Co-sponsored with the Museum of Modern Art, New Directors / New Films has earned an international reputation as the foremost forum for film art that breaks or re-makes the cinematic mold. As a festival dedicated to discovering emerging and overlooked artists, newcomers on the verge of mainstream success and distinguished veterans whose work deserves wider public attention, New Directors nurtures directorial talent by creating an invaluable opportunity for that talent to win public support and acceptance. Since its beginning in 1972, New Directors' audiences have been treated to an early preview of such diverse talents as Wim Wenders, Steven Spielberg, John Sayles, Spike Lee, Sally Potter, Pedro Almodóvar, Chen Kaige, Ken Burns, Peter Greenaway and Whit Stillman. New Directors/ New Films is sponsored by Interview Magazine, A|X Armani Exchange, National Geographic Traveler, and Julien J. Studley, Inc. This program is made possible, in part by grants from the Irene Diamond Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts and The Junior Associates of the Museum o f Modern Art.

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2000 new directors program This year's new directors / new films takes place from march 24 -- april 9, 2000 -- presented by the film society of lincoln center and the department of film of the museum of modern art A PORNOGRAPHIC AFFAIR. The great Nathalie Baye and Sergi Lopez (Western, ND/NF 98) play lovers who relate the circumstances of their affair to an unidentified interviewer. They met through a newspaper ad proposing an anonymous sexual liaison which they describe as pornographic. How their relationship develops far beyond that initial premise becomes the subject of this intelligent, warm and powerfully erotic film directed by Frédéric Fonteyne and written by Phillippe Blasband (also Western). Despite the title, neither of the lovers is neurotic or perverse, but refreshingly mature. This is a love story beautifully directed, written and performed by two superb actors. Belgium/France/Luxembourg/Switzerland, 1999, 80 min. A Fine Line Features Release. Preceded by SHORT, Imogen Murphy's engaging romance, which proves that "if you find a person's flaw, you have them for life." Ireland, 1999. 10 min. 24C. Fri. March 24 at 6:00 PM 25A. Sat. March 25 at 12:00 NOON ADRENALINE DRIVE. Director Shinobu Yaguchi's masterful parody of popular Japanese teenage girls' romances, ADRENALINE DRIVE takes slapstick to dazzling Keatonesque delights in this sly comedy of robbers versus robbers. When a gas leak explodes at a yakuza's headquarters, a shy, timid nurse and a meek rental car clerk gain possession of a briefcase of blood-soaked money. The rest is a wild ride of chase and escape, as the nurse is transformed to glamorous heroine and outsmarts the gangsters eager to recover the loot. Joyous and giddy, the story teases its characters and audiences alike in a fresh, unpredictable style. Japan, 1999. 111 min. A Shooting Gallery Films Release. Preceded by ABOVE THE DUST LEVEL. Carla Drago's hilarious glimpse of three apartment dwellers living above the allergy zone, energized by their self-absorption with dust mites, underwear, and cross dressing. Australia, 1999. 9 min. 24D. Fri. March 24 at 9:00 PM 25E. Sat. March 25 at 10:30 PM HIDDEN RIVER. This stunning, subtle, and provocative first feature from Mercedes García Guevara, reaches deep into a woman's heart, and movingly both reveals and conceals her innermost feelings and struggles. A young working mother in Buenos Aires, Ana (Paola Krum) reads a note suggesting a relationship kept hidden by her husband, an executive preoccupied by his job. To solve the mystery she travels a long distance to Rio Escondido, an unimportant river town at the foot of the mountains in western Argentina, and the film becomes a journey of discovery as she finds her heart and her passion. Along the way, truths and perceptions intertwine when Ana meets Martin (Juan Palomino) and she learns who and what he is. Magnificent landscapes enhance the poetic sensibility of this emotionally complex, beautifully taut debut feature. Argentina, 1999. 87 min. 25B. Sat. March 25 at 2:30 PM 26C. Sun. March 26 at 5:30 PM IDLE RUNNING. A bit cynical, as well as conveniently lazy and seductive, Dizzy is a veteran student living a campus life of boozing, snoozing and watching TV. His life of no commitment and barely a dream for the future is interrupted when Marko, a serious freshman from the countryside moves into his dorm room --with his pregnant girlfriend in tow. A beautifully realized study of self-discovery that is both funny and touching with characters that are immediately recognizable. First time director Janez Burger elicits winning performances from his young cast and resourcefully fashions a quirky and mature low-budget movie about the consequences of avoiding life. A beautifully realized debut film serves as a neat introduction to the cinema of Slovenia. Slovenia, 1999. Directed by Janez Burger. 