Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now? (2011)

The Film Society of Lincoln Center, in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art, is excited to announce the full lineup for the 41st annual New Directors/New Films Festival, running from March 21 – April 1. Dedicated to the discovery of new works by emerging and dynamic filmmaking talent, the film festival will screen 29 feature films (24 narrative, 5 documentary) and 12 short films, representing a total of 28 countries.

Opening the 2012 edition is Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now?, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed Caramel. Her new feature follows a group of Lebanese women trying to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims across their villages while also tearing down stereotypes of women in the Middle East.

“While New Directors/New Films by design is about discovery, it will be a thrill to broaden the scope of just what that discovery is this year,” says Rajendra Roy, the Chief Curator from the MoMA Department of Film. As part of this broadening of scope, this year’s festival will include a special celebration screening of Stanley Kubrick’s first feature Fear and Desire, which he wrote and directed in 1953 when he was 24. Additionally, the Closing Night feature this year will be a surprise screening, remaining unnamed until the curtain goes up at showtime. “Rest assured,” says Roy, “it will be one of the most talked about films of the year, but beyond that you'll have to come ready for anything.” Other firsts at this year's festival include a family film—the 3D French animated treat The Rabbi's Cat, directed by Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar—as well as a late-night screening of Gareth Huw Evans’s Indonesian martial arts thriller The Raid. Finally, the short films included in this year's ND/NF will be consolidated into two dedicated Shorts Programs to serve as an introduction to some of the most exciting new talent in filmmaking.


Terence Nance's An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012) 

This year’s festival will also include Terence Nance’s Sundance fan favorite An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, a personal and experimental meditation on love that puts you in the shoes of a quixotic young man. Another exciting first feature comes from Gotham-based Adam Leon, whose Give Me the Loot is a NYC revenge-fueled adventure featuring the famous Home Run Apple from Shea Stadium. Finally, first-time helmer Lee Kwang-Kuk will put the lessons learned from being assistant director to Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo on display with his feature debut Romance Joe.

Daring and experimental approaches to filmmaking this year are highlighted by Anca Damian’s Crulic: The Path to Beyond, which utilizes hand drawn, cutout and collage animation techniques, and Victor Ginzburg’s Generation P, a metaphysical Mad Men from the go-go 1990s. Some of the top-billed documentaries this year include Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s 5 Broken Cameras, which chronicles the jarring events that have taken place in Palestine over the past five years, and David France’s How to Survive a Plague, which provides a moving chronicle of the rise of AIDS activism. For a full list of this year's docket of films, check out the official press release.

Tickets to New Directors/New Films go on sale to the general public on March 11 online, or at the box offices of Film Society (Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St., north side) and MoMA (11 W. 53rd Street). Film Society and MoMA FilmPlus members may purchase tickets starting March 4. To become a Film Society member today, visit the Support section of our website.