When he died earlier this month at the age of 83, Maurice Sendak left behind an uncontested legacy as the most important children’s book artist of his times—albeit one who constantly pushed at the perceived limitations of children’s intellects, treating his readers with the respect he believed they so richly deserved. Late in life, Sendak saw his seminal (and largely autobiographical) Where the Wild Things Are brought to vivid big-screen life by Being John Malkovich and Adaptation auteur Spike Jonze, a passionate Sendak fan who used the occasion to also to capture Sendak himself on camera in a deeply felt documentary, Tell Them Anything You Want. We are pleased to screen both films in memory of this towering 20th century cultural figure.

One of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, Human Rights Watch works tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep rooted change and fights to bring greater justice and security to people around the world. The annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival bears witness to human rights violations and creates a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. The festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people.

This year’s festival is organized around four themes: Health, Development, and the Environment (Bidder 70, Bitter Seeds, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare); Migrants’ Rights (Color of the Ocean, Special Flight); Personal Testimony and Witnessing (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Brother Number One, Little Heaven, Reportero, Silenced Voices, Words of Witness); and Women’s Rights (Habibi, The Invisible War, Salaam Dunk). Download the beautiful full-color festival brochure as a PDF for even more information about the lineup.

Please note: The festival launches on June 14 with a fundraising Benefit Night for Human Rights Watch, featuring Kim Nguyen’s War Witch, an emotionally powerful drama about a 14-year-old girl abducted by a rebel army in sub-Saharan Africa. Tickets and more information can be found on the Human Rights Watch website. The main program will begin on June 15 with the Opening Night presentation of Alison Klayman’s festival favorite Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, an up-close look at renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei and his ongoing battle with the Chinese government.

Join ImageNation Cinema Foundation and The Film Society of Lincoln Center for an evening of film, music and discussion motivated by the Trayvon Martin case. "Justice For Trayvon: Media, Music and Racial Profiling" will include a live performance by Hip-Hop artist Papoose, short films Let the Eagle Scream, The Adventures of SuperNigger and I am Sean Bell and excerpts from American Promise by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson and Keith Beauchamp's Investigation Discovery television series The Injustice Files. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Trayvon Martin legal fund. Panelists include Prof. Marc Lamont Hill, Nicole Paultre Bell, ACLU attorney King Downing and filmmakers Keith Beauchamp and Rhonda Haynes.

The twelve films explore the different ways we live on this planet and interact with our environment. From the disappearing traditional ways of life seen in Silvestre Pantaleón, Canícula and Within the River, Among the Trees, to people coping with the pressures of developing modern societies in Yatatso and Solar Eclipse to global problems we have created living a fully realized consumer culture in The Crisis of Civilization, Nuclear Savage, The Light Bulb Conspiracy and Keep on Rolling.

Don’t ‘miss the exciting family films Bacalar, Chandani: The Daughter of the Elephant Whisperer and Among Wolves!

Cinema Planeta has been dreaming for four years about a change in our relationship with the planet, the beings with whom we coexist with, its natural resources and among ourselves. The festival understands cinema as a vehicle of transformation, as a promoter of a culture oriented towards environmental conservation.

Note: The screening schedule for Open Roads has been updated since the publication of our bimonthly calendar. Please refer to the website for the most accurate showtimes.

Since 2001, the first summer breezes of June have brought a fresh crop of new Italian films and filmmakers to Lincoln Center. Open Roads: New Italian Cinema has become the leading North American showcase for contemporary Italian cinema as well as one of our most popular programs. Established filmmakers such as Ermanno Olmi (featured again this year), Mario Monicelli and Pupi Avati have premiered new works here alongside those of emerging filmmakers such as Matteo Garrone, Ferzan Ozpetek (also featured in this year’s program), Paolo Sorrentino and Susanna Nichiarelli. A new generation of actors—Margherita Buy, Sergio Castellitto, Toni Servillo, Donatella Finocchiaro—were discovered and embraced by our audiences at Open Roads.