90 min. Preceded by HELL HOUSE. An exceedingly scary tour of Hell, as an agit-prop theme park, run by the religious right in Littleton, Colorado. Directed by Dewey Nicks. USA, 1998. 26 min. 25C. Sat. March 25 at 5:00 PM 26B. Sun. March 26 at 3:00 PM SUZHOU RIVER. The murky waters of the river that runs through a modern Shanghai is the setting for a story of love, loss, and betrayal. Marda, a young motorcycle messenger, gets a gig transporting Moudan, the naïve teenage daughter of a shady businessman, to visit her aunt each day while dad "entertains." Soon the two have grown very fond of each other. But when Marda is implicated in a kidnapping plot, a distraught Moudan disappears into the river, and Marda is thrown in the slammer. Case closed, it would seem. But when Marda returns from jail, and becomes obsessed with Meimei, a dancer who seems very familiar, things become increasingly intriguing. In his second feature, director Lou Ye has created a dazzling homage to classic cinema in the form of a steamy melodrama about obsession, with a contemporary twist. China/Germany, 2000. 83 min. 25D. Sat. March 25 at 8:00 PM 26A. Sun. March 26 at 12:00 NOON

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NOWHERE TO HIDE. 'Bravura' describes this stylistic spree too modestly. Drawing inspiration from Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone, and John Woo, this chase film in which cops try to catch a master of disguise, also owes something to film pioneer Louis Feuillade. This is a film as much about the joy of filmmaking as it is about a deadly pursuit. Lee Myung-Se, the filmmaker, streamlines the genre and recoats it with grand loopy humor and a terrific sense of what pleases the eye and ear. Its inventiveness is astonishing. Inchon, the Korean port city in which the delirious action explodes, becomes with this film, a great new location, and Lee Myung-Se, who also wrote and worked as the film's production designer, a director with a spectacular new signature. Korea, 1999. 110 min. Preceded by BELGIUM STRIKES BACK. The Benelux countries' biggest star comes to the rescue of a cool chick in distress. Directed by Pieter van Hees and Erik Bulckens. Belgium, 1999. 10 min. 27C. Mon. March 27 at 6:00 PM 28D. Tues. March 28 at 9:00 PM VOYAGES. In Poland, a Jewish tour group warily visits Jewish cultural and historical sites. In Paris, an elderly man tries to convince a middle-aged woman that he is indeed the father she hasn't seen in over fifty years. In Israel, a recent Russian emigré traipses across Tel Aviv searching for a distant relative. These are the stories which make up VOYAGES, Emmanuel Finkiel's immensely moving look at the last generation of Holocaust survivors. Although entirely set in the present, the past is never far away, as the physical and emotional upheaval of their youth courses beneath the surface of even the most seemingly tranquil lives. France, 1999. 111 min. A New Yorker Films Release. 27D. Mon. March 27 at 9:00 PM 28C. Tues. March 28 at 6:00 PM JOURNEY TO THE SUN. Mehmet, a recent arrival to the teeming city, is fortunate. He has a shared room, a possible girlfriend and a neat job as a diviner for Istanbul's municipal water system. He meets Berzan, a street music vendor familiar with the metropolis, and his moral education begins. Berzan is a Kurd, harassed by the authorities, and Mehmet's friendship with him combined with his own 'dark skin' puts Mehmet at extreme risk. Yesim Ustaoglu, an architect turned filmmaker, takes her characters on a journey east out of Istanbul into a ravishing and war-ravaged landscape close to the Iraqi border. JOURNEY TO THE SUN may be a story of sanctioned persecution but it is also the chronicle of a remarkable pilgrimage into the unknown. Turkey/The Netherlands/Germany, 1999. 105 min. 29C. Wed. March 29 at 6:00 PM 30D. Thurs. March 30 at 9:00 PM NORTHERN SKIRTS. A cry from the heart of Europe, NORTHERN SKIRTS follows the lives and loves of five twenty-somethings in an Austrian border town. Three Balkan refugees desperately seek jobs visas, anything which will give them some much- needed stability. Two Austrians come to terms with futures offering few promises and less certainty. Aided by a superb cast, Barbara Albert's stunning feature debut details the complex emotional entanglements that come to define her characters, rendering a searing portrait of an old world dealing with some harsh new realities. Austria/Switzerland/Germany, 1999. 