Alexandre Moors's Blue Caprice

Alexandre Moors's Blue Caprice will open the 42nd New Directors/New Films series co-hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). A favorite at the recent Sundance Film Festival, the film is a fictionalized account of the infamous Beltway snipers John Allen Muhammad and 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo.

Twenty-five features will screen over 12 days during the series, taking place March 20 – 31, including eight North American and four U.S. premieres. The annual showcase of emerging artists includes features from North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Additionally, shorts from around the world will screen in three shorts programs and as openers for select features.

In addition to previously-announced new films from rising directors like Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell) and Shane Carruth (Upstream Color), this year's line-up boasts a host of award-winning works from filmmakers who are likely new to New York audiences. Daniel Hoesl's absurdist tale of urbanity versus nature, Soldate Jeannette, won one of three Tiger Awards at the recent International Film Festival Rotterdam. Emperor Visits the Hell, Luo Li's creative reworking of the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, took home the Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema at last year's Vancouver Film Festival. From Turkey, spellbinding character study Küf won director Aly Aydin the Lion of the Future Award at last year's Venice Film Festival.


Penny Lane's Our Nixon

Penny Lane's Our Nixon will close out this year's ND/NF. The film utilizes hundreds of rolls of Super 8 film shot by Nixon's aides, which remained virtually unseen for 40 years after it was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investegation, to craft an unprecedented portrait of an American president.

Below is the full lineup of the 42nd New Directors/New Films. Pre-sale for Film Society and MoMA Film members starts March 3. General Public tickets go on sale March 10. Check back early next week for the full schedule and more information on the festival's new website!

Features

Blue Caprice by Alexandre Moors, 2012, USA, English; (Opening Night, New York Premiere)
Alexandre Moors’s taut debut feature explores the origins of the Beltway snipers, who together committed one of the most insidious incidents of gun violence in recent times.

Our Nixon by Penny Lane, 2013, USA, English; (Closing Night, New York Premiere)
Our Nixon offers an unprecedented, insider’s view of an American presidency, chronicling watershed events like the Apollo moon landing, the pathbreaking 1972 trip to China, and Tricia’s White House wedding, as well as more intimate glimpses of Nixon in times of glory and disgrace.


Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012, Denmark, Indonesian/English; (New York Premiere)
What is one to make of men who freely admit their involvement in the mass killing of millions of Indonesians in a bloody anti-Communist campaign in the 1960s? The Act of Killing bypasses the usual documentary tropes of exposing injustice, instead provoking the viewer to consider the murderers’ senses of responsibility for their crimes.

Anton's Right Here (Anton tut ryadom) by Lyubov Arkus, 2012, Russia/Russian (North American Premiere)
Critic-turned-filmmaker Lyubov Arkus finds herself the key caregiver for severely autistic teen Anton Kharitonov and, over six ensuing years, she documents in a highly reflective and deeply fascinating style the tremendous obstacles and problems of encouraging and supporting a sensitive but barely communicative boy.

Burn It Up Djassa (Le djassa a pros feu) by Lonesome Solo, 2012, Ivory Coast/France, French/Nouchi (U.S. Premiere)
Brimming with the fateful energy of the ghetto and its youthful, streetwise protagonists, this cinema verité–style, noir-tinged urban legend announces a distinctive new African cinema and a remarkable talent in its director, Lonesome Solo.

The Color of the Chameleon (Tsvetat na hameleona) by Emil Christov, 2012, Bulgaria/Bulgarian (New York Premiere)
A misfit youth turned engraving plant employee (codename: Marzipan) is recruited by the secret police to infiltrate a book reading group in this blackly comic, implacably deadpan, all but unclassifiable puzzler.

Les Coquillettes by Sophie Letourneur, 2012, France/French (North American Premiere)
Sophie Letourneur’s comedy of arrested development is a delightfully giddy, screwball lark, a self-mocking, thirty-something French counterpart to Girls filmed on location at the Locarno Film Festival.


Alex Pitstra's Die Welt

Die Welt by Alex Pitstra, 2012, Netherlands/Arabic, English, Dutch and Swedish (North American Premiere)
Based loosely on his own father's story of coming to Holland with a Dutch woman, Alex Pitstra’s semi-autobiographical voyage is set against the backdrop of a contemporary yet still very traditional Tunisia trying to find a way forward in the world.

