Films

ND/NF 2010 Official Slate

OPENING NIGHT

Bill Cunningham New York
2010. USA. Directed by Richard Press. In a city of dedicated originals, New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham stands out as one who both knows how to capture the essence of the singular personality and clearly represents one himself. Entering his ninth decade, Cunningham still rides his Schwinn around Manhattan, putting miles between his street-level view of personal style and what the titans of fashion will come to discover down the road. This heartfelt and honest documentary turns the camera on one who has so lovingly and selflessly captured the looks that have defined generations. And in the photographer’s chronicles of the events and people that captivate our beloved city, the film is just as much a portrait of New York as of Cunningham. 84 min.
Wed Mar 24: 7:00 (MoMA)
Wed Mar 24: 7:30 (MoMA)
Thu Mar 25: 9:15 (FSLC)

CLOSING NIGHT

I Killed My Mother (J’ai tué ma mère)
2009. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan. Director Xavier Dolan’s cri de coeur bracingly exposes the limits of love. Dolan himself plays the lead character, Hubert, a fiery creature full of lust and venom. His burgeoning (homo)sexuality is distinctly and intensely at odds with his mutually parasitic maternal relationship. The more Hubert and his aggravatingly conventional mother (Anne Dorval) realize they cannot continue to live as child and parent, the more they are drawn to each other. Their intimacy can only manifest through vicious arguments, lending an Albee-esque absurdity to their encounters. Dolan brilliantly situates the violence of the relationship within an exquisite filmic structure, allowing the humor and the pathos of his tale to emerge. A Regent Releasing release. 100 min.
Sun Apr 4: 7:00 (MoMA)

Amer
2009. Belgium/France. Directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The title is the French word for “bitter” but this provocative and sensational debut is anything but. An oneiric, eroticized homage to 1970s Italian giallo horror movies reimagined as an avant-garde trance film, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s pastiche tour de force plays out a delirious, enigmatic, almost wordless death-dance of fear and desire. Its three movements, each in a different style, correspond to the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of its female protagonist—and that’s all you need to know. Drawing its stylized, hyperbolic gestures from the playbooks of Bava, Leone, Argento, and De Palma and taking them into a realm of near-abstraction, Amer has genre in the blood. Its bold wide-screen compositions, super-focused sound, emphatic music (lifted from original giallo soundtracks), and razor-sharp cuts make for an outrageous and intoxicating cinematic head-trip. 90 min.
WITH
Catafalque
2010. Austria. Directed by Christoph Rainer. For two boys locked in a basement, boundaries become blurred between dream and reality, light and shadow, life and death. 13 min.
Fri Apr 2: 9:15 (FSLC)
Sat Apr 3: 2:00 (MoMA)

Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar
2010. USA. Written and directed by James Rasin. Born James Slattery in Massapequa, Long Island, in 1944, Candy Darling transformed herself into a stunning blonde actress who in the mid-Sixties became an active player in New York’s “downtown” scene. In her passionate act of self-creation, Candy Darling mesmerized. A party fixture, she appeared in Warhol films, and Tennessee Williams cast her in a play. She was seen and written about, and then, before she turned 30, cancer claimed her life. Using vintage footage and interviews old and new, and anchored by the presence of Candy’s very close friend, Jeremiah Newton, director James Rasin creates a critical and loving portrait of a singular and audacious life. With Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn, Penny Arcade, Paul Morrissey, Fran Lebowitz, John Waters. Candy’s letters and diaries read by Chloë Sevigny. 86 min.
WITH
Slate
2010. USA/Spain. Directed by Carmen Vidal. A film editor working late finds himself mysteriously drawn to the raw footage he is cutting. 15 min.
Fri Apr 2: 9:15 (MoMA)
Sat Apr 3: 6:00 (FSLC)

