ND/NF, week 2.

"The main reason to check out the second and slack final week of this year's edition of New Directors / New Films, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, is the superb documentary Trouble the Water about Hurricane Katrina and its equally calamitous aftermath," argues Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

Updated through 4/5.

It may indeed be "[o]ne of the best American documentaries in recent memory," but so far, this year's program has been weighed down by a "general mediocrity," according to Reeler ST VanAirsdale: "In fact, if you had told me two weeks ago that the Greek tandem of Correction and Valse Sentimentale would likely be the duo to beat in this year's crop - rich with festival alums out of Park City, Berlin and other high-profile berths - I would have asked if you wanted another drink."

Earlier: Week 1.

Update: IndieWIRE interviews Conrad Clark (Soul Carriage) and Lior Shamriz (Japan Japan).

Update, 4/1: Howard Feinstein writes up several of the films screening this week for indieWIRE.

Updates, 4/2: IndieWIRE interviews Jackie Reem Salloum (Slingshot Hip Hop) and Celina Sciamma (Water Lilies).

More indieWIRE interviews: Constantina Voulgaris (Valse Sentimentale) and Lucia Puenzo (XXY).

Update, 4/3: Another indieWIRE interview: Chadi Zeneddine (Falling From Earth).

Updates, 4/5: Online listening tip. Megan Cunningham talks with Naoko Ogigami about Megane.

"La France is undoubtedly the best gender-bending World War I musical you'll ever see," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "Impossible to classify, it's a war movie with a love story that only flowers in its beginning and then in its closing moments. It's far more fully realized than the kind of promising but not quite accomplished film New Directors/New Films often showcases."

Posted by dwhudson at March 31, 2008 8:38 AM