Last year was something of an unprecedented success for the annual New Directors/New Films program: more than half of the films secured U.S. distribution, one (Old Joy) was among 2006’s best-reviewed films, and two (Half Nelson and My Country My Country) went on to receive Oscar validation. Only time will tell if the 36th incarnation of the series, another joint presentation by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, will be up to snuff, but early signs are promising.
Per usual, a considerable amount of this year’s selections are carryovers from Toronto and Park City. Among them are: War/Dance, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix’s documentary about children living in Ugandan displacement camps; Christopher Zalla’s Sangre de Mi Sangre (formerly known as Padre Nuestro, winner of this year’s Sundance Grand Jury prize; Peter Schønau Fog’s incest dramedy The Art of Crying; and Jean-Pascal Hattu’s 7 Years, about a woman’s unusual love affair between her incarcerated husband and a prison guard.
An early highlight of the fest is Glue. The film is no landmark, but there’s a striking candor to Alexis Dos Santos’s artful doodle about a boy and his seething hormones in Argentina’s dreary Patagonia region that recalls some of the seminal works of the New Queer Cinema movement.
For a complete schedule of films, screening times and ticket information, please see the festival’s official site. Ed Gonzalez
• 7 Years (Jean-Pascal Hattu)
• The Art of Crying (Peter Schonau Fog)
• Audience of One (Michael Jacobs)
• Congorama (Phillippe Falardeau)
• Cowboy Angels (Kim Massee)
• El Custodio (Rodrigo Moreno)
• Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev)
• Euphoria (Ivan Vyrypaev)
• Glue (Alexis Dos Santos)
• Gradually… (Maziar Miri)
• Great World of Sound (Craig Zobel)
• The Inner Life of Martin Frost (Paul Auster)
• Love for Sale (Karim Aïnouz)
• Meanwhile (Diego Lerman)
• Once (John Carney)
• The Only One (Geoffrey Enthoven)
• The Other Half (Ying Liang)
• Sangre de Mi Sangre (Christopher Zalla)
• Red Road (Andrea Arnold)
• Reprise (Joachim Trier)
• Rome Rather Than You (Tariq Teguia)
• Salty Air (Alessandro Angelini)
• Shelter (Marco Simon Puccioni)
• Stealth (Lionel Baier)
• War/Dance (Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine)
• What the Sun Has Seen (Michał Rosa)
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