Bilal’s Stand
2009. USA. Directed by Sultan Sharrief. For almost 60 years, Bilal’s family has run a taxi business—known to everybody in the neighborhood as “the stand”—started by his grandfather. But times are getting tougher: there’s more competition, and Bilal is thinking of leaving the stand and going off to university. Based on a true story, Bilal’s Stand is a delightful and moving look at a world rarely seen: a stable, loving, black Muslim family, struggling to keep a business alive amid both internal and external pressures. For his crew, debut director Sultan Sharrief used many of the students from EFEX, the inner-city outreach program he founded in his native Detroit, as well as many nonprofessional actors, some of them playing themselves. 83 min.
Fri Mar 26: 9:00 (MoMA)
Sat Mar 27: 5:30 (FSLC)

Dogtooth
2009. Greece. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The most perverse film of the year—you’ll be scratching your head when you’re not laughing it off. In an inscrutable scenario that suggests a warped experiment in social conditioning and control, Dogtooth presents scenes from the life of a not-so-average family that inhabits an idyllic villa compound sealed off from all contact with the outside world. In a new spin on home schooling, the head of the household has taught his adolescent children a drastically rearranged vocabulary: a salt shaker is a “telephone,” an armchair is “the sea” and—you get the idea. Moreover, to attend to the teenagers’ sexual needs, he arranges occasional visits from a female employee. With echoes of Buñuel, Arturo Ripstein, and early Atom Egoyan, this is a deadpan satire on patriarchy and the sexual Pandora’s box concealed within every family. A Kino International release. 96 min.
WITH
Quadrangle
2010. USA. Directed by Amy Grappell. An unconventional look at the director’s conventional parents, who lived in a group marriage in the ’70s. 20 min.
Tue Mar 30: 9:00 (MoMA)
Wed Mar 31: 6:15 (FSLC)

Down Terrace
2009. Great Britain. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Mike Leigh meets The Sopranos in this extraordinary family crime drama, shot in eight days largely in one location. Fresh out of jail, Bill (Robert Hill) is obsessed with finding out who snitched on him. His son, Karl (Robin Hill), also just released, is similarly concerned but has other things on his mind—namely, what to do about his pregnant girlfriend. Bill, eager to ferret out the informer, lays out a series of traps and ruses for his associates—that is, when he’s not singing old Fairport Convention songs while accompanying himself on guitar. Director Ben Wheatley (BBC’s The Wrong Door) makes a powerful feature-film debut, creating an astonishing sense of normalcy laced with jet-black humor. A Magnet release. 89 min.
WITH
Break a Leg
2009. Canada. Directed by Jesse Shamata. You talking to me? A tightly wound hit-man meets his mark for breakfast. 7 min.
Mon Mar 29: 6:15 (MoMA)
Tue Mar 30: 9:00 (FSLC)

Evening Dress (La Robe du soir)
2009. France. Directed by Myriam Aziza. Juliette lives with her two siblings and mother, and while a bit shy, seems to lead an average life. Then she develops a crush on her French teacher, Madame Solenska (Belgian-Portuguese singer Lio), who at first seems to appreciate her pupil’s admiration. Juliette becomes convinced that she’s as special to Madame Solenska as she feels the teacher is to her. But the crush veers off into obsession, as Juliette starts to follow Madame Solenska around town and even to her home. Myriam Aziza beautifully captures the stifling small-town atmosphere, as well as the complex, contradictory emotional life of this twelve-year-old: even if Juliette’s feelings are misguided or naïve, they are no less susceptible to being hurt. Lio is terrific as the teacher, a proud woman comfortable with her beauty. 96 min.
Tue Mar 30: 6:15 (FSLC)
Wed Mar 31: 9:15 (MoMA)

Every Day Is a Holiday (Chaque jour est une fête)
2009. France/Germany/Lebanon. Directed by Dima El-Horr. A stunning first scene immediately establishes the highly charged atmosphere in Dima El-Horr’s carefully controlled first feature, filled with absurd moments and symbolic gestures. Three women (Hiam Abbass, Manal Khader, Raïa Haïdar) with very different motives board a bus on the Lebanese Day of Liberation to visit their husbands in jail. When the bus is stopped short by a stray bullet, the women are left to find their own way in the hot sun through mountains full of mines, amid sounds of muffled explosions, throngs of refugees, and rumors of massacres. Their perilous journey becomes an internal one towards liberation, as individual life and collective memory blend, and the personal and political are blurred. 87 min.
WITH
Felicità
2009. Georgia. Directed by Salomé Aleksi. A Georgian woman working in Italy finds a very modern way to uphold a custom from her old homeland, in this microcosm of relations in the global economy. 30 min.
Sat Mar 27: 5:00 (MoMA)
Mon Mar 29: 9:00 (FSLC)

