIn English and Tamil with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nBefore rapper M.I.A. became a global sensation, known for her musical daring and tireless political activism for the Tamil people in her native Sri Lanka, she was an aspiring filmmaker, having made countless video diaries chronicling her youth and private life. First-time documentarian Stephen Loveridge, who attended art school in London with M.I.A. in the nineties, uses this first-hand material to craft a nuanced and intimate portrait of a woman finding her roots, voice, and stardom, and a deeply personal statement from a pop star yearning to express herself.<br \/>\nWednesday, March 28, 7:00 &amp; 7:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nThursday, March 29, 6:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<p><strong>CLOSING NIGHT<\/strong><br \/>\nHale County This Morning, This Evening<br \/>\nRaMell Ross, USA, 2018, 76m<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\n\u201cThe American stranger knows Blackness as a fact\u2014even though it is fiction,\u201d says writer-director RaMell Ross. For his visionary and political debut feature, which premiered to great acclaim at Sundance in 2018, Ross spent five years intimately observing African American families living in Hale County, Alabama. It\u2019s a region made unforgettable by Walker Evans and James Agee\u2019s landmark 1941 photographic essay Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which documented the impoverished lives of white sharecropper families in Alabama\u2019s Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Ross\u2019s poetic return to this place shows changed demographics, and depicts people resilient in the face of adversity and invisibility. Hale County This Morning, This Evening introduces a distinct and powerful new voice in American filmmaking.<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 8:30pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSunday, April 8, 2:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>3\/4<\/strong><br \/>\nIlian Metev, Bulgaria, 2017, 82m<br \/>\nBulgarian with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\n3\/4 evokes the intimacies, joys, and tensions of a contemporary Bulgarian family facing an uncertain future; the father is an astrophysicist with his head in the clouds, his son a waywardly antic teenager, his daughter a gifted but anxious pianist. Illian Metev (whose previous film was the gripping documentary Sofia\u2019s Last Ambulance) won the Filmmakers of the Present prize at the 2017 Locarno Festival for this fiction feature debut, a gracefully shot, uncommonly tender character study that plays like an exquisite piece of chamber music.<br \/>\nThursday, March 29, 6:00pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 1:00pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Ava<\/strong><br \/>\nSadaf Foroughi, Iran\/Canada\/Qatar, 2017, 103m<br \/>\nFarsi with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nAdolescence creates intense pressure for any girl, but it\u2019s particularly strong for 17-year-old Ava, buffeted by the harsh strictures of home and school in contemporary Tehran. Iranian writer-director Sadaf Foroughi won the jury prize at the Toronto International Film Festival for her intimate and intensely dramatic portrait of a young woman whose private longings drive her to rebellion and lead to public shaming. A Grasshopper Film release.<br \/>\nThursday, March 29, 8:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 7:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Azougue Nazar\u00e9<\/strong><br \/>\nTiago Melo, Brazil, 2017, 80m<br \/>\nPortuguese with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nNo measure of hellfire preaching can quell the boisterous and bawdy passions of Maracatu, an Afro-Brazilian burlesque carnival tradition with roots in slavery that takes place in the northeast state of Pernambuco. As the Falstaffian character Tiao, Valmir do Coco leads a nonprofessional cast of authentic Maracatu practitioners in a tale told through dance, music, and the supernatural, set in the sugarcane fields outside Recife. The fabulous\u2014and fabulist\u2014Azougue Nazar\u00e9 is the first film by Tiago Melo, who worked on such recent celebrated Brazilian films as Kleber Mendon\u00e7a Filho\u2019s Aquarius (NYFF 2016) and Gabriel Mascaro\u2019s Neon Bull (ND\/NF 2016), and who was awarded the Bright Future prize at this year\u2019s Rotterdam International Film Festival.