103 min. Preceded by LITTLE DARK POET. Silent era, hand tinted film competes with a romantic trying to come up with a love story. A Bolex brothers film directed by Mike Booth. UK, 1998. 6 min. 29D. Wed. March 29 at 9:00 PM 31C. Fri. March 31 at 6:00 PM SHOWER. In a rapidly growing Beijing, an aging father, Lin, and one of his sons run a strictly traditional bathhouse with ingenuity and good will for their cranky elderly clientele. Into this fast-disappearing world comes Lin's thoroughly modern elder son, Daming, who mistakenly thinks his father has died, and he learns the hard way how progress threatens family and memory. Witty and engaging, the storytelling deftly balances realism and farce, and is interpreted by a wonderful cast featuring veteran stage and film actors, including Pu Cun Xin, familiar from The Blue Kite. Zhang Yang, a pioneer director of China's underground music-video scene, follows his first feature, Spicy Love Soup (1998), with this remarkably insightful, gently bittersweet human comedy, edged by a profound understanding of the loss of a centuries-old culture that must give way to current needs. China, 1999. 92 min. A Sony Pictures Classics Release. 30C. Thurs. March 30 at 6:00 PM 1A. Sat. April 1 at 12:00 NOON THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE. A portrait of Tammy Faye Baker - narrated by drag queen RuPaul, featuring chapter headings announced by a pair of hand-puppets, is much more than a camp extravaganza. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato review Tammy Faye's tragic and sometime triumphant life, providing insight and perspective on a woman whose name usually evokes no more than an image of smeared mascara. This highly entertaining and revealing chronical of one of our most controversial public figures gives us Tammy Faye's take on Jerry Falwell and the scandal which polarized Christians and sent her husband Jim, to prison. Whatever one thinks of her views and her mission, Tammy Faye is surely a fascinating subject for this expertly crafted film. USA, 1999. 79 min. A Lions Gate Release. Preceded by IN GOD WE TRUST by Jason Reitman. Heaven, Hell and a certain coin. USA, 1999. 16 min. 31D. Fri. March 31 at 9:00 PM 2A. Sun. April 2 at 12:00 NOON

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EL MEDINA. Yousry Nasrallah's entertaining and elegant story of Ali, a handsome, aspiring, young actor constrained by his family and friends in Cairo, is co-written by Claire Denis, the celebrated French filmmaker. EL MEDINA is the classic narrative of someone who wants to break out of a narrow world, even if his home is the colorful hustle-and-bustle of Cairene markets. Moving to Paris, Ali joins the twilight community of illegal Arab immigrants. With a deft nod to his mentor, Youssef Chahine, Nasrallah has his characters leap into exuberant song and dance numbers. This expertly structured tale leaves the spectator marveling at an intriguingly ambiguous, yet movingly satisfying ending. Egypt, 1999. 115 min. 1B. Sat. April 1 at 3:00 PM 2C Sun. April 2 at 6:00 PM LE BLEU DES VILLES. How many versions of a life can one live? Are we stuck with our first choice? In a sweet but sturdy first feature, director Stéphane Brizé asks these questions and more. Brizé wrote the script with lead actress Florence Vignon, who plays Solange, married to Patrick. Both slave away at their ordinary jobs; she's a much put-upon meter maid, he works at the local morgue. Ready to make the move into a new house, life seems okay for these two until a childhood friend of Solange - now a celebrated TV weather girl - gives Solange a glimpse of other possibilities. With visions of a new life in her head, Solange returns to her first love - karaoke singing - and all of a sudden plans for the new house fall by the wayside. Moments of deadpan humor buoy this bittersweet tale of upsetting the status quo. France, 1999. 105 min. Preceded by ARCHITECTURE OF REASSURANCE. Looking for family and friends in all the wrong places. Directed by Mike Mills. USA, 1999. 23 min. 1C. Sat. April 1 at 6:00 PM 2D. Sun. April 2 at 9:00 PM TWO WOMEN. A sensation when released last year in Iran, TWO WOMEN charts the lives of two promising architecture students over the course of the first turbulent years of the Islamic Republic. One of Iran's new generation of female directors, Tahmine Milani pulls no punches in creating this scathing portrait of those traditions - aided by official indifference - which conspire to trap women and stop them from realizing their full potential; the inclusion of frank depictions of domestic violence was hailed by many as a breakthrough in dealing with a long taboo subject. Among the outstanding performances is that of Niki Karimi, playing a woman whose strength and sense of self-worth shine through, no matter what the price. Iran, 1999. 