THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER announces the lineup of the 2011 New York Film Festival Shorts Programs

 

 25TH Anniversary Screening of Oliver Stone’s SALVADOR

will replace “Untold History of the United States”

 

Special guests announced to attend

the Masterworks screening of BEN-HUR

 

NEW YORK, September 14, 2011 — The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced two short films programs for the 2011 New York Film Festival as well as late-breaking updates for the Oliver Stone presentation and the Masterworks screening of BEN HUR.

Due to scheduling conflicts, Oliver Stone’s “Untold History of the United States” will no longer screen at the 2011 New York Film Festival. We are, however, pleased to announce that Oliver Stone will still be appearing at NYFF to present a 25th Anniversary screening of SALVADOR, a film that burst onto the American film scene with a force that immediately established Stone as an artist to be reckoned with. For more information, please go to http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/25th-anniversary-screening-of-salvador.

The Masterworks screening of BEN-HUR at Alice Tully Halll on Saturday, October 1 at 10:30AM will now be a family affair, with the attendance of Fraser Heston (the son of Charlton Heston), Catherine Wyler (the daughter of director William Wyler) and Toby Wyler, (the director’s great-grandson). The trio will take part in introductions of the film with FSLC’s Richard Pena and will also be available for interviews to discuss the careers of Heston and Wyler as well as the restoration of the cinema classic.

BEH-HUR has been given a meticulous frame-by-frame restoration from the original 65mm camera negative, completed from an 8K scan of the original 65mm camera negative, making this the highest-resolution restoration ever completed by Warner Bros. studio. The innumerable qualities of the William Wyler’s film will be on display on the giant screen in the original 2.76 aspect ratio, and this theatrical premiere of the restored version provides audiences of all ages the rare opportunity to marvel at Hollywood maximally lavish, stirring and exciting epic entertainment.

NYFF 2011 also announced the lineup for two shorts programs set to screen at FSLC’s new Film Center. Both programs feature original short films by exciting new talents on the world cinema stage.

 

SHORTS PROGRAM #1

Total running time: 92 minutes

Tuesday, October 4 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater

Saturday, October 15 at 2:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater

 

THE BIRD SPIDER (La Migala) (2011) 14min

Director: Jaime Dezcallar

Country: Spain

A lovelorn man enters into a deadly game of chance when he intentionally sets a poisonous arachnid loose in his apartment.

 

BLUE (2011) 14min

Director: Stephen Kang

Country: New Zealand

The life and hard times of a human-sized plush toy, formerly a children’s TV star, now a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes Critics Week.

 

THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF (2011) 11min

Director: Jessica Brickman

<p>Country: USA

Death is both an aid and an impediment to romantic bliss in this wry comedy about the mourning after, co-starring Fran Kranz and Jason Ritter.

 

GRAFFITIGER (2010) 10min

Director: Libor Pixa

Country: Czech Republic

A lonely graffiti-drawn tiger wanders the walls and sidewalks of Prague looking for companionship.

 

THE RUNNER (2011) 15min

Director: Ana Lazarevic

Country: Serbia and Montenegro/USA

In the lush and weedy Serbian countryside, a first time human trafficker becomes stranded with the Roma boy he is assigned to deliver.

 

THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS (2011) 28min

Director: Ari Aster

Country: USA

In the picture-perfect Johnson family, a scandalous secret bubbles to the surface with outrageous, darkly comic complications.

 

SHORTS PROGRAM #2

Total running time: 88 minutes

Wednesday, October 5 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater

Saturday, October 15 at 4:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater

 

AARON BURR, PART 2 (2011) 8min

Director: Dana O’Keefe

Country: USA

You only thought you knew all there was to know about the much-maligned third Vice President of the United States.

 

THE GREAT GATSBY IN FIVE MINUTES (2011) 10min

Director: Michael Almereyda

Country: USA

The Fitzgerald classic as you’ve never seen it, transposed to a Los Angeles of sleek modern architecture and strip-mall foot clinics.

 

MEMORY BY DESIGN (2011) 5min

Director: Nathan Punwar

Country: USA

A dazzling love letter to all things analog, as they recede into the horizon of the digital age.

 

MY BOW BREATHING (Il respiro dell’arco) (2011) 10min

Director: E.M. Artale

Country: Italy

Revenge has the sting of a perfectly aimed arrow as a young archer gets in touch with her primal instincts.

 

GRANDMOTHERS (Abuelas) (2011) 9min

Director: Afarin Eghbal

Country: UK

A lyrical animated documentary about the search by Argentinian grandmothers for the orphaned children of the “disappeared.”

 

FIRST MATCH (2011) 15min

Director: Olivia Newman

Country: USA

No amount of practice on the mat can prepare Mo for the challenge she faces at her first high school wrestling match.

 

TRAITORS (2011) 31min

Director: Sean Gullette

Country: Morocco/USA

A night in the lives of an all-girl punk band as they illicitly shoot their first music video on the streets of Tangier.

 

The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring top films from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Peña also includes: Melissa Anderson, contributor, The Village Voice; Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and contributing editor, Film Comment; Dennis Lim, Editor, Moving Image Source & Freelance Critic; and Todd McCarthy, Chief Critic for The Hollywood Reporter.

 

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, the Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 49th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The 49th Annual New York Film Festival is made possible by the generous support of Royal Bank of Canada, 42 Below Vodka, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stella Artois, illy caffè, HBO FILMS, WABC-7, Dolby, Kodak, WNET New York Public Media, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com