Art of the Real 2018
Presented with support from MUBI
Celebrating its fifth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. The 2018 lineup features a host of brilliant new works by internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Corneliu Porumboiu, Sergei Loznitsa, Irene Lusztig, Karim AĂŻnouz, Kazuhiro Soda, and Jumana Manna, along with a vibrant slate of impressive, award-winning debuts from around the world. This year also includes a series of âArtist Spotlights,â four presentations and career-spanning conversations with visual artists whose work resonates with nonfiction filmmaking: Hiwa K, Amar Kanwar, Steffani Jemison, and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme. Art of the Real is documentary redefined.
Organized by Dennis Lim and Rachael Rakes.
Presented with support from MUBI.
Acknowledgments:
UniFrance; German Films;Â Mara Polgovsky; Michel Lipkes; Marian Goodman Gallery; the New Museum; UnionDocs Documentary Arts Center; NYLO
The fifth edition of Art of the Real is an essential showcase for the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking.
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection
Q&A with Julien Faraut · North American Premiere · Opening Night Reception
Farautâs sophisticated and witty found-footage ode to tennis legend John McEnroe is an essayistic investigation into the poetics of athletics, taking as its point of departure Jean-Luc Godardâs maxim, âCinema lies, sports doesnât.âEmpty Metal
Closing Night · World Premiere · Q&A with co-directors Adam Khalil, Bayley Sweitzer, cast & crew
This first feature by Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer is a forceful and hallucinogenic film about personal politics in extraordinary times.All That Passes by Through a Window that Doesnât Open
New York Premiere · Q&A with Martin DiCicco
A glimpse at the lives of the laborers who built the BakuâTbilisiâKars railway, Martin DiCiccoâs serene documentary doubles as a stunning document of Central Asiaâs unique geography.Baronesa
U.S. Premiere · Q&A with Juliana Antunes
With its almost exclusively female crew and nonprofessional cast, Baronesa is structurally simple yet multilayered in its resonance, recalling the films of Pedro Costa as it establishes Antunes as a formidable new voice in Brazilian cinema.Braguino
U.S. Premiere · Q&A with Clément Cogitore · Pre-Screening Reception
The director of Neither Heaven Nor Earth (ND/NF 2016) looks at the conflict between two families of âOld Believersâ living in an extremely remote region of the Siberian taiga. Uninterested in anyoneâs rules but their own, the families are not only threatened by each other and wild animals but also by environmental change. Screening with Alex Tysonâs Divieto 2.Casanova Gene
North American Premiere · Q&A with Luise Donschen
Donschenâs feature debut is a funny, eclectic, and seductive film about seduction, veering radically from fiction to observational documentary to single-subject interview (including John Malkovich) to landscape and back again.Central Airport THF
U.S. Premiere
Berlin-based Brazilian director Karim AĂŻnouz returns with this impeccably photographed documentary chronicling a year in the lives of asylum seekers in Berlin's historic Tempelhof, a former airport built by the Nazi government as a symbol for Hitler's Germania.Fail to Appear
New York Premiere · Q&A with Antoine Bourges and actress Deragh Campbell
Bourgesâs droll, touching debut, about a support caseworker in training assigned to the case of a withdrawn shoplifter, studiously renders the mechanics and kinks of the Canadian legal system and social services.I Remember the Crows
U.S. Premiere · Q&A with Gustavo Vinagre
Filmed in a single all-night session, Brazilian director Gustavo Vinagreâs latest is an extended interview with his friend and collaborator Julia Katharine, a Japanese-Brazilian trans actress-filmmaker whose insomnia keeps her awake long enough for her to candidly spill stories from her life.The Image You Missed
North American Premiere · Q&A with Donal Foreman
Donal Foreman tries to understand the father he hardly knew, the Irish-American political filmmaker Arthur MacCaig, who passed away in 2008, in his singular essay film.Infinite Football
North American Premiere
The latest from Romanian New Wave master Porumboiu is a hilarious and politically incisive portrait of a bureaucrat who dreams of radically revising the rules of the worldâs most popular sport.Inland Sea
North American Premiere · Q&A with Kazuhiro Soda
Mrs. Koso, an elderly fishmonger, and Mr. Murata, an 86-year-old fisherman who still takes his boat out daily, are captured in this vérité-inflected black and white documentary.Meteors
U.S. Premiere
GĂŒrcan Keltekâs poetic, engrossing debut feature captures a critical moment from 2015 in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict via otherworldly black-and-white images, gradually arriving at a political truth that verges on the cosmic.Milford Graves Full Mantis
New York Premiere · Q&As with Milford Graves, Jake Meginsky, and Neil Young
An experimental jazz icon who has played with Albert Ayler, Giuseppi Logan, and Sonny Sharrock, Milford Graves is now the subject of a documentary as radical as his music.Once There Was BrasĂlia
North American Premiere · Q&A with cinematographer Joana Pimenta
This witty and visually dazzling Afrofuturist docufiction takes on Brazilâs structural racism and the 2016 presidential coup.One or Two Questions
North American Premiere
Swiss documentarian Kristina Konradâs epic document of Uruguayâs 1989 amnesty referendum is an engrossing, powerful and frequently funny look at democracy in action.Such a Morning
New York Premiere · Introduced by Amar Kanwar
A well-off math professor gives everything up to live in a train car in this minimalist meditation on modern existence.Victory Day
U.S. Premiere
Loznitsaâs incisive film documents the annual gathering at the Soviet Memorial at Berlinâs Treptower Park to commemorate the Red Armyâs defeat of the Nazis, capturing the event in all its patriotic spectacle and ecstatic strangeness.Wild Relatives
North American Premiere · Q&A with Jumana Manna