<br \/>\nFriday, March 30, 6:30pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 7:30pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Black Mother<\/strong><br \/>\nKhalik Allah, USA, 2018, 75m<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nThe second feature by filmmaker and photographer Khalik Allah is a kind of documentary tone poem, a polyphonic work rich in atmosphere and intimate portraiture. Allah immerses us in Jamaica\u2019s neighboring worlds of charismatic holy men and equally charismatic prostitutes, the sacred and the profane alike. Allah captures them and their environments with a haunting visual style and absorbing sense of rhythm entirely his own, their testimonies flooding the soundtrack with reflections on everyday survival and hopes for the future. Seamlessly switching from Super-8mm to HD video, Black Mother affirms its maker as one of the great stylists in documentary cinema today.<br \/>\nWednesday, April 4, 6:00pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 6:00pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Closeness \/ Tesnota<\/strong><br \/>\nKantemir Balagov, Russia, 2017, 118m<br \/>\nRussian with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nA young woman is trapped in a tight-knit Jewish community in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, located in Russia\u2019s North Caucasus, that demands her total dedication but provides her with little protection from the perpetual violence encompassing all aspects of life. Shot mostly in interior spaces, Closeness conjures a world of darkness and claustrophobia as the heroine quietly revolts yet succumbs to her bleak existence. This debut feature by Kantemir Balagov feels more beholden to the social realism of the Dardenne brothers than to the transcendental flair of his mentor, Russian auteur Alexander Sokurov (a producer on this film). Warning: this film contains a scene featuring images of documented violence that viewers may find upsetting.<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 4:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 4:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Cocote<\/strong><br \/>\nNelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic\/Brazil\/Argentina, 2017, 107m<br \/>\nSpanish with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nThis format-mixing, formally eclectic opus is at once a profound film about religion and a unique tale of revenge. Upon learning that his father has been murdered by a powerful local figure, Dominican private gardener Alberto travels from Santo Domingo back to his hometown to participate in his funeral rites\u2014a mixture of Catholicism and West African mysticism that flies in the face of Alberto\u2019s own evangelicalism. But Alberto\u2019s family has vengeance in mind, and he finds himself at a spiritual and existential crossroads. Boldly synthesizing ethnographic documentary and scripted drama, Cocote is a visually resplendent and stylistically audacious work that evokes the films of Glauber Rocha and the fiction of Roberto Bola\u00f1o. A Grasshopper Film release.<br \/>\nTuesday, April 3, 6:15pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nWednesday, April 4, 8:15pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Djon \u00c1frica<\/strong><br \/>\nJo\u00e3o Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis, Portugal\/Brazil\/Cape Verde, 2018, 95m<br \/>\nIn Portuguese with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nDocumentarians Jo\u00e3o Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis turn the subject of their previous film into the central character of their debut fiction work. A Cape Verdean in Portugal, Miguel Moreira, also known as Djon \u00c1frica, travels back home to look for his birth father. This hopefully soul-searching journey quickly gets derailed as he comes across beautiful women, colorful parties, and the local liquor known as grogue. Written by Pedro Pinho, director of The Nothing Factory, also playing in this festival, this woozily intoxicating road movie is as youthful, charming, and adventurous as its title character.<br \/>\nWednesday, April 4, 9:15pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nFriday, April 6, 6:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Drift<\/strong><br \/>\nHelena Wittmann, Germany, 2017, 96m<br \/>\nGerman with English subtitles<br \/>\nU.S. Premiere<br \/>\nFilmmaker-artist Helena Wittmann\u2019s subtly audacious first feature follows friends Theresa, a German, and Josefina, an Argentinian, as they spend a weekend together on the North Sea, taking long walks on the beach and stopping at snack stands. Eventually they separate\u2014 Josefina eventually returns to her family in Argentina and Theresa crosses the Atlantic for the Caribbean\u2014and the film gives way to a transfixing and delicate meditation on the poetics of space. Self-consciously evoking the work of Michael Snow and masterfully lensed by Wittmann herself, Drift is by turns cosmic and intimate.