The Father of My Children
2009. France/Germany. Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. Inspired by the life and death of the late, legendary French film producer Humbert Balsan, Mia Hansen-Løve’s film is a work of two halves. The first follows the business dealings of Grégoire (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), frantically shuttling between office and home, juggling the demands of artistic egos, lawyers, and bankers, and the needs of his beloved family—not to mention his surrogate family at work. Then the focus shifts dramatically to Grégoire’s wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), who together with her three daughters, must cope with devastating loss and then struggle to keep Grégoire’s company afloat and preserve his legacy. If the first half of this moving yet never sentimental drama is among the most convincing depictions of life in the movie business ever filmed, the second is an incredibly tender look at picking up the pieces after heartbreaking bereavement. An IFC Films release. 110 min.
Thu Mar 25: 6:15 (FSLC)
Sat Mar 27: 8:00 (MoMA)

Frontier Blues
2009. Iran/Great Britain/Italy. Directed by Babak Jalali. Iran’s northern border ranges from mountains to plains to the Caspian Sea; Persians, Turkmen, and Kazakhs share the landscape. Filmmaker Babak Jalali presents an assortment of hometown stories that evoke the potential and diversity of this unfulfilled gateway between Europe and Asia. Alam is in love with a girl he has never spoken to; Kazem owns a clothing store but can’t seem to stock anything that fits; and Hassan, at age 30, counts a pet donkey and a tape player as his only companions. Meanwhile, a minstrel who claims his wife was stolen by someone in a green Mercedes years ago is chronicled by a Tehran photographer. With a cinematic style that is a study in elegant simplicity, Frontier Blues is a sweet, slightly absurdist snapshot of desperate men, absent women, and waiting for whatever the future may hold. 95 min.
WITH
The Bizarre Friends of Ricardinho
2009. Brazil. Directed by Augusto Canani. A weird trainee. A stifling job. In the midst of corporate oppression, a worker passively fights back with stories from home. 20 min.
Fri Apr 2: 6:15 (MoMA)
Sun Apr 4: 5:30 (FSLC)

The Happiest Girl in the World
2009. Romania. Written and directed by Radu Jude. The Romanians are back with another bone-dry, pitch-black comedy—this time bearing a particularly cynical view on happiness, the cruelty of families, and the making of inept television commercials. In his feature-film debut, Radu Jude is already a master of uneasy hilarity. When a plucky provincial duckling of a young lady wins a contest, she must travel with her parents to the buzzing metropolis of Bucharest to claim her prize. But there’s a catch—in fact, there are several, the most troublesome aimed straight from home… Jude’s film is a bittersweet experience that’s as nasty as it is enjoyable, and as true to life as fiction can get over one hot summer afternoon. And as “the happiest girl,” Andrea Bosneag is a breakthrough discovery. 99 min.
WITH
Logorama
2009. France. Directed by H5 (François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, and Ludovic Houplain). Cops and robbers and wild animals, oh my! Brought to you by every possible sponsor under the sun. 17 min.
Sat Mar 27: 2:00 (MoMA)
Mon Mar 29: 6:15 (FSLC)

How I Ended This Summer
2010. Russia. Written and directed by Alexei Popogrebsky. Immersing us in the frozen wilds of the Russian Arctic, writer/director Alexei Popogrebsky makes an impressive addition to the canon of films about man’s extraordinary ability to cope with harsh nature and extreme isolation. Young Pavel (Grigory Dobrygin) arrives at a remote research station for a summer of adventure under the tutelage of the wise and crusty Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis), whose multi-year tour of duty is coming to an end. Misplaced confidence and youthful immaturity lead to a string of potentially deadly deceptions. The deliberate pace of life in the Arctic, combined with the disorienting round-the-clock sunlight, sets the stage for a thriller infused with equal parts psychological trauma and physical endurance. Winner of three Silver Bears (for both lead actors and cinematography) at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival. 124 min.
Sat Apr 3: 5:00 (MoMA)
Sun Apr 4: 12:00 (FSLC)

