FSLC ANNOUNCES INITIAL SELECTIONS FOR SECOND ANNUAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL ART OF THE REAL

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES
INITIAL SELECTIONS FOR SECOND ANNUAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
ART OF THE REAL

TRIBUTE TO DIRECTOR AGNÈS VARDA
AND A SPOTLIGHT ON THE ART AND HISTORY OF REENACTMENT

NEW YORK, NY (FEBRUARY 11, 2015) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today initial selections for Art of the Real, the second annual documentary-as-art festival, taking place April 10-26. Founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film, Art of the Real serves as a platform for filmmakers and artists to deliver a wider view of nonfiction cinema.

The 2015 edition will again feature dozens of new works from around the world and in a variety of genres alongside retrospective and thematic selections, including The Actualities of Agnès Varda, a tribute to the great French director, and Repeat as Necessary: The Art of Reenactment, a spotlight on the art and history of reenactment. The complete lineup, including closing night and additional premieres, will be announced at a later date. The festival was co-programmed by Dennis Lim, the Film Society’s Director of Programming, and Rachael Rakes, Programmer at Large.

Opening Night will premiere new works by João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata (The Last Time I Saw Macao, Mahjong), Eduardo Williams, and Matt Porterfield (I Used to Be Darker), and all filmmakers will be in attendance. The U.S. Premiere of Rodrigues & Guerra da Mata’s Iec Long, screening this week at the Berlinale, mixes archival footage, photographs, figurine-based reconstructions, and oral testimony in an eclectic depiction of a derelict Macao fireworks factory. Argentinian director Williams’s spellbinding and enigmatic I Forgot, which will also have its U.S. Premiere, follows a group of Vietnamese teenagers as they stave off boredom by leaping from one building to the next. A North American Premiere, Porterfield’s Take What You Can Carry, in competition at the 2015 Berlinale shorts program, is a delicate portrait of a young American woman in Berlin (Hannah Gross) attempting to reconcile her need for a stable sense of identity with her itinerant lifestyle.

The lineup will also feature The Actualities of Agnès Varda, a retrospective of the filmmaker’s work in the context of her career-long focus on merging fact and fiction. Varda will be in attendance for several screenings, and the spotlight will feature many new digital restorations, including her debut feature, La Pointe Courte, the landmark Vagabond, and all of her “California Films” (Lion’s Love, Documenteur, Mur Murs, Black Panthers, Uncle Yanco). The spotlight will also feature some of Varda’s most celebrated documentaries, such as Daguerrotypes and The Gleaners and I. Varda is a longtime favorite of the New York Film Festival, and several of her works will return to the big screen at the Film Society, including Documenteur (NYFF ’81), The Gleaners and I (NYFF ’00), Lions Love (NYFF ’69), and Mur Murs (NYFF ’80).

The films in Repeat as Necessary: The Art of Reenactment trace a partial history of reenactment as its own medium, an act of repetition that often leads to revelation. Recent films like The Act of Killing and The Arbor have called attention to its uses, but reenactment has a rich history as an invaluable mode of documentary art, employed as a tool of dramatization, an investigative strategy, and a means of creating art from the archive. The spotlight will feature works by a wide range of artists and filmmakers working today and over the past several decades, from Jean Eustache, Juan Downey, and Harun Farocki to Elisabeth Subrin, Ming Wong, Simon Fujiwara, Jill Godmilow, and many more.

Tickets on sale March 19. Discount opportunities include a $99 All Access Pass and a 3+ film package option.  Single screening tickets are $14; $9 for students and seniors (62+); $8 for FSLC members. Visit filmlinc.com for more information.

ABOUT FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com, follow @filmlinc on Twitter, and download the FREE Film Society app, now available for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices.

For Media specific inquiries, please contact:
Film Society of Lincoln Center:
John Wildman, (212) 875-5419
[email protected]

David Ninh, (212) 875-5423
[email protected]