<br \/>\nThursday, April 5, 6:30pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 4:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>An Elephant Sitting Still<\/strong><br \/>\nHu Bo, China, 2018, 234m<br \/>\nMandarin with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nSure to be remembered as a landmark in Chinese cinema, this intensely felt epic marks a career cut tragically short: its debut director Hu Bo took his own life last October, at the age of 29. The protagonist of this modern reworking of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts is teenage Wei Bu, who critically injures a school bully by accident. Over a single, eventful day, he crosses paths with a classmate, an elderly neighbor, and the bully\u2019s older brother, all of them bearing their own individual burdens, and all drawn as if by gravity to the city of Manzhouli, where a mythical elephant is said to sit, indifferent to a cruel world. Full of moody close-ups and virtuosic tracking shots, An Elephant Sitting Still is nothing short of a masterpiece.<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 6:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSunday, April 8, 6:00pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Good Manners \/ As Boas Maneiras<\/strong><br \/>\nMarco Dutra &amp; Juliana Rojas, Brazil\/France, 2017, 135m<br \/>\nPortuguese with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nAn immaculately stylized twist on the monster movie, Dutra and Rojas\u2019s second collaboration (following the acclaimed Hard Labor) inventively engages matters of race, class, and desire. Set in S\u00e3o Paulo, the narrative initially concerns the curious relationship between rich, white, pregnant socialite Ana (Marjorie Estiano) and her new housemaid Clara (Isab\u00e9l Zuaa). As the two women grow closer, their rapport turns first sexual then shockingly macabre. Good Manners evolves into a werewolf movie unlike any other, a delirious and compulsively watchable cross between Disney and Jacques Tourneur.<br \/>\nThursday, April 5, 8:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nFriday, April 6, 8:45pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>The Great Buddha +<\/strong><br \/>\nHuang Hsin-yao, Taiwan, 2017, 104m<br \/>\nTaiwanese and Mandarin with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nProvincial friends Pickle and Belly Button idle away their nights in the security booth of a Buddha statue factory, where Pickle works as a guard. One evening, when the TV is on the fritz, they put on video from the boss&#8217;s dashcam\u2014only to discover illicit trysts and a mysterious act of violence. Expanded from a short, Huang Hsin-yao&#8217;s fiction feature debut The Great Buddha + (the plus sign cheekily nodding to the smartphone model) is a stylish, rip-roaring satire on class and corruption in contemporary Taiwanese society.<br \/>\nTuesday, April 3, 8:45pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nWednesday, April 4, 6:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>The Guilty<\/strong><br \/>\nGustav M\u00f6ller, Denmark, 2017, 85m<br \/>\nDanish with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nIn this pulsating crime thriller set entirely inside a claustrophobic emergency call center, police officer Asger is assigned to dispatcher duty following a fatal incident. An initially slow evening takes a sharp turn when he receives a mysterious call for help, and Asger must spring into action, embarking on a hair-raising journey\u2014on the phone\u2014to bring the caller to safety. Debut feature filmmaker Gustav M\u00f6ller keeps the tension and the viewer\u2019s imagination alive in this chamber piece that won audience awards at the Rotterdam and Sundance film festivals.<br \/>\nFriday, March 30, 6:00pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 6:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Makala<\/strong><br \/>\nEmmanuel Gras, France, 2017, 96m<br \/>\nFrench and Swahili with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nGras\u2019s transfixing road movie and Cannes Film Festival prizewinner follows a young Congolese man named Kabwita through the making, transporting, and selling of charcoal\u2014from the felling of a tree to pushing a teetering bicycle weighed down with bulging sacks along treacherous dirt roads to contending with motorists, extortionists, and potential customers. As Gras observes Kabwita\u2019s perilous trade, he derives beauty from the monumental efforts that go into his day-to-day existence. Makala is a documentary that resembles a neorealist parable, locating an epic dimension in the humblest of existences. A Kino Lorber release.