Hunting & Sons
2010. Netherlands. Directed by Sander Burger. Newlyweds and childhood sweethearts Tako and Sandra lead a cute suburban life. Tako relocated from the city to marry Sandra and runs the family bike business; she seems happy working at a small employment agency. Both the couple and their apartment look ripped from this season’s Ikea catalogue—everything is perfectly lovely. Then things get even better: Sandra is pregnant. But the good news starts a small crack in the adorable façade that grows as the characters pull at it. Tako decides to take this opportunity to grow up, while Sandra, suffering from an eating disorder, begins to slim down—and the pretty scenery of their life starts to fall away. Panicked about the future, Tako takes increasingly drastic measures. In his second feature film, director Sander Burger paints a sharp and trenchant portrait of the pitfalls of happiness. 93 min.
WITH
Rob and Valentyna in Scotland
2010. USA/UK. Directed by Eric Lynne. Long-lost — and just plain lost — cousins travel from Ukraine to the Scottish Highlands. 23 min.
Thu Apr 1: 9:00 (MoMA)
Sat Apr 3: 3:00 (FSLC)

I Am Love
2009. Italy. Directed by Luca Guadagnino. Luca Guadagnino’s third narrative feature is a thrillingly melodramatic story of family business—in more ways than one. Set in the haut bourgeois world of modern-day Milan, the film ushers us into the seemingly perfect world of sumptuous elegance inhabited by the Recchi dynasty, whose fortune is built on its successful textile manufacturing business. After the firm’s founder and patriarch transfers co-control of the company to his son Tancredi and grandson Edoardo, Tancredi’s wife, Emma (Tilda Swinton), feels pangs of empty-nest syndrome and a growing sense of living in a gilded cage—until she finds herself led down an unlikely path by unexpectedly stirring desire. This compelling yet oh-so restrained drama of the eternal conflict between family ties and personal fulfillment unfolds with dazzling visual style, propelled by John Adams’s distinctive staccato score. A Magnolia Pictures release. 120 min.
Fri Apr 2: 6:15 (FSLC)
Sun Apr 4: 1:00 (MoMA)

Last Train Home
2009. Canada/China. Directed by Lixin Fan. Each year the largest migration of people in human history happens over New Year’s in China, when city workers leave en masse for their hometowns in the countryside, often traveling days by train. For the first half of this remarkable documentary, you’ll wonder how the filmmaker even shot it. But as that wonder subsides, an absorbing drama develops—one that plays out among families all over China yet is universally intense, powerful, and heartbreaking. With his 35mm camera, Lixin Fan follows one couple (out of one hundred and thirty million travelers!): the Zhangs, who are making the long and crowded journey to their rural village. Sixteen years ago, they left their now-teenage rebellious daughter with her grandparents—and the welcome is not a happy one. 87 min.
WITH
Snow Hides the Shade of Fig Trees
2009. Canada. Directed by Samer Najari. Six immigrants eke out a living with humor. The bitter cold weakens the resolve of one, but not for long. 21 min.
Thu Apr 1: 6:15 (MoMA)
Sat Apr 3: 12:00 (FSLC)

The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado)
2009. Argentina. Directed by Mariano Cohn & Gaston Duprat. The star of this dry and wicked black comedy is a building: The Curutchet House in La Plata, south of Buenos Aires—the only residence designed by Le Corbusier in the Americas. In this Argentine satire about class, love of beautiful things, and violent urges, the landmark structure plays the fictional home of world-famous interior designer Leonardo and his wife and daughter. All cherish the privileged status conferred by living in the house. Then, horror strikes: a neighbor who wants more sun puts a window in the wall facing the family’s courtyard! Suddenly, aesthetic symmetry is destroyed, and the neighbor—too friendly, too crude, and too insistent—can now peer into their pristine and elegant abode. With scalpel-like precision, filmmakers Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat chart the ebb and flow of this dramatic disturbance. 103 min.
WITH
Suha
2009. Canada. Directed by Robby Reis. A young graffiti writer tags her way through Montreal’s street-art subculture. 8 min.
Wed Mar 31: 6:15 (MoMA)
Thu Apr 1: 9:00 (FSLC)

