NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2022 (April 20-May 1, 2022)

[Chris Knipp]

WHITE BUILDING/BODENG SAR (Kavich Neang 2021

A beautiful, slow-moving autobiographical family portrait from Cambodia centering on a young man with dance ambitions whose family is getting pushed out of the old low-rise White Buliding, home to many artists and teachers, which is giving way to Phnom Penh's rapid, heedless development. Tellingly, this film, produced by the French Films du Losange, is coproduced by Jia Zhang-ke. This is a serene gem - it's silences are the best parts of it - that won its young star, Piseth Chhun, the best actor award in Venice's Orizzonti section last year. Neang has chronicled the building where he and his family lived (destroyed in 2017) in short films.

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Thursday, April 21
6:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Kavich Neang)
Friday, April 22
6:00pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Kavich Neang)

[Chris Knipp]

ROBE OF GEMS/MANTO DE GEMAS (Natalia López Gallardo 2021)

Feature debut by Carlos Reygadas' wife who has edited his films and those of Lisandro Alonso and is influenced by them. This very sophisticated, very creepy film deserves the attention of cinephiles for its unique artistry, but its depressing picture of Mexican drug dealing, kidnappings, and humiliations is too vaguely defined to assume real structural coherence.

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Friday, April 22
6:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Natalia López Gallardo)
Saturday, April 23
3:00pm, MoMA T1 (Q&A with Natalia López Gallardo)

[Chris Knipp]

REHANA/REHANA MARYAM NOOR (Abdullah Mohammad Saad 2021)

This film from Bangladesh (which we don't see films from very often) draws attention with its relentless portrait of a feminist medical school teacher whose obsession with a sexual harassment case goes way too far. The monomaniacal focus of the one-on-one scenes and the weird pervasive blue filter didn't appeal to me, but this film has drawn admiring reviews from some and was the first Bangladeshi film included at the Cannes festival, in the Un Certain Regard section.

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Friday, April 29
6:15pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater
Sunday, May 1
5:45pm, MoMA T2

[Chris Knipp]

FIRE OF LOVE (Sara Dosa 2022)

A documentary portrait of passionate husband and wife volcanologist team Katia and Maurice Krafft, from Alsace in France. They died together working too close to the hot fire of a volcano - the more dangerous "gray" kind (as opposed to the prettier but milder "red" ones) which became their focus. They left behind a voluminous record of themselves and of the volcanoes they studied that is the source. The film maybe emphasizes the romantic daredevil side of the Kaaffts at the expense of their very real scientific achievements. The hushed whisper of director Miranda July as the narrator doesn't help.

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Wednesday, April 27
8:30pm, MoMA T1 (Q&A with Sara Dosa)
Thursday, April 28
6pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Sara Dosa

[Chris Knipp]

HAPPENING/L'ÉVÉNEMENT (Audrey Diwan 2021)

Opening night film of ND/NF, this is a superb French film based on the autobiographical novel by Annie Ernaux about an abortion in 1963, 12 years before abortion became legal in France, when you could go to jail for getting, providing, or aiding in an abortion. In academy ratio with beautiful painterly images, this is a forthright and vivid picture of the nitty-gritty of abortions when they're illegal, but it's also a picture of a bright, promising university student and the people around here and the memory the film leaves is less grim than gloom-fests like the US Never Rarely Sometimes Always or the earlier Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Anamaria Vartolomei, in the lead, is a notable new talent as well. This is going to be coming out in May 6, 2022 and you should see it.

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Wednesday, April 20
7:00pm, MoMA T1 (Q&A with Audrey Diwan and Anamaria Vartolomei)
7:30pm, MoMA T2 (Introduction by Audrey Diwan and Anamaria Vartolomei)
Thursday, April 21
3:30pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater

[Chris Knipp]

CHILDREN OF THE MIST (Diễm Hà Lệ 2021)

A detailed, intimate work of documentary ethnography in which the filmmaker bonds with a young Hmong girl in North Vietnam and follows her people's life and customs, particularly the unfortunate, lingering habit of "kidnapping" child brides, which isn't good for anybody yet still goes on, even though there are schools now and girls have a chance at education and a better life - and with smart phones, they know something of the world outside.. This is a remarkable film and wholly admirable. The customs aren't at all, but that's ethnography for you: it does not constitute an endorsement.

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Saturday, April 30
3:15pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Diễm Hà Lệ)
Sunday, May 1
12:00pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Diễm Hà Lệ)

[Chris Knipp]

PILGRIMS (Laurynas Bareiša 2021)

A chilly LIthuanian film about the girlfriend and brother of the victim, the "pilgrims" of the story, revisiting the sites leading up to the brutal kidnapping and murder that happened four years earlier, an exploration that unveils the indifference and complicity of the whole town, and perhaps unearths underlying human evil. Not a thriller or a mystery: the main culprit has already been captured and punished. A chilly and unfun presentation, which holds the attention most of the way, this won the Venice Orizzonti Best Film award for new filmmakers.

Thursday, April 21
8:15pm, MoMA T2
Thursday, April 28
8:45pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater

[Chris Knipp]

ONODA: 10000 NIGHTS IN THE JUNGLE (Arthur Harari 2021)

What at first seems odd that it was made by a French team later seems inevitable because the tale of a soldier who goes on fighting his own private war on a Pacific island for nearly 30 years after the end of WWII is hard to look at for some Japanese helmers, though in the end Arthur Harari finds the nobility as well as the endurance in this amazing, epic saga. This was the opening night film of the Un Certain Regard section of last year's Cannes, and got an AlloCiné press rating of 88% on its July French theatrical release. "Arthur Harari directs the magnificent biopic of a man who wanted neither peace nor to die" (LIberation). One of the memorable films of this year's ND/NF.

Saturday, April 23
12:00pm, FLC Walter Reade Theater (Q&A with Arthur Harari)
Sunday, April 24
12:15pm, MoMA T2 (Q&A with Arthur Harari)