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Each year, the NYC festival endeavors to show excellent new work from some of the film world’s brightest rising stars. This year, they’ve done it again.<\/p>\n
Before the summer movie season consumes the local multiplex, discerning cinephiles and festival fans can bone up on some of the best films of the year, thanks to the always-excellent slate on offer at this year\u2019s New Directors\/New Films festival. Over the course of the New York City festival, it will play home to films from 41 directors, including 27 features and 11 shorts.<\/p>\n
As ever, this year\u2019s ND\/NF features a variety of films from around the festival circuit, Sundance to Cannes, Venice to Berlin, and more. The 52nd edition of the festival kicks off this week with Savannah Leaf\u2019s A24 drama \u201cEarth Mama\u201d and concludes with Vuk Lungulov-Klotz\u2019s trans coming-of-age story \u201cMutt.\u201d In between, film fans can see projects from rising stars, fresh voices, and finally (finally!) get to check out gems like \u201cJoyland,\u201d \u201cTotem,\u201d and \u201cDisco Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 52nd edition of New Directors\/New Films will run from March 29 \u2014 April 9, and more information about the festival can be found at its website. Here are 9 movies from the 2023 lineup that reflect why the festival is more essential than ever.<\/p>\n
Jude Dry, Ryan Lattanzio, Ben Croll, and Siddhant Adlakha also contributed to this article.<\/p>\n
\u201cAutobiography\u201d
\nIndonesian critic-turned-filmmaker Makbul Mubarak arrives on the scene with a daring, challenging first feature. Billed by the festival as \u201ca chilling, elegantly shot portrait of the seductiveness of power,\u201d \u201cAutobiography\u201d follows young Rakib (Kevin Ardilova) as he \u201cfalls under the spell of his new boss, Purna (Arswendy Bening Swara), a retired military general running for local office.\u201d While Rakib is initially tasked with odd jobs, from errands to driving the general around, he soon finds himself enthralled by other, darker aspects of the gig. <\/p>\n
ND\/NF will serve as a capper on an enviable festival tour for the film. It premiered at Venice (where it won the FIPRESCI critics\u2019 prize for the Orizzonti section), before screening at BFI London Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival. Mubarak himself terms the film a psyschological study, and it seems as if the rising director has entered the fray with pure intentions: he truly wants to understand people and their stories. Among his influences? Lucrecia Martel, Elia Kazan, Michael Haneke, Alfred Hitchcock, and Asghar Farhadi. Not too shabby! \u2014KE<\/p>\n
\u201cDisco Boy\u201d
\nIt might be reductive to call \u201cDisco Boy\u201d a kind of club kid cousin to \u201cBeau Travail,\u201d but the comparisons aren\u2019t entirely off. Like Claire Denis\u2019 Sight and Sound chart-topper, here is a tour with the French Foreign Legion, another dissection of colonial roleplaying spent among a taciturn lot who find best expression in the rhythms of the night.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s dispense those comparisons up front, and with a degree of military efficiency befitting both films: While director Giacomo Abbruzzese does indeed pay homage to a direct artistic forbearer, his debut film stands (and writhes and shimmies) all on its own. Pushed and pulled by another intensely physical Franz Rogowski turn, \u201cDisco Boy\u201d follows a man ever on the move, a paperless migrant whose name, identity, nationality and, it seems, spiritual sense of self remain constantly in flux. \u2014BC<\/p>\n
\u201cEarth Mama\u201d
\nLearn the names Savanah Leaf, first-time feature filmmaker, and Tia Nomore, first-time feature actress, right now, because their debut film \u201cEarth Mama\u201d is a shimmering stunner. A former Olympic volleyball athlete, Leaf has a canny eye for locating the subversion and beauty within a welfare-system drama about a single mother fighting for her life and children. What sounds, on paper, like a challenging sit is actually a wondrous 97-minute feature, whose director and star are obviously poised for greatness.<\/p>\n
Any film tackling the petty and punishing bureaucracies of the foster care system risks wading into melodrama or cliche, but \u201cEarth Mama\u201d largely avoids those rookie traps, and with an unpredictable and fiercely focused actress at its roots. Leaf searched far and wide for a Bay Area non-actor to embody Gia, a young Black mother whose son and daughter from an all-but-nonexistent father are in foster-care limbo while she recovers from drug addiction and has barely a dollar to her prepaid cell phone credits. Tia Nomore, frequently seen on the Bay Area freestyle battle-rap circuit, had been training to become a doula for Black families when she was cast, and her personal connection runs through the material. \u2014RL<\/p>\n
\u201cHave You Seen This Woman?\u201d
\nSerbian directing duo Du\u0161an Zori\u0107 and Matija Glu\u0161\u010devi\u0107 brought their feature debut \u201cHave You Seen This Woman?\u201d to the Venice critics\u2019 week last year, and they count Michael Haneke, David Lynch, Luis Bu\u00f1uel, and Stanley Kubrick among their influences \u2014 which means we\u2019re in for something dark and twisted, or at the very least, something that\u2019s not quite what it is on the surface.<\/p>\n
Here, a door-to-door vacuum cleaner saleswoman finds her reality upended when she finds a dead body while making the rounds in working-class Belgrade. They shot the film with actress Ksenija Marinkovi\u0107 over a period of five years, meaning that the actor, the directors, and the story all shaped in real-time. \u201cWe wanted to make a film that constantly reshapes itself, mirroring the changes of the main character. It should be as unpredictable an adventure for the viewer as for the protagonist. So don\u2019t overthink it, just enjoy the ride,\u201d they told Film at Lincoln Center. \u2014RL <\/p>\n
\u201cJoyland\u201d