My Perestroika
2010. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Robin Hessman. The history of the 20th century was bookended by the Bolshevik Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in between came the era-defining Cold War. But for Russians who grew up during this history and now live beyond it, what does it mean to be Russian today? Robin Hessman’s thoughtful and beautifully crafted documentary explores the lives of a group of former schoolmates who are finding their ways in a brave new world: two teachers, a businessman, a single mother, and a once-famous rock musician. Their stories, and the fabric of their lives, reveal a Russia that may or may not be worlds away from the Soviet model. Using propaganda films, home movies, and incredible access to her subjects, Hessman’s film creates a touching portrait of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. 87 min.
Thu Mar 25: 6:15 (MoMA)
Sun Mar 28: 3:30 (FSLC)

Night Catches Us
2010. USA. Directed by Tanya Hamilton. The debut feature from Tanya Hamilton exposes the realities of African-American life during the final days of the Black Power movement, as potluck suppers, run-ins with the authorities, and lingering radicalism threaten to set off a neighborhood teetering on the edge. Set in Philadelphia in 1976, Night Catches Us focuses on two former Black Panther activists (Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington) who reunite during the summer before Jimmy Carter’s election. Through two people drawn together despite their past, the film paints a fresh perspective of the era and gives an allegory for our own times in the age of Obama. Playing two friends forced to confront personal and political demons, Mackie and Washington give spectacular performances, while Hamilton’s use of a compelling soundtrack (by The Roots) and moving archival footage bring to life the history of black resistance. 90 min.
Sun Mar 28: 6:00 (FSLC)
Mon Mar 29: 9:00 (MoMA)

Northless (Norteado)
2009. Mexico/Spain. Directed by Rigoberto Perezcano. Cinema’s fascination with illegal border crossings between Mexico and the United States gets a totally fresh take in Rigoberto Perezcano’s delicately poised film. Focused on how life is lived precariously between desperate attempts to cross over, the story follows Oaxaca-born Andrés (Harold Torres) as he bides his time in Tijuana. He finds a little work at a convenience store and gets friendly with the two women (Alicia Laguna and Sonia Couoh) who run it. As the relationships deepen and their individual stories emerge, the emotional costs of the ties that bind are explored with great sensitivity. The sincerity of the minimal story line is balanced by a liberating humor and breathtakingly beautiful images that give life and dignity to Andrés and his fellow travelers. 93 min.
Fri Mar 26: 6:15 (MoMA)
Sat Mar 27: 3:30 (FSLC)

The Oath
2010. USA. Directed by Laura Poitras. Filmed over a two-year period, The Oath interweaves the stories of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard (now driving a cab in Yemen), and Salim Hamdan, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged with war crimes. Filmmaker Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country, ND/NF 2006) takes us deep inside the world of Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, and U.S. interrogation methods through a dramatic structure filled with plot reversals, betrayals, and never-before-seen intelligence documents. The second in a planned trilogy on America post–9/11, The Oath is an intricately constructed work that keeps the viewer off balance and works on several levels. Shading the complexities of her subjects in the manner of great novelists, Poitras delivers an intimate portrait that precludes easy conclusions as it questions the methods of America’s war on terror with uncommon eloquence. 95 min.
Fri Mar 26: 6:15 (FSLC)
Sun Mar 28: 4:00 (MoMA)

La Pivellina
2009. Austria/Italy. Directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel. Looking for her lost dog, a middle-aged circus worker, Patti (Patrizia Gerardi), instead finds an abandoned two-year old child in a playground. In this engaging unsentimental tale of human decency and solidarity, the little orphan finds home and family with circus folks in a trailer park on the outskirts of Rome. As they search for the mother, Patti and her friends and neighbors slowly but surely fall in love with the kid. Drawing on their background in documentary, filmmakers Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel naturally depict the easygoing rapport among generations in a small community where everybody depends on one another. The superb acting brings us close to a marginalized group rarely depicted with such unpretentious dignity, showing their joie de vivre and infectious family spirit. 100 min.
Sat Apr 3: 9:00 (FSLC)
Sun Apr 4: 4:00 (MoMA)