<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 2:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nMonday, April 2, 8:45pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Milla<\/strong><br \/>\nVal\u00e9rie Massadian, France\/Portugal, 2017, 128m<br \/>\nFrench with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nFollowing up her acclaimed 2011 debut Nana, Val\u00e9rie Massadian has made a moving, visually striking meditation on young motherhood and the vagaries of growing up. Severine Jonckeere turns in a remarkably subtle performance as the titular 17-year-old; just as her youthful romance with Leo (Luc Chessel) seems ready to cross the threshold into teenage parenthood, Massadian performs a radical formal gesture that both complicates Milla\u2019s predicament and evokes the beauty and cruelty of time\u2019s passage. A prizewinner at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival, Milla audaciously eschews conventional melodrama, searching instead for a complex, truthful reflection of life itself. A Grasshopper Film release.<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 3:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nMonday, April 2, 9:00pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Nervous Translation<\/strong><br \/>\nShireen Seno, Philippines, 2018, 90m<br \/>\nFilipino with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nInformed by filmmaker Shireen Seno\u2019s childhood in the Filipino diaspora and her dual training in film and architecture, this sophomore work is a stylized evocation of a child&#8217;s fanciful interpretation of the world around her. Eight-year-old Yael, left to her own devices after school, secretly plays and replays audio cassettes her father sends home to her mother while working overseas; pursues happiness as communicated to her via a TV advertisement; and, in fanciful scenes that evoke the work of American artist Laurie Simmons, enters the meditative, immersive world of her dollhouse\u2019s kitchen. Seno offers fleeting clues from the late-eighties outside world, hinting at societal turmoil following Ferdinand Marcos&#8217;s ouster and complicated adult relations, but these never overshadow her film\u2018s touching depiction of childhood imagination.<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 8:45pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSunday, April 8, 1:00pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Notes on an Appearance<\/strong><br \/>\nRicky D\u2019Ambrose, USA, 2018, 60m<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nRicky D\u2019Ambrose\u2019s debut feature follows a quiet young man (Bingham Bryant) who mysteriously disappears soon after starting a new life in Brooklyn&#8217;s artistic circles. Distraught friends (including Keith Poulson and Tallie Medel) search for him with the help of notebooks, letters, postcards, and other tiny clues; meanwhile, a parallel story about an elusive and controversial philosopher provides a rather sinister backdrop to their pursuit. This dark, minimalist pseudo-detective tale offers plenty of humor and displays a distinctive aesthetic. Following a series of remarkable shorts, D\u2019Ambrose has clearly defined himself as a talent to watch.<br \/>\n\u2013 Preceded by:<br \/>\n<strong>Young Girls Vanish \/ Des jeunes filles disparaissent<\/strong><br \/>\nCl\u00e9ment Pinteaux, France, 2017, 16m<br \/>\nFrench with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American premiere<br \/>\nCl\u00e9ment Pinteaux explores the echoes of violence in Essonne, France, where dozens of girls were killed by wolves in the 1600s. Centuries later, young women begin disappearing again.<br \/>\nFriday, April 6, 6:30pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 6:30pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>The Nothing Factory \/ A F\u00e1brica de Nada<\/strong><br \/>\nPedro Pinho, Portugal, 2017, 177m<br \/>\nPortuguese and French with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nA rich and formally surprising film of ideas, beautifully shot on 16mm, and featuring one of recent cinema\u2019s most memorable musical numbers, Portuguese director Pedro Pinho\u2019s nearly three-hour epic concerns the occupation of an elevator plant by its workers. They are stirred to action when the factory\u2019s machinery is removed in the middle of the night by the owners; they rapidly organize, kick out the brass who have arrived offering buyouts, and discuss the feasibility of managing the facility themselves\u2014all the while a Marxist theorist exerts ideological influence from the sidelines. The Nothing Factory is a serious and singular look at the meaning of work today, further developing Pinho\u2019s interest in the status of labor amid his country\u2019s financial crisis.