The 43rd annual edition of the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films launches tomorrow, Wednesday, March 19, and continues through Sunday, March 30. The Spring cousin of the venerable New York Film Festival, ND/NF is a more tightly curated affair, presenting just under 30 feature length films from innovative and emerging filmmakers. Among these are just six recent works of nonfiction or hybrid nonfiction:
Three of these include recent standouts from Sundance which I’ve previously profiled: Talal Derki’s immersive Syrian civil war chronicle, RETURN TO HOMS, which previously opened IDFA; Hubert Sauper’s South Sudanese neocolonial expedition, WE COME AS FRIENDS (pictured); and Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s hybrid essay on musician Nick Cave, 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH, winner of two awards in Park City this January.
I’ve also previously written about another hybrid offering, Roberto Minervini’s slow-burning would-be rural romance, STOP THE POUNDING HEART. Other selections include Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s experimental hybrid, A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS; and Jessica Oreck’s THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA (pictured), which blends fairy tale animation and documentary storytelling in a parable of life in Eastern Europe.
what (not) to doc 