96 min. 1D. Sat. April 1 at 9:00 PM 2B. Sun. April 2 at 3:00 PM MARTIN. An extraordinarily powerful and intriguing portrait of a strange elderly survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, Martin is impossible to classify-part documentary, objective in its analysis, and part unresolvable examination of truth and memory. Three tourists at the present-day Dachau memorial encounter Martin, who takes them on his particular tour of the site, complaining about the way it is memorialized, and declaiming about what really happened there. Fascinated, the tourists return each day over four days, and the narrative raises questions about remembrance and the ways in which historical truth is created. Nothing is simple in this challenging and deeply absorbing film, written and directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. Israel, 1999. 50 min. Preceded by ONE DAY CROSSING. Budapest, October 15, 1944, at the time the Hungarian Nazi movement Arrow Cross grows stronger: a young mother poses as a Christian to protect her son, Peter, when her husband brings home a Jewish boy he saved from execution. Bravery and anger fuel this intensely moving story of moral responsibility and simple humanity in a horrific world. Directed by Joan Stein. USA/ Hungary, 1999. 25 min. 3C. Mon. April 3 at 6:00 PM 4D. Tues. April 4 at 9:00 PM CRANE WORLD. Pablo Trapero's excitingly original feature debut has the authenticity associated with 1950s Italian Neo Realism. The protagonist in this clear-eyed tale of contemporary working class life in Argentina is beer-bellied, fiftyish, un-employed Rulo. A former local one-hit rock-star, his ambitions are now set to become a crane operator, but his modest dream of employment on a Buenos Aires construction site is soon derailed. Despite a budding romance with the local kiosk owner, Rulo's financial responsibilities to his mother and his grown son drive him to take a job far away in Patagonia. In a totally convincing performance (by Luis Margani, leading a cast of non-professionals), warm and likeable Rulo makes us believe that he, as well as the Argentine economy, can revive and start all over again ·and yet again. Argentina, 1999. 90 min. Preceded by PARELISA by Josue A. Mendez. The dream of leading a life where personal growth and economic freedom are possible is discussed by a teen-age prostitute and her male friend in this poignant vignette. Peru, 1999. 15 min. 3D. Mon. April 3 at 8:30 PM 4C. Tues. April 4 at 6:00 PM HUMAN RESOURCES. The 35-hour work week has all of France in its thrall. Filmmaker Laurent Cantet has taken this economic touchstone and turned it into a fascinating first feature about economic and familial politics. Frank, a business school graduate, returns to his provincial hometown to take a management position in the factory where his father has been working for 30 years. First Frank makes the mistake of actually asking the workers on the assembly line for their opinions. Then upper management manipulates his findings to lay off employees. This creates a huge rift, not only between labor and management, but between father and son. Using a realistic style of shooting and a cast of mostly non-professionals, Cantet creates a human morality tale that is overpowering in its evocation of paternal and filial love, and illustrates the personal risk behind political ideas. France, 1999. 100 min. 5C. Wed. April 5 at 6:00 PM 6D. Thurs. April 6 at 9:00 PM

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OUR SONG. It is August deep in Brooklyn, and three personable teenage girls rely on one another. One works, one looks for work sort of, one bides her time and each, preparing for the big parade at the end of summer, practices diligently with The Jackie Robinson Steppers Marching Band. School is about to begin but not in their neighborhood: asbestos is keeping the local one shut. Who will drop out, who will study in another part of the city, who will work and who will not, and who will live with a boyfriend are the stuff of this very humane and touching real life drama in which gesture speaks volumes. About youngsters making choices, OUR SONG compellingly shows that life in the inner city is as rich and varied or as constrained and conventional as anywhere else. With this, his sophomore feature -- he co-directed 1996's award-winning Girl's Town -- Jim McKay has become one of America's most mature and subtle filmmakers. USA, 1999. 96 min. Preceded by I'VE GOT YOU BABE. Amy Epstein's sandy take on familial relationships. USA, 1999. 