The Red Chapel
2009. Denmark. Directed by Mads Brügger. Denmark launches an all-out attack on North Korea in this has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed documentary that ventures into territory somewhere between Michael Moore and Borat. Bankrolled by Lars von Trier’s Zentropa production company, the aptly named Mads Brügger travels to Pyongyang on a feigned mission of cultural exchange, bringing a camera crew and the Danish-Korean slapstick-comedy team Red Chapel. The duo consists of Simon, who aims to perform an acoustic rendition of Oasis’s “Wonderwall” accompanied by a choir of Korean schoolgirls, and Jacob, a self-described “spastic” whose mangled speech is incomprehensible to the minders assigned to “assist” the troupe. And while the duped hosts get more than they bargain for—a lot more—the Danish visitors find things aren’t as ethically clear-cut as they’d prefer them to be. 87 min.
Sat Apr 3: 8:00 (MoMA)
Sun Apr 4: 3:00 (FSLC)

Samson and Delilah
2009. Australia. Directed by Warwick Thornton. Set in the aboriginal communities of Australia, what might have been an age-old love story explodes cliché and convention through unvarnished and unyielding authenticity. Samson (Rowan McNamara) and Delilah (Marissa Gibson) are two young people struggling to find themselves and each other. Director Warwick Thornton—who, like the principal cast, hails from an aboriginal background—plunges us into red-dirt landscapes that serve in equal measure as oasis and prison. Traditions both nourish and entrap, and as boy and girl wrestle with a fate that may seem inevitable, love shows the way forward. Winner of the Caméra d’Or for best debut feature at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. An Indiepix release. 101 min.
Thu Mar 25: 9:15 (MoMA)
Sun Mar 28: 8:30 (FSLC)

Tehroun
2009. Iran/France. Directed by Nader T. Homayoun. A man holds a sickly child in his arms, begging for money from passersby with a tale of how his wife has recently died and he desperately needs help. We soon learn the man is Ibrahim, a recent arrival in the big city, and that the child isn’t really his—the boy’s actually rented from a local gang-lord to make Ibrahim a more effective beggar. Welcome to Tehroun, as Iranians call their capital city. Nader Homayoun’s debut feature presents a searing portrait of the city’s hidden, seamier side, a world of child trafficking, smuggling of just about anything, and assorted other criminal activities. A sensation in the Critics’ Week at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it won the audience award, Tehroun marks a new chapter in the fascinating evolution of Iranian cinema. 95 min.
Sat Mar 27: 8:00 (FSLC)
Sun Mar 28: 7:00 (MoMA)

3 Backyards
2010. USA. Directed by Eric Mendelsohn. Eric Mendelsohn (Judy Berlin, ND/NF 1999) returns with this exquisite, unsettling trio of life-changing episodes set in a leafy, tranquil corner of Long Island suburbia. After his business trip is canceled, John (Elias Koteas) finds himself minutes from home yet lost and distanced from everything familiar. Part-time painter and full-time mom Peggy (Edie Falco) is delighted when asked by a celebrity neighbor for a lift to a distant ferry, but the trip has a trajectory profoundly different than what she’d expected. And when eight-year-old Christina (Rachel Resheff) runs to school after missing the bus, her journey takes her to places she never imagined existed. Endowed with the mystery of a John Cheever short story, 3 Backyards is a beautifully composed film, with light, color, sound, and action blending together to create the vibrant sense of a world full of interior and exterior secrets. 85 min.
WITH
Looking at Animals
2009. USA. Directed by Marc Turtletaub. After a lifetime photographing animals in the wild, Raymond retires to a small town and starts observing his neighbors. 25 min.
Fri Mar 26: 9:00 (FSLC)
Sun Mar 28: 1:00 (MoMA)