<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 2:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSunday, April 8, 4:30pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Our House \/ Watashitachi no ie<\/strong><br \/>\nYui Kiyohara, Japan, 2017, 80m<br \/>\nJapanese with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nThis feature debut is an evocative and surprising exploration of female friendship, parallel realities, and the mysteries of everyday life. An adolescent girl named Seri lives with her mother in an old house in a coastal town. Seemingly in the very same house, amnesiac Sana is taken in by Toko, a young woman who harbors secrets of her own. As the parallel stories unfold, the boundaries between these two worlds grow increasingly porous&#8230; Inspired by the fugues of Bach and recalling the films of Jacques Rivette, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and David Lynch, Our House announces Yui Kiyohara as an exciting new voice in Japanese cinema.<br \/>\nFriday, April 6, 8:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSunday, April 8, 3:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Scary Mother \/ Sashishi Deda<\/strong><br \/>\nAna Urushadze, Georgia\/Estonia, 2018, 107m<br \/>\nGeorgian with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nIn Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze\u2019s gripping and bleakly comic feature debut, Manana, a 50-year-old Tbilisi mother abandons her duties as a wife and mother to pursue an obsessive and hermetic life of writing poetry. In a performance of coiled fear and rage that recalls the best of Isabelle Huppert, Nato Murvanidze plunges into Manana\u2018s feverish imagination. Scary Mother, which won awards at film festivals around the world, is a haunting, singular new vision.<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 9:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nMonday, April 2, 6:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Those Who Are Fine \/ Dene wos guet geit<\/strong><br \/>\nCyril Sch\u00e4ublin, Switzerland, 2017, 71m<br \/>\nGerman with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nThis dark comic study of an alienated contemporary Zurich begins by following an impassive twenty-something, a call center worker by day who initiates phone scams targeting elderly workers after hours. The film then spirals out to incorporate into its narrative city residents\u2014police, bank tellers, reporters\u2014obliquely linked to this swindle. Swiss filmmaker Cyril Sch\u00e4ublin\u2019s feature debut (following a half-dozen short films to his name, including Stampede, ND\/NF 2013) is a razor-sharp, formalist satire, using the city\u2019s grey concrete architecture; clipped, digit-dominated exchanges between urbanites (phone numbers, Wi-Fi passwords, credit cards); and even a dash of sci-fi-esque atmospherics to portray a fractured, contemporary dystopia.<br \/>\nThursday, April 5, 9:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSaturday, April 7, 1:45pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Until the Birds Return \/ En attendant les hirondelles<\/strong><br \/>\nKarim Moussaoui, Algeria\/France\/Germany, 2017, 113m<br \/>\nArabic and French with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nA property developer is witness to random street violence. A pair of secret lovers make their way across the desert. A doctor is accused of having a criminal past. In these three interconnected tales, exciting newcomer Karim Moussaoui\u2014whom critics at Cannes compared to Abbas Kiarostami and Leos Carax\u2014takes the pulse of modern-day Algiers, a country once riven by colonial occupation and sectarian warfare yet still abundant in beauty and promise.<br \/>\nFriday, March 30, 8:30pm [MoMA]<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 3:30pm [FSLC]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>A Violent Life \/ Une Vie Violente<\/strong><br \/>\nThierry de Peretti, France, 2017, 107m<br \/>\nFrench with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nSt\u00e9phane returns to Corsica for the funeral of a childhood friend and gang member, despite having a target on his back. Through flashbacks, this sophomore feature by Corsican filmmaker Thierry de Peretti tensely unspools as a coming-of-age tale dashed with crime, political radicalism, and youthful idealism born of the island&#8217;s separatist movement. Loosely based on actual events and cast with local actors, A Violent Life resonates with regional folklore and crafts a poignant portrait of a marginalized generation. A Distrib Films release.