Jumana Manna (A Magical Substance Flows Into Me, Art of the Real 2016) documents the complex pathway of seed distribution between Lebanonâs Beqaa Valley and the global seed vault deep inside Norwayâs Svalbard archipelago.Yours in Sisterhood
U.S. Premiere · Q&A with Irene Lusztig
In the 1970s, Ms. received several thousand letters to the editor detailing all manner of injustices as well as criticisms of the magazineâs feminism. This film returns to the sites where some of the letters originated and records women of all ages reciting them to camera.Shorts Program
Q&A with Francisco Rodriguez, Laura Huertas MillĂĄn, and Deborah Stratman
An impressionistic exploration into the final moments of four Chinese workers who died at sea, an astute observation of indigenous weavers who use a pre-Spanish loom to create their work, and a multilayered portrait of the residents of Dawson City, Yukon Territory.Tribute to Eugenio Polgovsky (1977-2017): Tropic of Cancer and Mitote
Introduction by Mara Polgovsky
One of the best documentary filmmakers of his generation, Eugenio Polgovsky died suddenly last year. These two medium-length worksâTropic of Cancer and Mitoteâreveal vastly different aspects of 21st-century Mexico.Special Event: NicolĂĄs Peredaâs The Private Property Trilogy
Q&A with NicolĂĄs Pereda
In this interactive performance, Nicolas Pereda will explain his relationship to C.B., an amateur archaeologist, activist, artist, and the creator of the Mining Museum in La Union, as interview footage plays behind him.Artist Spotlights
Presentations and career-spanning conversations with visual artists whose work resonates with nonfiction filmmaking.
Artist Spotlight: Steffani Jemison
Discussion with Steffani Jemison
This program spotlights the urgent and sublime work of multimedia artist Steffani Jemison, whose videos, performances, scores, and installations seamlessly merge politics, poetics, and aesthetics.Artist Spotlight: Amar Kanwar
Artist Spotlight: Hiwa K
Discussion with Hiwa K
Iraqi-born, Germany-based artist Hiwa K shares three works from the past decade, followed by a discussion.Artist Spotlight: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Discussion with Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
A program-length survey of duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahmeâs recent video works, followed by a discussion.Tickets now on sale! To begin the purchase process, log in to your account. Donât have an account? Sign up for one today.
To purchase tickets to individual films, please click on the âFilmsâ or âScheduleâ tabs at the top of this page and then click on your desired films or showtimes.
3+ Film Package â Tickets just $9 Members / $10 Students, Seniors, and Persons with Disabilities / $13 General Public.
All Access Pass – See everything in the festival for $150.
Student All Access Pass â Are you a student? See everything in the festival for $75.
Not a member? Take advantage of discounted tickets, early access periods, complimentary offers year-round, and more by becoming one today! Join here.
MoviePass is accepted at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for regularly-priced films and series. Admission is not guaranteed. For app-related customer support, contact MoviePass.
Art of the Real 2021: Counter Encounters
Counter Encounters,â this yearâs Art of the Real presents one feature and 41 shorts, and encompasses works by historical and contemporary filmmakers, artists, collectives, and communities. Read More
Art of the Real 2020
Film at Lincoln Center announces the seventh edition of Art of the Real, an essential showcase for the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking, rescheduled for November 13-26. Read More
Art of the Real 2019
Celebrating its sixth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. Read More
Art of the Real 2018
Celebrating its fifth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. Read More
Art of the Real 2017
Now in its fourth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. This edition features titles from established figures such as Ignacio AgĂŒero, Jem Cohen, Robinson Devor, and the late Michael Glawogger alongside up-and-comers Theo Anthony (Rat Film), SalomĂ© Jashi (The Dazzling Light of Sunset), and Shengze Zhu (Another Year), as well as a tribute to the late Brazilian filmmaker Andrea Tonacci. Read More
Art of the Real 2016
Our annual nonfiction showcase, founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film, returns with new work from around the world and in a variety of genres. This yearâs festival includes a retrospective of a titan of the avant-garde film world, Bruce Baillie; New York premieres of new films by Roberto Minervini, Ben Rivers, JosĂ© Luis GuerĂn, and Thom Andersen; as well as the usual eclectic, globe-spanning host of discoveries by artists who are reenvisioning the relationship between cinema and reality. With many filmmakers appearing in-person with their work, Art of the Real continues to be one of the essential showcases for boundary-pushing nonfiction film. Read More
Art of the Real 2015
Our annual nonfiction showcase is founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film. The second edition features new work from around the world and in a variety of genres alongside retrospective and thematic selections, including a tribute to the great French director AgnĂšs Varda and a spotlight on the art and history of reenactment. Art of the Real is a platform for filmmakers and artists who have given us a wider view of nonfiction cinema and at the same time brought the form full circle, pointing to its early, boundary-pushing days. Read More
Art of the Real 2014
Our new annual series Art of the Real is a nonfiction showcase founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film. The inaugural edition features new work from around the world alongside retrospective selections by both known and unjustly forgotten filmmakers. It is a platform for filmmakers and artists who have given us a wider view of nonfiction cinema and at the same time brought the form full circle, back to its early, boundary-pushing days. Read More