\nThe first Pakistani film to premiere at Cannes (and, eventually, the first film from the country to be shortlisted for Best International Feature Film), Saim Sadiq\u2019s Un Certain Regard selection \u201cJoyland\u201d rides a fine line between sweet and foreboding right from its opening shot, in which an unseen adult man waltzes mischievously with his nieces while shrouded in a bedsheet. His life, and his liveliness, are carefully concealed; he exists as if between the worlds of the living and the dead.<\/p>\n
This is Haider Rana (Ali Junejo), a soft-spoken husband to an outspoken wife. The film revolves around him and uses him as its magnifying glass to zero in on social rigidities \u2014 gender and sexuality in particular \u2014 and the quiet, often painful ways in which they manifest.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoyland\u201d is, on one hand, a kind film. It paints even Haider\u2019s quietest moments in bright, living colors. He and his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) \u2014 to whom he was betrothed before they met \u2014 have a playful, personable understanding of each other, and of his unconventional role as a homemaker while she works as makeup artist for Lahore\u2019s economic upper crust. They live with Haider\u2019s elderly father (Salmaan Peerzada) who, along with his gruff older son Saleem (Sohail Sameer), grumbles at the fact that Saleem\u2019s wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) has only given birth to daughters. The stern patriarch hopes his younger son will pick up the slack, but despite the family\u2019s invasive expectations, Haider and Mumtaz make the most of their marriage in delightfully friendly fashion. \u2014SA<\/p>\n
\u201cLeila\u2019s Brothers\u201d
\nDubbed an \u201canti-patriarchal epic,\u201d this sprawling family crime drama has been likened to \u201cThe Godfather\u201d \u2014 only set in Tehran. The film took home the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes last year, an International Critics\u2019 prize meant to uplift new talent while honoring the best film in main competition.<\/p>\n
The story follows a young woman named Leila, played by \u201cThe Salesman\u201d star Taraneh Alidoosti in another powerhouse turn, as she battles to save her family from ruin while managing her four inept brothers and a narcissistic father. Her plan to pool their financial resources and open a shop are thwarted when her father accepts a position as head of the extended family, requiring a financial contribution they can barely afford.<\/p>\n
Delivering 169 minutes of dense dialogue and shifting points-of-view, the film is a Hollywood-sized departure from the intimate dramas that have come to define contemporary Iranian cinema for the world stage. \u2014JD<\/p>\n
\u201cMetronom\u201d
\nRomanian director Alexandru Belc cut his teeth working on the script department of Cristian Mungiu\u2019s \u201c4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days\u201d and Corneliu Porumboiu\u2019s \u201cPolice, Adjective\u201d \u2014 meaning we ought to expect a similar sort of beautiful bleakness from his feature film \u201cMetronom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Belc\u2019s first feature since profiling one of Romania\u2019s last remaining movie houses with \u201cCinema Mon Amour\u201d follows 17-year-old high schooler Ana (Mara Bugarin) over one tense, emotionally ravaging day and night in 1972. The Communist-era coming-of-age drama won Belc Best Director in the Cannes Un Certain Regard last year, and it looks closely at how even the most rebellious and idealist youth are easily susceptible to authoritarianism\u2019s march. Born in 1980, Belc draws on his own memories of fallen Romanian leader Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu\u2019s bitter rule for \u201cMetronom.\u201d \u2014RL <\/p>\n
\u201cMutt\u201d
\nThough queer and trans visibility does have its limits, there\u2019s no denying that trans men and transmasculine people have traditionally been sidelined in the fight for trans representation. Through no fault of queer and trans storytellers, mainstream media and the culture at large only had so much space for trans stories it found understandable and digestible.<\/p>\n
Now, coming up on almost ten years after what Time Magazine dubbed \u201cThe Transgender Tipping Point,\u201d film and television is finally starting to tell trans stories that trans viewers and queer community can recognize as their own.<\/p>\n
Vuk Lungulov-Klotz\u2019s \u201cMutt\u201d follows a day in the life of Fe\u00f1a (L\u00edo Mehiel), a young trans guy living in New York City. Over one sweltering and sometimes rainy day, Fe\u00f1a navigates the in between stages of transition, adulthood, and relationships, all while just trying to get through the day. Anchored by a charismatic performance from newcomer Mehiel, \u201cMutt\u201d keeps a tight focus on its dynamic protagonist, who graciously rolls with the punches of being broke and heartbroken in the city that never sleeps. \u2014JD<\/p>\n
\u201cTotem\u201d
\nMexican writer-director Lila Avil\u00e9s follows her lauded 2018 debut \u201cThe Chambermaid\u201d with this elegant drama about a family dealing with nothing less than the looming specter of death. But that\u2019s not the only thing at play here, as Avil\u00e9s also embraces a streak of childhood wonder, care of young star Na\u00edma Sent\u00edes.<\/p>\n
Taking place over the course of a single day, Avil\u00e9s introduces the central drama (and potential trauma) early: it\u2019s her father Tonatiuh\u2019s (Mateo Garc\u00eda Elizondo) birthday, but Sol is the one with a wish: She doesn\u2019t want her father, ill with cancer, to die. While we wait to meet him (and spend plenty of time with other members of Sol\u2019s sprawling family), we\u2019re also plunged into the worldview of the young lead, wise beyond her years but also wonderfully attuned to the small dreams and pleasures of being young in the world, even an unkind one. \u2014KE<\/p>\n
View this article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Directors\/New Films 2023: 9 Must-See Movies from Major Emerging Talents: Each year, the NYC festival endeavors to show excellent new work from some of the film world’s brightest rising stars. This year, they’ve done it again. Before the summer movie season consumes the local multiplex, discerning cinephiles and festival fans can bone up on
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