For the 32nd consecutive year, the Department of Film and Media of The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center present New Directors/New Films. The festival, which opens Wednesday, March 26, at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, takes place for the first time at three venues: Alice Tully Hall and the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and MoMA Film at The Gramercy Theatre at 127 E. 23 St. at Lexington Ave.
New Directors/New Films 2003 includes 48 screenings of 34 works from 24 countries, from Hong Kong to Slovenia, from Mexico to Bangladesh, from Italy to Cameroon. There are 23 feature films and 11 short films in the festival, among them four American features and six American shorts. Each film will screen twice for the public (except The Day I Will Never Forget, which has four screenings at the Walter Reade). The festival ends on Sunday, April 6.
New Directors/New Films is one of the country’s premier showcases for the work of fresh and unsung international and American filmmakers. Over the course of three decades, the series has introduced to US audiences a host of innovative works by talented directors from all over the world, many of whom have gone on to become major figures in world cinema, including Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Theo Angelopoulos, Hector Babenco, Terence Davies, Atom Egoyan, Haile Gerima, Peter Greenaway, Lasse Hallström, Chen Kaige, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Sally Potter, Arturo Ripstein, John Sayles, Steven Spielberg, and Wim Wenders.
During its 32-year history, New Directors/New Films has premiered scores of films that have gone on to enjoy great critical and popular success, including in recent years The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat), Real Women Have Curves, El Bola, and Late Marriage in 2002; The Day I Became a Woman, Lift, L.I.E., and Nine Queens in 2001; The Eyes of Tammy Faye, (Jesus’ Son*, Ratcatcher, Human Resources, and Our Song in 2000; and Judy Berlin, Run Lola Run, Sitcom, Following, Twin Falls Idaho, and Lovers of the Arctic Circle in 1999, to name only a few. Films in the festival are selected by a six-person committee from the Department of Film and Media of The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
New Directors/New Films 2003 is sponsored by National Geographic Traveler Magazine and Kenneth Cole Productions, with additional support from The Irene Diamond Fund, The Julien J. Studley Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art. Special support provided by the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.