15 min. 5D. Wed. April 5 at 9:00 PM 6C. Thurs. April 6 at 6:00 PM JESUS' SON. Director Alison Maclean came to our attention with her bizarre short, Kitchen Sink (NYFF, 1989). The same sensibilities are at work in her second feature film. Based on short stories by Denis Johnson, Maclean has woven a saga of sin and redemption erupting from the seventies drug culture. Billy Crudup's FH is the junkie we can love, and his girlfriend Michelle is played to perfection by Samantha Morton. FH is an angel wannabe who is convinced he can save people from fate, or at least from themselves. His failure at this endeavor has earned him the colorful nickname and sends him on a series of strange encounters. From a lunatic who chops up his own house to sell for parts, to a druggie orderly (and the nuttiest hospital scene in years), all, in their own odd way, point FH towards a righteous life. Maclean's romp down the road of awareness is a heady blend of style and substance. USA, 1999. 105 min. A Lions Gate Release. 7C. Fri. April 7 at 6:00 PM 8D. Sat. April 8 at 9:00 PM RATCATCHER. In a working class Glasgow neighborhood in the mid-seventies, 12-year-old James walks a fine line, treading reality and fantasy. The world around his council flat is dank and filthy, and getting worse all the time. His father drinks, his mother doesn't, but neither is of any help to James. And the memory of an accident in the local canal that killed one of his friends constantly disturbs him. As his family's dreams of moving up - even slightly - begin to disintegrate, the site of an unfinished new house becomes base camp for his vivid imagination. Director Lynne Ramsay, whose wonderful short film Gasman graced the New York Film Festival in 1998, has realized an exquisite rendering of the mind of a child who is struggling to survive his own existence. A spectacular feature film debut. UK, 1999. 94 min. Preceded by DREAM. Masayo Nishimura's computer-animated love story begins in the bowels of the IRT local. USA , 1999. 3 min. 7D. Fri. April 7 at 9:00 PM 9B. Sun. April 9 at 3:30 PM SOUND AND FURY. An impassioned debate about a miraculous surgical procedure affects three generations of the Artinian family in this powerful, emotionally searing exploration of the society and culture of the Deaf. Two brothers, one who hears and one who is deaf, and their wives struggle to decide if their children should receive cochlear implants. The hearing parents are convinced it will enable their son to hear and learn to speak, the other parents believe the operation to be a cruel procedure which will destroy American Sign Language and an established culture for the Deaf. In cinema verité style, filmmakers Josh Aronson and Roger Weisberg thoughtfully capture the anguished, opposing views of the grandparents and parents as well as the vibrant and affectionate children whose futures are of concern to everyone in this complex family. A film not to be missed, SOUND AND FURY will begin a theatrical run at Film Forum in the fall. USA, 1999. 80 min. 8A. Sat. April 8 at 12:30 PM 9C. Sun. April 9 at 6:30 PM HEROD'S LAW. Herod's Law is "do unto others what you can get away with." This is the lesson Juan Vargas learns only too well when his party promotes him from supervisor of a town dump to mayor of a remote village where the last several were lynched. This pitch black comedy may have brought down the officials who funded the film but it is bringing in large appreciative audiences at the few theaters that risk showing Luis Estrada's satire about the inevitability of corruption in Mexico. As Vargas' power grows so do his paranoia, misogyny and monomania: he becomes appalling and the film takes a turn. What was funny becomes disturbing, the laughter uneasy, and the intractability of Herod's Law apparent. A courageous film that proves Jonathan Swift is alive and living well south of the border. Mexico, 1999. 120 min. 8B. Sat. April 8 at 3:00 PM 9D. Sun. April 9 at 9:00 PM CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. A trio of new American shorts captures the pleasures and dangers of drawing close to another. Out comforting a love-sick friend, Eduardo meets a beautiful and somewhat mysterious older woman who will challenge his ideas about romance in JACARANDA (Francisco Velasquez, 1999). CUSP (Ruth Sergel, 1999) tells the story of Alice, a spirited twelve-year old who hits the wall of early adolescence when she discovers her carefully cultivated best friend starting to drift away; in FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING (Peter Sollett, 1999) a budding teenager, after a visit to the local pool, gets caught up in the world of furtive glances and neighborhood romances (Best Short, Sundance). Total running time: 80 min. 8C. Sat. April 8 at 6:00 PM 9A. Sun. April 9 at 12:30 PM