<br \/>\nMonday, April 2, 6:15pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nTuesday, April 3, 6:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"1\" width=\"30%\" \/>\n<p><strong>Winter Brothers \/ Vinterbr\u00f8dre<\/strong><br \/>\nHlynur P\u00e1lmason, Denmark\/Iceland, 2017, 100m<br \/>\nEnglish and Danish with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nThis debut feature from Hlynur P\u00e1lmason, an Icelandic visual artist\/filmmaker based in Denmark, is an immersive sensory experience set in a desolate Danish limestone mining community. A landscape covered in indistinguishable white ash and snow masks the darkness enveloping Emil, a lonely and eccentric young man who works in the mine with his much more sociable brother. Few notice Emil until he is suspected of causing a co-worker\u2019s grave illness, which leads to his ostracization. A relentless industrial soundscape accompanies this portrait of a man trapped in unforgiving isolation. A KimStim release.<br \/>\nThursday, March 29, 9:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSaturday, March 31, 2:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"3\" width=\"80%\" \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shorts Program 1 (TRT: 98m)<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom an atmospheric thriller set in Iran, uncanny and moving sketches of displaced people, to a musical documentary and an atypical dance film, these five bold shorts evoke the struggles and joys of communities from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>City of Tales<br \/>\nArash Nassiri, France\/USA, 2018, 20m<br \/>\nFarsi with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nLos Angeles plays Tehran in Arash Nassiri\u2019s uncanny, nocturnal meditation on memory and place, which follows a group of people during Nowruz, the 13-night celebration of the Iranian New Year.<\/p>\n<p>Rupture<br \/>\nYassmina Karajah, Jordan\/Canada, 2017, 18m<br \/>\nArabic with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York premiere<br \/>\nUnable to communicate with the world around them, young Arab teenagers attempt to navigate their new town on a sticky summer day, in search of comfort and a public swimming pool.<\/p>\n<p>Palenque<br \/>\nSebasti\u00e1n Pinz\u00f3n Silva, Colombia\/USA, 2017, 25m<br \/>\nSpanish\/Palenquero with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nSebasti\u00e1n Pinz\u00f3n Silva\u2019s ambulant, melodic documentary is set in San Basilio de Palenque, evoking the rich musical history and collective memory of the first freed slave settlement in the Americas.<\/p>\n<p>Gaze \/ Negah<br \/>\nFarnoosh Samadi, Iran\/Italy, 2017, 14m<br \/>\nPersian with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nA woman witnesses a crime and must decide whether to speak up in Farnoosh Samadi\u2019s taut and tense film.<\/p>\n<p>Home Exercises<br \/>\nSarah Friedland, USA, 2017, 21m<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nSarah Friedland\u2019s nonfiction dance portrait of the gestural habits of elderly people in their homes is a sweet, droll, and precisely observed study of the subtle movements and choreographies of domesticity.<br \/>\nFriday, March 30, 9:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nSunday, April 1, 1:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<p>Shorts Program 2 (TRT: 80m)<br \/>\nThe irreverent, melancholic, and transgressive impulses of youth collide in this program of four films, each set within their own fully realized hermetic world.<\/p>\n<p>Copa-Loca<br \/>\nChristos Massalas, Greece, 2017, 14m<br \/>\nGreek with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nTeeming with sensational images and absurd dialogue, Christos Massalas\u2019s irreverent coming-of-age story follows a young woman eluding adulthood at an abandoned Greek resort.<\/p>\n<p>After School Knife Fight<br \/>\nCaroline Poggi &amp; Jonathan Vinel, France, 2017, 21m<br \/>\nFrench with English subtitles<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nFour bandmates prepare for the departure of their lead singer in this melancholy 16mm snapshot of youthful longing.<\/p>\n<p>M\u00f6bius<br \/>\nSam Kuhn, USA, 2017, 15m<br \/>\nNew York Premiere<br \/>\nFollowing the death of her boyfriend, a teenage girl drifts through her days in a haze of memory in this eerie and atmospheric high school tale.<\/p>\n<p>Bad Bunny \/ Coelho Mau<br \/>\nCarlos Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, Portugal\/France, 2017, 30m<br \/>\nPortuguese with English subtitles<br \/>\nNorth American Premiere<br \/>\nThis impeccably crafted, fabulist work\u2014a beguiling cross between bestiary and family drama\u2014concerns a voyeuristic young man\u2019s plot to punish his mother\u2019s lover and satisfy a forbidden urge.