Emperor Visits the Hell (Tang huang you di fu) by Luo Li, 2013, China/Canada, Chinese (U.S. Premiere)
In this crafty and oh-so-clever reworking of a portion of the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, the great Ming Dynasty king, Emperor Li Shimin, is now a bureaucratic boss in a big city, where the crooked Dragon King’s attempt to change the weather through a wager has backfired and condemned him to death.

A Hijacking (Kapringen, by Tobias Lindholm, 2012, Denmark/Danish, English, Somali (New York Premiere)
This tense drama switches between the claustrophobic and intensely fraught situation aboard a cargo ship held captive by pirates in the Indian Ocean and the removed negotiations by the freight company in Denmark.

Rengaine by Rachid Djaidani, 2012, France/French (U.S. Premiere)
A no-budget, urban contemporary Romeo and Juliet, Hold Back embodies the eternal conflict between true love and tribal loyalties, as real in 21st-century Paris as it was in the age of Shakespeare.

L'Intervallo by Leonardo Di Costanzo, 2012, Italy, Switzerland, Germany; Italian (New York Premiere)
Winner of the Critics’ Prize at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, The Interval has a palpable air of menace and sexual tension in its portrait of two adolescents thrown together under the watchful eye of the Camorra in Naples.


Eryk Rocha's Jards

Jards by Eryk Rocha, 2012, Brazil/Portuguese (North American Premiere)
This remarkably sensitive and intimately attuned portrait of an artist captures internationally celebrated composer and musician Jards Macalé as he heads to a recording studio in Rio de Janeiro to cut a new record.

Jiseul, by O Muel, 2012, South Korea/Korean (New York Premiere)
As part of a brutal anticommunist purge of the island of Jiju in 1948, Korean troops hunt down the inhabitants of a village caught in the crossfire in this austere, beautifully composed, and deliberately paced requiem.

Küf by Ali Aydin, 2012, Turkey/Germany; Turkish (North American Premiere)
Basri, a railroad inspector nearing retirement, spends his days in the gorgeous Anatolian outback looking for cracks on the line and his evenings writing letters to the government, looking for news about his left-wing son who disappeared 18 years ago.

Leones, by Jazmin Lopez, 2012, Argentina/France/The Netherlands; Spanish (North American Premiere)
In this metaphysical trance film, the verdant environment is as much a character as the five young protagonists, enfolding them as they move through it, their playful banter, word games, and ruminations filling the air.

People’s Park, by Libbie Dina Cohn and JP Sniadecki, 2012, USA/China; Chinese (New York Premiere)
An immersive, inquisitive visit to the People's Park in Chengdu, China presented in a single virtuosic tracking shot, this work of nonfiction scrutinizes the joys of communal play, exercise and free time.


Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's The Shine of the Day

The Shine of Day (Der Glanz des Tages), by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, 2012, Austria/German (New York Premiere)
In this followup to their semi-fictional, semi-documentary films Babooska and La Pivellina, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel continue to demonstrate a generous and human perspective on people struggling at the fringes of showbiz—namely, the circus.

Screening with: Ouverture, by Bracey Smith and Neil Dvorak, 2013, USA
This animated film poetically portrays the musicality of life, loss, and family relationships.

Soldate Jeannette, by Daniel Hoesl, 2012, Austria/German (New York Premiere)
In his first feature film, director Daniel Hoesl fashions an absurdist morality play that pits an urban, monetized, and manufactured world against nature.

Stories We Tell, by Sarah Polley, 2012, Canada/English (New York Premiere)
What is real? What is true? What do we remember, and how do we remember it? Filmmaker Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz) cracks open family secrets in this powerful examination of personal history and remembrance.

They’ll Come Back (Eles Voltam), by Marcelo Lordello, 2012, Brazil/Portuguese (North American Premiere)
In this gentle, understated drama, an upper-middle-class 12-year-old learns how Brazil’s other half lives when she and her sullen older brother are left behind by their parents in a rural backwater.


