New Directors / New Films. 08.

"This year's New Directors / New Films program - the annual survey of emerging artists presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art - is chock-full of unusual stories and unlikable heroes," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun. The series opens Wednesday and runs through April 6 and for the next seven days (until it falls off the front page), this entry will collect variously related items. Snyder: "[C]inephiles will have to wait until Friday to catch what may be the series's most captivating, inscrutable, and jarring entry: Momma's Man is the third feature film by Azazel Jacobs, the son of the renowned avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs, but the first of his works to gain access to a wide audience."

Updated through 3/28.

More from David Pratt-Robson in Slant, where the special ND/NF section is fattening up nicely.

"I know this sounds idealistic, but it was a conscious decision to make a film for and about Rwandans," Munyrangabo director Lee Isaac Chung tells Dennis Lim in a piece for the New York Times.

David Lowery on Eat, For This Is My Body: "[Michelange] Quay is less phantasmagoric in his intentions than [Matthew] Barney, and certainly more literal, but there's a languid appropriation of traditional cinematic language present in both directors' work, and just as Barney's films were most at home in museums, I think audiences might appreciate and understand Eat more if they go in expecting art first and film second."

"The fortysomething, out-of-the-culture-loop moms who left their fabulous lives in New York City to raise their kids in Columbia County were buzzing. Courtney Hunt, one of our own, denizen of the local diner, had directed a film, Frozen River, that was accepted into Sundance. Then in late January a thrill spread through the county: She'd won the Grand Jury Prize for drama." Karen Schoemer profiles Hunt, whose debut feature opens the series.

New York also spotlights four more features.

Update, 3/25: Howard Feinstein at indieWIRE: "Some of the best movies from the first half of the festival (I'll write about part two next week) are textbook studies on achieving near perfection on a lower-than-low budget."

Updates, 3/26: At the House Next Door: a whopping overview from half a dozen contributors.

"There is, as ever, much old hat, plenty of promise, and one or two outright sensations, though in the case of this unusually strong 37th edition, that number climbs up to three or four," writes Nathan Lee in one of his last pieces for the Voice. "My pick of the pick favors a pair of defiantly queer debuts positing genuine new directions/new cinemas."

"I'm not suggesting that they change or rebrand it, but after watching the first half of this year's lineup, movies of modest means and evident ambition, I prefer to think of the festival as Serious Directors/Small Films," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

Matt Dentler recommends catching Momma's Man, The Toe Tactic and Munyurangabo.

Cullen Gallagher has a few capsule reviews in the L Magazine.

Updates, 3/27: "In the 26 features and seven shorts from 17 nations, no single thematic trend unites the selections," writes Eric Kohn in the New York Press. "The directors vary in age, and not everyone is making a debut. Nevertheless, there's a common tone of desperation shared by many of the entries that confront personal alienation - whether as a result of class struggle, gender confusion or simply growing old."

Regarding Frozen River, "Hunt and Leo were on hand after the screening for a Q&A with the audience. The Film Society's Rich Peña kicked off the discussion." And the Film Panel Notetaker went to work.

IndieWIRE interviews Chung (Munyurangabo) and Etgar Keret, whose Jellyfish screens Thursday and Sunday. More on that one from Paul Schrodt in Slant.

Update, 3/28: IndieWIRE interviews two more directors: Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town) and Emily Hubley (The Toe Tactic).

Posted by dwhudson at March 24, 2008 1:30 PM