<br \/>\nTuesday, April 3, 9:00pm [FSLC]<br \/>\nThursday, April 5, 6:00pm [MoMA]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>ABOUT NEW DIRECTORS\/NEW FILMS<\/strong><br \/>\nDedicated to the discovery and support of emerging artists, New Directors\/New Films has earned an international reputation as the premier festival for works that break or re-cast the cinematic mold. The New Directors\/New Films selection committee is made up of members from both presenting organizations: from The Museum of Modern Art, Rajendra Roy, La Frances Hui, Sophie Cavoulacos, and Izzy Lee, and from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Dennis Lim, Florence Almozini, Dan Sullivan, and Tyler Wilson. For more information about the festival, visit newdirectors.org and follow the festival on Facebook (facebook.com\/newdirectors) and Twitter (@NDNF, #NDNF).<\/p>\n<p><strong>FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Film Society of Lincoln Center is devoted to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema. The only branch of the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center to shine a light on the everlasting yet evolving importance of the moving image, this nonprofit organization was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international film. Via year-round programming and discussions; its annual New York Film Festival; and its publications, including Film Comment, the U.S.\u2019s premier magazine about films and film culture, the Film Society endeavors to make the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broader audience, as well as to ensure that it will remain an essential art form for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Shutterstock, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART<br \/>\nThe Museum of Modern Art\u2019s Department of Film marked its 80th anniversary in 2015. Originally founded in 1935 as the Film Library, the Department of Film is a dedicated champion of cinema past, present, and future. With one of the strongest international collections of motion pictures in the world \u2013 totaling more than 30,000 films between the permanent and study collections \u2013 the Department of Film is a leader in film preservation and a discoverer of emerging talent.<\/p>\n<p>Through The Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, a state-of-the-art storage facility in Hamlin, Pennsylvania, MoMA restores and preserves films that are shown across the world and in many of the Museum\u2019s diverse programs, most notably in To Save and Project: The Annual MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation. The Department of Film engages with current cinema by honoring films and filmmakers that will have a lasting historical significance through its annual Film Benefit, which raises funds for the continued maintenance and growth of the collection, and The Contenders series, an annual series of the year\u2019s best movies, as selected by MoMA Film curators from major studio releases and top film festivals.<\/p>\n<p>Always looking to the future, the Department of Film is constantly unearthing emerging talent and providing a venue for young filmmakers through programs such as New Directors\/New Films and Documentary Fortnight. Playing an essential role in MoMA\u2019s mission to collect, preserve, and exhibit modern and contemporary art, the department was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1978 \u201cfor the contribution it has made to the public\u2019s perception of movies as an art form.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Edited by Gregg Morris, gmorris@hunter.cuny.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe purpose of New Directors\/New Films is to seek out emerging filmmakers who are working at the vanguard of cinema,\u201d said Film Society Director of Programming Dennis Lim. \u201cThis is as diverse and wide-ranging a lineup as we\u2019ve assembled in years: full of pleasures and provocations and, above all, surprises \u2013 proof that film remains a medium ripe for reinvention in ways big and small.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/gregg-w-morris-annual-new-directors-new-films\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[731,102,732,733],"class_list":["post-9090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","tag-47th-annual-new-directors-new-films","tag-film-festivals","tag-film-society-of-lincoln-center","tag-museum-of-modern-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9090"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9160,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9090\/revisions\/9160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunterword.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}