New Directors/New Films 2013
Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art.

Before Sundance and before SXSW, there was New Directors/New Films, Film Society of Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art’s annual showcase of work by emerging filmmakers from around the world. In its 42-year history, the festival has introduced or cemented the status of some of the most familiar and critically-acclaimed directors of our time, including Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Ken Burns, Agnieszka Holland, Wong Kar-Wai, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg. Who will be your next favorite filmmaker?
Lineup
Blue Caprice
Opening Night! New York Premiere!
Director Alexandre Moors and cast members Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Tim Blake Nelson, and Cassandra Freeman in person!
Alexandre Moors’s remarkable debut feature explores the impulse to commit murder, following two snipers, the elder John and 17-year old Lee, who orchestrate an insidious act of gun violence that is seemingly torn from the front pages.
Our Nixon
Closing Night! New York Premiere!
Director Penny Lane in person at all screenings!
Our Nixon offers an unprecedented, insider’s view of an American presidency, chronicling watershed events including the Apollo moon landing and the path-breaking trip to China, as well as more intimate glimpses of Nixon in times of glory and disgrace.
The Act of Killing
New York Premiere!
Director Joshua Oppenheimer and producer Anne Köhncke in person at all screenings!
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’ sense of responsibility for their crimes.
Anton’s Right Here
North American Premiere!
Critic-turned-filmmaker Lyubov Arkus finds herself becoming the key caregiver for severely autistic teen Anton Kharitonov and documents over six years, in a reflective and fascinating style, the tremendous obstacles and problems of encouraging and supporting a sensitive but barely communicative boy.
Burn It Up Djassa
U.S. Premiere!
Brimming with the fateful energy of the ghetto, this cinema-vérité-shot, noir-tinged drama was shot in 11 days and created collectively by its streetwise protagonists eager to give voice to their present situation.
Les Coquillettes
North American Premiere!
Sophie Letourneur’s comedy of arrested development is a delightfully giddy, screwball lark, a self-mocking, thirty-something French counterpart to Lena Dunham’s Girls filmed on location at the Locarno Film Festival.
The Color of the Chameleon
New York Premiere!
Producer Bouriana Zakharieva, Writer/Producer Vladislav Todorov and Actor Ruscen Vidinliev in person at all screenings!
Unfolding in the years before and after the fall of Communism, this black comedy about a rogue secret police informant goes down a rabbit hole into a realm of twisted absurdity. With its first film at ND/NF in thirty-five years, Bulgaria is back!
Die Welt
North American Premiere!
Director Alex Pitstra and Producer Rosan Breman in person at all screenings!
Based loosely on his father’s story of coming to Holland, Alex Pitstra's semi-autobiographical voyage is set against the backdrop of a contemporary yet traditional Tunisia trying to find a way forward.
Emperor Visits the Hell
U.S. Premiere!
Director Luo Li in person at all screenings!
In this crafty reworking of part of the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, Emperor Li Shimin is now a bureaucratic boss in a big city, where the crooked Dragon King’s attempt to change the weather has backfired and condemned him to death.
A Hijacking
New York Premiere!
Director Tobias Lindholm and Producer René Ezra in person at all screenings!
On its way to harbor, cargo ship MV Rozen is seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean. Moving between claustrophobic life on the ship and negotiations by the freight company in Denmark, Lindholm creates a climate of unbearable tension with an unexpected climax.
Jards
North American Premiere! Director Eryk Rocha and Actor Jards Macalé in person at all screenings!
SPECIAL OFFER: Two tickets for the price of one!
Fashioning an intimately attuned portrait of an artist, Eryk Rocha uses his camera as an instrument to riff with celebrated Brazilian composer and musician Jards Macalé in the recording studio.
Jiseul
New York Premiere!
As part of a brutal anticommunist purge of the island of Jeju 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
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
North American Premiere!
Director Jazmin Lopez in person at all screenings!
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.
L’Intervallo
New York Premiere!
Director Leonardo di Costanzo in person at all screenings!
Winner of the Critics’ Prize at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, this portrait of two adolescents thrown together under the eye of the Neapolitan Camorra has an air of menace and sexual tension.
People’s Park
New York Premiere!
Directors JP Sniadecki and Libbie Dina Cohn in person at all screenings!
An immersive, inquisitive visit to the People's Park in Chengdu, China created in a single virtuoso tracking shot, this film scrutinizes the joys of communal play, exercise and free time.