Women Without Men
2009. Germany/Austria/France. Directed by Shirin Neshat in collaboration with Shoja Azari. Winner of the Silver Lion for best director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, Shirin Neshat’s feature-film debut represents an assured shift from the gallery-based moving images for which she is known, to the grand screen of the cinema. Devotees of Neshat’s earlier work will recognize her signature visual virtuosity and narrative grace in the story of four women in early 1950s Iran, played by Pegah Ferydoni, Arita Shahrzad, Shabnam Tolouei, and Orsi Toth. Then as now, the ambitions and actions of these women from across the spectrum of Iranian society inform and affect the course of events—public, private, and often political. With history as a backdrop, and imagination extending the limits of lives lived under oppressive conditions, Neshat offers an exquisitely framed window onto these women’s world. An Indiepix release. 97 min.
Tue Mar 30: 6:15 (MoMA)
Wed Mar 31: 9:15 (FSLC)

ND/NF CLASSICS:  IN THE FRENCH STYLE

For the fifth consecutive year, New Directors/New Films is pleased to present a matinee series comprised of past festival highlights. This year, we focus on France, a country whose emerging filmmakers have been an integral part of the ND/NF program since its inception, including such future masters of world cinema as André Téchiné, François Ozon, and Laurent Cantet. The following five (re)discoveries from the past two decades—none of them currently available on DVD in the U.S.—are no exception.

Blame It on Voltaire (La Faute à Voltaire) (ND/NF 2001)
2000. France. Directed by Abdel Kechiche. The new “face” of Europe, belonging to African and Arab immigrants, has rarely been as powerfully captured as in this remarkable debut film by writer-director Abdel Kechiche (L’Esquive, The Secret of the Grain). Young Moroccan Jallel (beautifully played by Sami Bouajila) comes looking for the lights of Paris but instead finds black-market jobs and crowded hostels. Yet he also discovers a bracing solidarity between newcomers like him and other outcasts from French society—especially Lucie (Élodie Bouchez, from The Dreamlife of Angels), a disturbed young Frenchwoman who gives Jallel a very distinctive experience of his new country. Avoiding sensationalism, Kechiche renders one man’s dreams, fears and desires, as well as the concrete concerns of his daily life. 130 min.
Tue Mar 30: 3:15 (FSLC)

Hometown Blues (Le Bleu des villes) (ND/NF 2000)
1999. France. Directed by Stéphane Brizé. How many versions of a life can one live? Are we stuck with our first choice? In his sweet but sturdy first feature, director Stéphane Brizé (Mademoiselle Chambon, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2010) asks these questions and many more. Florence Vignon, who co-wrote the script, plays Solange, a put-upon meter maid married to Patrick, who slaves away at the local morgue. Ready to make the move into a new house, life seems okay for these two until Solange’s childhood friend, now a celebrated TV weather-girl, gives her a glimpse of other possibilities. With visions of a new life in her head, Solange returns to her first love—karaoke singing—and suddenly those house plans fall by the wayside. Moments of deadpan humor buoy this bittersweet tale of upsetting the status quo. 105 min.
Mon Mar 29: 3:15 (FSLC)

Sound and Fury (De bruit et de fureur) (ND/NF 1989)
1988. France. Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau. The real-life experiences of French cinema’s enfant terrible Jean-Claude Brisseau (Secret Things, Exterminating Angels) inspired this powerful and provocative opening-night film from the 1989 edition of New Directors/New Films. Set in the Paris suburbs, Brisseau’s film explores with sensitivity and signature urgency the loneliness and disaffection of two teenagers, Bruno (Vincent Gasperitsch) and Jean-Roger (François Négret)—innocents in the jungle of high-rises and savage school gangs. Tenderness gives way to violence and back again as these “lost” youths must rely on their street smarts to survive. Winner of the Prix Spécial de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. 95 min.
Fri Apr 2: 3:15 (FSLC)

Victor (Victor…pendant qu’il est trop tard) (ND/NF 1999)
1998. France. Directed by Sandrine Veysset. On a cold winter’s night, a young boy runs away from his parents and their kinky sexual fantasies, and winds up spinning on the merry-go-round of a carnival that’s come to town. After fainting in the arms of Mick, one of the workers at the fairgrounds, he is taken to the home of Trish, a young prostitute who doesn’t really know what to do with this young thing—she’s got problems of her own. But Victor seems to be the impetus for Trish to take control of her life, and likewise, Victor comes to life in her (maternal) arms. Director Sandrine Veysset (Will It Snow for Christmas?) finds the poetry in reality in this down-to-earth fairy tale, and turns the concept of family on its head. 88 min.
Wed Mar 31: 3:15 (FSLC)

