NEW DIRECTORS/ New films 2019
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FESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD
[Press release from FSLC]
Celebrating its 48th edition in 2019, the New Directors/New Films festival introduces New York audiences to the work of emerging filmmakers from around the world. Throughout its rich, nearly half-century history, New Directors has brought previously little-known talents like Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Bi Gan, Valerie Massadian, Gabriel Mascaro, RaMell Ross, and Kelly Reichardt to wider audiences. From March 27 – April 7 at the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating a group of filmmakers who represent the present and anticipate the future of cinema: daring artists whose work pushes the envelope and is never what you’d expect. This year’s festival will introduce 24 features and 11 short films to New York audiences.
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The Opening, Closing, and Centerpiece selections are the New York premieres of three Sundance award-winners: opening the festival is Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency, which won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and features a masterful performance from Alfre Woodard as a prison warden grappling with her role in the justice system; Centerpiece is Alejandro Landes’s Monos, a contemporary reimagining of Lord of the Flies and winner of a World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize; and closing ND/NF is Pippa Bianco’s Share, a powerful portrait of a sexual assault victim, which took home U.S. Dramatic prizes for Breakthrough Performance and Screenwriting.
The lineup also boasts top prizewinners from festivals around the world, including Yeo Siew Hua’s A Land Imagined, a sociopolitical noir set in mainland China (awarded Locarno’s Golden Leopard); cinematographer Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s stunning feature directorial debut Manta Ray, voted one of the best undistributed films of 2018 by Film Comment (and winner of Venice’s Orizzonti prize); Shengze Zhu’s Present.Perfect., a fascinating found-footage doc assembling live-streamed clips from marginalized voices (which took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award); and two more Sundance winners—Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov’s wildly engaging beekeeping documentary Honeyland (World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize) and Luke Lorentzen’s exhilarating doc about family-run ambulances, Midnight Family (U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography).
Among the first-time features are Lucio Castro’s End of the Century, a decades-spanning queer love story screening in its World Premiere; A Family Submerged, the feature directorial debut of actress María Alché (Lucrecia Martel’s The Holy Girl), shot by renowned cinematographer Hélène Louvart; Qiu Sheng’s Suburban Birds, a two-part narrative puzzle; Lila Avilés’s intimate portrait of a female hotel worker The Chambermaid; and Eva Trobisch’s All Good, which won Locarno’s Best First Feature prize and has drawn comparisons to Maren Ade. Making their fiction feature debuts are Ognjen Glavonić with The Load and André Novais Oliveira with Long Way Home.
Additional highlights include several titles with distinct visual styles—Mark Jenkin’s Bait, shot on hand-processed black-and-white 16mm film, and Peter Parlow’s The Plagiarists, which uses low-def Betamax to spoof microbudget American indies—and hybrid films that defy categorization—Burak Cevik’s Belonging, a murder investigation told via voiceover, abstract imagery, and footage of the suspects’ first encounter, and Andrea Bussmann’s experimental narrative Fausto, which synthesizes Oaxacan myths with the classic Faust story. Also screening are four films with memorable performances: Philippe Lesage’s nuanced coming-of-age story Genesis; Camille Vidal-Naquet’s intimate character study of a gay hustler, Sauvage; Markus Schleinzer’s Angelo, about an African child sold into 18th-century Viennese court society, co-starring Alba Rohrwacher; and Sudabeh Mortezai’s Joy, about a Nigerian sex worker tasked with training a young recruit. Rounding out the lineup are two programs comprising 11 short films including Jacqueline Lentzou’s Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year, winner of Best Short Film at Cannes Critics’ Week, and Malena Szlam’s Altiplano, screening on a 35mm print.
“Demanding our attention and exemplifying the vitality of contemporary cine
