NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2009 SLATE ANNOUNCED

Opening Night: Cherien Dabis’s “Amreeka”
Closing Night: Lee Daniels’s “Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire”
 
Presented by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center,
March 25 – April 5

 

NEW YORK—The 25 feature films that will make up New Directors/New Films 2009 were announced today by Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film at The Museum of Modern Art and Richard Peña, program director at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Representing 20 countries, the titles in the 39th edition of this celebrated program dedicated to the discovery and support of emerging directors will screen in their New York premieres or, in some cases, their United States and world premieres. Many filmmakers and special guests will appear on stage at series screenings, held at MoMA and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, March 25 – April 5.

 

New York-based director Cherien Dabis’s debut feature “Amreeka” will be honored as the 2009 Opening Night selection. The humanist and humorous drama stars Haifa-trained actress Nisreen Faour and Hiam Abbas (“The Visitor,” “Lemon Tree”) in the story of Muna, a single mother from Ramallah, and Fadi, her teenage son, who move to Middle America just as U.S. troops enter Baghdad. Their bittersweet adjustment to a multicultural way of life provides a revelatory vision of a mother-son relationship set against the strange behavior of those “ordinary people” who treat them as outsiders.

 

Lee Daniels’s Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner “Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire” will also be showcased as the series’s first-ever Closing Night feature. The much-discussed drama chronicles the world of Precious Jones, an overweight, functionally illiterate, lonesome teenager pregnant with a second child by her own father. Daniels, working with a script by Damien Paul and an extraordinary cast led by Gabourey Sidibe and including Mo’Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, and Paula Patton, creates a vibrant, engaging story of imposing character and unlikely survival.

 

Other features of the 2009 festival slate include the world premiere of Bob Byington’s slacker ex-love story “Harmony and Me” and the U.S. premiere of Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern’s inside look at the Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line,” “Every Little Step.” First-time feature director Sophie Barthes gathers a remarkable cast— including Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, and David Strathairn—in her existential comedy thriller “Cold Souls.”

 

The series will offer New Yorkers an exclusive first chance to see 2009 Sundance favorites including National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos’s “The Cove;” Sterlin Harjo “Barking Water;” Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Deléphin’s “Louise-Michel;” Sebastián Silva’s “The Maid;” Laurel Nakadate’s “Stay the Same Never Change;” Alexis Dos Santos’s “Unmade Beds;” and Ondi Timoner’s “We Live in Public,” an insightful and resourceful documentary exploration of Internet pioneer Josh Harris's raise and fall within the art and technology whirlwind of 1990s Manhattan. Venice Film Festival prizewinners “Mid-August Lunch” by Gianni Di Gregorio and “Paper Soldier” by Aleksei German Jr. are also among the many stellar new features highlighted in the slate.

 

Dedicated to the discovery and support of emerging artists, New Directors/New Films has earned an international reputation as the premier festival for works that break or re-cast the cinematic mold.

 

The series is presented by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center and supported by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Young Friends of Film.

 

The work of The Film Society of Lincoln Center is made possible by the generous support of the Irene Diamond Fund, 42 Below, Stella Artois®, Illy, and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

 

The Museum of Modern Art's film programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

 

The complete public schedule for New Directors/New Films 2009 will be announced in early March. Tickets will go on sale Friday, March 13. They will be at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, MoMA, and online at filmlinc.com.