When the Cat’s Away (Chacun cherche son chat) (ND/NF 1997)
1996. France. Directed by Cédric Klapisch. In this delightful opening-night film of the 1997 New Directors/New Films, young and hip makeup artist Chloé (Garance Clavel) can’t find anyone to watch her cat while she goes on vacataion, so she leaves her precious Gris-Gris in the care of an eccentric old woman. When she returns, she finds the cat has disappeared. Aided by a cadre of senior citizens, who search for the missing feline with an enthusiasm not seen since D-Day, Chloé encounters myriad locals that she would never have otherwise met. Likewise, writer-director Cédric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole, Paris) lets his camera wander in unexpected directions as we discover how the disparate characters of a neighborhood come together to form a community. 91 min.
Thu Apr 1: 3:15 (FSLC)

Schedule

March

Wednesday 24
7:00 Bill Cunningham New York (MoMA)
7:30 Bill Cunningham New York (MoMA)

Thursday 25
6:15 The Father of My Children (FSLC)
6:15 My Perestroika (MoMA)
8:15 Meet the Programmers (Location TBA)
9:15 Bill Cunningham New York (FSLC)
9:15 Samson and Delilah (MoMA)

Friday 26
6:15 The Oath (FSLC)
6:15 Northless (MoMA)
9:00 3 Backyards (FSLC)
9:00 Bilal’s Stand (MoMA)

Saturday 27
2:00 The Happiest Girl in the World (MoMA)
3:00 Northless (FSLC)
5:00 Every Day Is a Holiday (MoMA)
5:30 Bilal’s Stand (FSLC)
8:00 The Father of My Children (MoMA)
8:00 Tehroun (FSLC)

Sunday 28
1:00 3 Backyards (MoMA)
3:30 My Perestroika (FSLC)
4:00 The Oath (MoMA)
6:00 Night Catches Us (FSLC)
7:00 Tehroun (MoMA)
8:30 Samson and Delilah (FSLC)

Monday 29
3:15 Hometown Blues (FSLC)
6:15 The Happiest Girl in the World (FSLC)
6:15 Down Terrace (MoMA)
9:00 Every Day Is a Holiday (FSLC)
9:00 Night Catches Us (MoMA)

Tuesday 30
3:15 Blame It on Voltaire (FSLC)
6:15 Evening Dress (FSLC)
6:15 Women Without Men (MoMA)
9:00 Down Terrace (FSLC)
9:00 Dogtooth (MoMA)

Wednesday 31
3:15 Victor (FSLC)
6:15 Dogtooth (FSLC)
6:15 The Man Next Door (MoMA)
9:15 Women Without Men (FSLC)
9:15 Evening Dress (MoMA)

April

Thursday 1
3:15 When the Cat’s Away (FSLC)
6:15 The Last Train Home (MoMA)
9:00 The Man Next Door (FSLC)
9:00 Hunting & Sons (MoMA)

Friday 2
3:15 Sound and Fury (FSLC)
6:15 I Am Love (FSLC)
6:15 Frontier Blues (MoMA)
9:15 Amer (FSLC)
9:15 Beautiful Darling (MoMA)

Saturday 3
12:00 The Last Train Home (FSLC)
2:00 Amer (MoMA)
3:00 Hunting & Sons (FSLC)
5:00 How I Ended This Summer (MoMA)
6:00 Beautiful Darling (FSLC)
8:00 The Red Chapel (MoMA)
9:00 La Pivellina (FSLC)

Sunday 4
12:00 How I Ended This Summer (FSLC)
1:00 I Am Love (MoMA)
3:00 The Red Chapel (FSLC)
4:00 La Pivellina (MoMA)
5:30 Frontier Blues (FSLC)
7:00 I Killed My Mother (MoMA)