When the series first began, there was an excitement about a kind of “new regionalism,” for which Italian filmmakers were heading to diverse parts of the country—Apulia, Bari, Friuli—that had rarely appeared on screen; some of these films were even shot in the local dialects, forcing audiences to reads subtitles when they were released outside of their areas of production. While that penchant for regionalism can be seen in this year’s selection in films such as Terraferma, Horses and Annalisa, other tendencies are also in evidence. The Italian cinema is perhaps the quintessential social cinema, with films regularly taking on even the most divisive issues; many of the films included this year—even comedies such as A Flat for Three and Escort in Love—offer their own perspectives on contemporary Italy. Another development is the return of genre cinema, whether in the wildly innovative The Legend of Kaspar Hauser or the quietly haunting The Arrival of Wang. Today’s young Italian filmmakers are embracing classic storytelling modes and formulas and breathing new life into them.

So join us once again in welcoming back an old friend: Italian cinema.

When he died in March at the age of 83, acclaimed film and stage director Ulu Grosbard left behind a small but remarkable body of big-screen work that included inspired collaborations with Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall and Meryl Streep, and Oscar-nominated performances by Jack Albertson, Barbara Harris and Mare Winningham. We remember this longtime Film Society friend with screenings of two of his finest films, True Confessions (1981) and Georgia (1995).

The Film Society together with the online feminist film journal Joan's Digest is honored to present a special evening with the legendary Jane Fonda to celebrate her outstanding contributions as an actress, activist and producer. In films as varied as The Chapman Report, Klute, 9 to 5 and the soon-to-released Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, Fonda's career has illustrated the struggle of women for independence and authority, always with her signature honesty, grace and humor. In a career-spanning conversation moderated by New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als, we'll look back at Fonda's remarkable highlights as a dramatic actress, as an advocate for women in the media and as a brilliant comedienne. The conversation will be followed by a preview screening of Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (Bruce Beresford, 2011).

"Sometimes I sit in my office and wonder why Béla Tarr couldn’t have filmed a live-action version of the game Sodoku. Because if he had, we would program it in a second. But since he hasn’t (at least so far, anything’s possible), we might as well throw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Fritz the Cat on the screen and see what happens." —Gavin Smith, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief and Midnight Movie co-programmer

Get a double shot of Scott and save when you create your own double feature! And join Film Society's young patron group New Wave for an out-of-this-world event on May 25: an open bar on the roof of the Empire Hotel at 7:30pm plus a ticket to the 9:00pm screening of Alien, all for just $20 for New Wave Members ($30 for General Public). Click here for tickets and more info.

Convergence seeks to create a forum for immersive storytellers and their audiences at Lincoln Center. Through panel programs, exhibitions, intensive workshops, and critical partnerships with creators, we aim to further the dialogue about this form that is all forms and to treat transmedia as what it really is: an emerging form of art.

Working with collaborators like StoryCode and Kill Screen Magazine, Convergence will present a comprehensive slate of year-round programs on topics including new media criticism, case studies of new transmedia projects, discussions with top minds in the video game industry, and conversations with the artists on the cutting edge of storytelling.

Following the peak years of Sundance-inspired excess, when American independent cinema seemed to become all about creating calling-card movies for hoped-for careers inside the Hollywood sawmill, an exciting new wave of low- and no-budget American filmmakers has begun to emerge, for whom filmmaking is a true passion rather than a mere vocation, and whose films are as likely to reach audiences through social media and new distribution platforms as through a traditional cinema release.

Heralded by the likes of the Safdie brothers’ Daddy Longlegs, Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture and Evan Glodell’s Bellflower, plus lesser-seen gems like Alex Ross Perry’s The Color Wheel and Sophia Takal’s Green, this American indie renaissance is growing by leaps and bounds, as the ever-diminishing costs of production allow more unique cinematic voices to make themselves heard. In keeping with the Film Society’s longstanding tradition of supporting and showcasing emerging filmmakers, we are pleased to introduce this new, monthly showcase of the best and boldest independent cinema, curated by FSLC Associate Program Director Scott Foundas and award-winning producer Ted Hope (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Adventureland), the first in a series of annual guest curators hailing from the American indie vanguard.

Present your ticket to any Indie Night screening at Indie Food & Wine in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and receive a special 10% discount!

Present your ticket to any Art of the Real screening at Indie Food & Wine in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and receive a special 10% discount!

Stop by Indie Food and Wine before or after the film and enjoy an "indie lunch box" featuring a NY State cheddar grilled cheese sandwich on multi-grain bread with an apple and house-made hot chocolate, all for only $6 with your ticket stub!