Kazik Radwanski's Tower

Tower, by Kazik Radwanski, 2012, Canada/English (New York Premiere)
In his mid-thirties yet still living at home with his parents, Derek struggles to make a small, animated film about a green creature building rock towers in Kazik Radwanski’s work of uncommon discipline combined with unmistakable empathy.

Towheads, by Shannon Plumb, 2013, USA/English (North American Premiere)
A Brooklyn mother finds comic relief from her domestic drudgery by inhabiting the world in various guises—drag king, pole dancer, Santa Claus—managing to find moments of joy and grace on even the most thankless of days.

Upstream Color, by Shane Carruth, 2012, USA/English (New York Premiere)
A love story embedded in a horrifying kidnap plot, Shane Carruth’s long-awaited followup to Primer represents something new in American cinema, formally exploring the surprising jumps and shocks of life’s passages and science’s strange effects. Screening with: RP31 (Lucy Raven, 5m).

Screening with: RP31, by Lucy Raven, 2012, USA
Hollywood’s Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE) develops image standards that can be used to test the quality of a film projection. Noted artist Lucy Raven riffs on this in RP31, her new animation composed from 31 film projection test patterns and calibration charts. North American Premiere!

Viola by Matías Piñeiro, 2012, Argentina/Spanish (U.S. Premiere)
One of contemporary Argentine cinema’s most sensuous and sophisticated new voices, Matias Piñeiro ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Screening with: The Search for Inspiration Gone (Ashley Michael Briggs, 9m).

Screening with: The Search for Inspiration Gone by Ashley Michael Briggs, 2012, UK
Combining animation, special effects, and live action, this silent film asks: will a writer who searches for inspiration find it in help or hindrance?


Santiago Gil's Chiralia

Shorts Program 1

Chiralia by Santiago Gil, 2013, Germany
A boy’s disappearance at a wooded lake leads to a questioning of memory and perception. (New York Premiere)

The Village (A Cidade) by Liliana Sulzbach, 2012. Brazil
A small village’s inhabitants are all elderly, and no one new is moving in. New York Premiere!

To Put Together a Helicopter (Para armar un helicóptero) by Izabel Acevedo, 2012. Mexico
When summer rains bring power outages to his neighborhood, 17-year-old Oliverio comes up with an ingenious solution. (North American Premiere)

Shorts Program 2

Wonderland by Peter Kerek, 2012. Romania
As a mother seeks to improve life for her family, her son explores the cavernous rooms of a stranger’s house—perhaps costing the two of them a better future.

Southwest by Jordi Wijnalda, 2013, USA/Turkey
In southwest Turkey, a Dutch woman helps save the lives of illegal immigrants but is forced to confront the unattended needs of those who love her. (World Premiere)

What Can I Wish You Before the Fight? (Que puis-je te souhaiter avant le combat?) by Sofia Babluani, 2012, France
A touching story about a case of mistaken identity and communication that transcends barriers. (US Premiere)

Everything Near Becomes Far by Mauricio Arango, 2011, USA/Colombia
The peaceful daily rhythm of a farmer is violently interrupted in the heart of the breathtakingly beautiful Andean mountains. (US Premiere)

Stampede by Cyril Amon Schäublin, 2012. Germany
A masterful short that articulates the moment when a city and its crowds create chaos and claustrophobia.


Sara Gunnarsdottir's The Pirate of Love

Shorts Program 3

Taboulé by Richard Garcia, 2011. Spain
How can you measure trust? A story about secret codes. (New York Premiere)

The Pirate of Love by Sara Gunnarsdottir, 2012, Iceland/USA
A filmmaker chases the legends surrounding a CD of popular Reykjavik love songs, supposedly written by a lovelorn trucker in Canada. (New York Premiere)

Flamingos (I Fenicotteri) by Francesca Coppola, 2012, Italy
Father and daughter share a sentimental moment, but trouble boils under the surface. (North American Premiere)

Sequin Raze by Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, 2013, USA
A reality-show contestant tries to protect herself from the psychological onslaught of one of the producers.

Ararat by Engin Kundag, 2012, Germany
A man tries to keep the peace in his brother’s home after a ten-year absence.

Take a Deep Breath (Derin Nefes Al) by Basak Buyukcelen, 2012, Turkey
When a teenager’s parents take her to see a gynecologist, her life takes an unexpected turn.