Rengaine
US Premiere!
Director Rachid Djaïdani and Producer Anne-Dominique Toussaint in person at all screenings!
Shot in the streets, this no-budget urban contemporary Romeo and Juliet is part love letter to the irresistible energy of Paris, part call for interracial tolerance.
The Shine of Day
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 perspective on people struggling at the fringes of showbiz—namely, the circus. Screening with Ouverture (Bracey Smith and Neil Dvorak, 5m).
Soldate Jeannette
New York Premiere!
Director Daniel Hoesl in person at all screenings!
In his first feature, director Daniel Hoesl fashions an absurdist morality play that pits an urban, manufactured world against nature.
Stories We Tell
New York Premiere!
Director Sarah Polley in person at all screenings!
What is real? What is true? What do we remember, and how do we remember it? Actor/director Sarah Polley turns from fiction to nonfiction, in the process cracking open family secrets.
They’ll Come Back
North American Premiere!
Director Marcelo Lordello in person at all screenings!
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.
Tower
New York Premiere!
Director Kaz Radwanski and Producer Dan Montgomery in person at all screenings!
In his mid-thirties yet still living at home with his parents, Derek struggles to make a small animation about a green creature building rock towers in Kazik Radwanski’s work of uncommon discipline combined with unmistakable empathy.
Towheads
North American Premiere!
Director Shannon Plumb in person at all screenings!
A Brooklyn mother finds comic relief from domestic drudgery by inhabiting the world in guises—drag king, pole dancer, Santa Claus—managing to find moments of grace even on thankless days.
Upstream Color
New York Premiere!
Director Shane Carruth in person at all screenings!
A love story embedded in a kidnap plot, Shane Carruth’s long-awaited followup to Primer represents something new in American cinema, exploring life’s surprising jumps and science’s strange effects. Screening with RP31 (Lucy Raven, 5m).
Viola
A web of romantic intrigue and revelation is delicately unraveled in this dazzling riff on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Screening with Rosalinda (Matías Piñeiro, 2010, 43m).
ND/NF Shorts Program 1
New York Premieres!
Southwest Director Jordi Wijnalda, What Can I Wish You Before the Fight? Director Sofia Babluani, Everything Near Becomes Far Director Mauricio Arangof, and Stampede Director Cyril Schäublin in person at all screenings!
A program comprising five shorts: Wonderland (Peter Kerek, 21m), Southwest (Jordi Wijnalda, 16m), What Can I Wish You Before the Fight? (Sofia Babluani, 16m), Everything Near Becomes Far (Mauricio Arango, 10m), Stampede (Cyril Amon Schäublin, 20m).
ND/NF Shorts Program 2
New York Premieres!
Taboulé Director Richard Garcia, Pirate of Love Director Sara Gunnarsdottir, Flamingos Director Francesca Coppola, Ararat Director and Actor Engin Kundağ and Claudio Schulz-Keune, and Take a Deep Breath Director and Actor Basak Buyukcelen and Celal Kadri Kinoglu in person at all screenings!
A program comprising six shorts: Taboulé (Richard Garcia, 4m), The Pirate of Love (Sara Gunnarsdottir, 10m), Flamingos (Francesca Coppola, 15m), Sequin Raze (Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, 20m), Ararat (Engin Kundag, 26m), and Take a Deep Breath (Basak Buyukcelen, 8m).
ND/NF Shorts Program 3
New York Premieres!
A program comprising three shorts: Chiralia (Santiago Gil, 26m), The Village (Liliana Sulzbach, 25m), and To Put Together a Helicopter (Izabel Acevedo, 35m).
Chiralia Director Santiago Gil and Screenwriter/Producer France Orsenne, and The Village's Liliana Sulzbach, Vicente Saldanha, Tommy McKay, and Cesar Graef in person at all screenings!
New Directors/New Films 2022
Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art present the 51st edition of New Directors/New Films (ND/NF), April 20–May 1. Read More
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New Directors/New Films 2019
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New Directors/New Films 2018
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New Directors/New Films 2017
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New Directors/New Films 2016
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New Directors/New Films 2015
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New Directors/New Films 2014
For 43 years New Directors/New Films has been an annual rite of early spring in New York City, bringing exciting discoveries from around the world to adventurous moviegoers. All aspects of cinema, from production to exhibition, have changed dramatically over the years, and even more rapidly of late. But the spirit of innovation and the element of surprise that have always defined this festival remain intact. Read More