See my roundup on the series below.



BLUE CAPRICE (Alexandre Moors 2012)
OUR NIXON (Penny Lane 2013)
THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer 2012)
ANTON’S RIGHT HERE (Lyubov Arkus 2012)
BURN IT UP DJASSA (Lonesome Solo 2012)
LES COQUILLETTES (Sophie Letourneur 2012)
THE COLOR OF THE CHAMELEON (Emil Christov 2012)
DIE WELT (Alex Pitstra 2012)
EMPEROR VISITS THE HELL (Li Luo 2013)
A HIJACKING (Tobias Lindholm2012)
JARDS (Eryk Rocha 2012) 93min
JISEUL (O Muel 2012) 109min
KÜF (Ali Aydin 2012)
LEONES (Jazmin Lopez 2012)
L’INTERVALLO (Leonardo Di Costanzo 2012)
PEOPLE’S PARK (Libbie D. Cohn & J.P. Sniadecki 2012)
RENGAINE (Rachid Djaïdani 2012)
THE SHINE OF DAY (Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel 2012)
SOLDATE JEANNETTE (Daniel Hoesl 2012)
STORIES WE TELL (Sarah Polley 2012)
THEY’LL COME BACK (Marcelo Lordello 2012)
TOWER (Kazik Radwanski 2012)
TOWHEADS (Shannon Plumb 2013)
UPSTREAM COLOR (Shane Carruth 2012)
VIOLA (Matías Piñeiro 2013

Roundup

The New Directors/New Films series is a very large and varied collection. You have highly polished feature films like Danish director Tobias Lindholm's A Highjacking or the young American Shane Carruth's Upstream Color. Alexandre Moors may be more of an emerging artist, but his new feature Blue Caprice also is a fully realized work. So is Brazillian Marcelo Lordello's thought-provoking They'll Come Back. Others, like the African Lonesome Solo's Burn It Up Djassa, Rachid Djaïdani's Rengaine, or Alex Pitstra's Die Welt, are all (despite Rengaine's being made in Paris) in one way or another Third World efforts, working against odds of preparation and funding, but bursting with talent and eagerness. Ali Aydin's Küf and Leonardo di Costanzo's L'Intervallo are both polished efforts, but somehow by design marginal and low keyed. Aydin sits at the feet of his countryman Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and probably of the Romanians too. Di Costanzo may suffer from Italy's current cinematic anemia and exhaustion. But both are good films. Sarah Polley's family documentary Stories We Tell hardly seems to need a boost. She's famous, and it's a very successful film. But it's her first documentary. Other inclusions seem doubtful, but not all in a series can be big successes. Our Nixon promises more than it performs if Penny Lane really thinks the archival footage by Nixon's three closest aides shows anything new. Eryk Rocha's Jards is in some ways sloppily done, but I'm happy to learn about this Brazilian musician. People's Park is another example of the Harvard ethnography documentary filmmaking, which is sometimes more exhausting than enlightening. I couldn't remember what The Color of a Chameleon and Viola were: that tells you something. Towheads has the distinction of being the most hated film of the series. I hated The Act of Killing and think somehow its documentary trickery is in bad taste. Les Coquillettes, Soldate Jeanette, Anton's Right Here and Jiseul are films you can have fun debating. Les Coquillettes is so silly and frivolous. But it's successful: it works. Soldate Jeannette doesn't quite work. It fizzles out. Yet it's so elegant and sure of itself at first, it stays with you. I discussed Jiseul with someone who loved it just for its atmosphere and gorgeous photography. I may have convinced her that O Muel doesn't know how to tell a story and that for events that are important and have been hidden for years straightforward storytelling is essential. She and I also differed on the very biased documentary about the Russian boy with severe Alzheimer's, Anton's Right Here. The issue is whether the bias spoils it, as some think. I decided it definitely does. My colleague was moved and thought it worked. Both of us will remember it.

The following are three ND/NF titles the Film Society of Lincoln Center is particularly hyping today, March 20, as the series' public screenings begin (and they are good). After are other choices of mine.

Alexandre Moors : BLUE CAPRICE. Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as "a riveting first feature of startling maturity and intelligence," this chilling examination of gun violence features masterful performances from Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond [as the Beltway sniper killers]. Director Alexandre Moors and cast in-person for opening night. A limited number of tickets available.

Ali Aydin : KÜF (Mar 21, 23): Venice Film Festival Award-Winner. This spellbinding character study centers on a railroad inspector and the 18-year search for his missing son.

Rachid Djaïdani: RENGAINE (Mar 22, 24): Celebrated by The Hollywood Reporter as "bursting with bravado and brio," this urban contemporary Romeo and Juliet is set in Paris.

Other titles I'd also personally particularly recommend (and my description):

Tobias Lindholm: A Hijacking (2012)
A suspenseful, realistic Danish drama about bargaining with Somali pirates for the freedom of a freighter crew.

Marcelo Lordello: They'll Come Back (2012)
Though-provoking Brazilian (Recife) tale of upper class kids dumped on a country road and what the younger girl learns about class and life.

Alex Pitstra: Die Welt (2012)
An inventive young Dutch-Tunisian filmmaker's rueful re-imagining of how his father's emigration to Europe might have been had it happened now at the time of the "Jasmine" revolt.

Shane Carruth: Upstream Color (2013)
Long awaited second film from the brilliant, puzzle-weaving filmmaker of PRIMER. Think Kubrick, Lynch, Malik.

Sarah Polley: Stories We Tell (2012)
Canadian actress-filmmaker turns to documentary with an engaging story of her own family and her own paternity -- and the alternate versions and coverups of family secrets.

Leonardo Di Constanzo: L'Intervallo (2012)
A quiet, crabwise look at the pervasive power of the La Camorra crime clan network in the world of Naples from the viewpoint of two teenagers caught in its net, screenplay co-authored by the writer of Garrone's REALITY and GOMORRAH.

These are my picks. Go see them or if you can't, keep an eye out for them elsewhere. These are nine great new films by exciting directors you probably never heard of in most cases. And that's what New Directors ideally gives you. (You've heard of Sarah Polley, but you don't know her as the director of a documentary.)

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.