new directors/new films 2008

new diectors/new films (Feb 27- March05.2008)
is a cooperative event of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art to offer its international audiance twenty six featurees and six short .

This festival is not for everyone. But for those who have the time and ability to see the emergence of new treads, new talent, the festival offers a full array of hopeful "master pieces" which should be seen. New blood is the hallmark of a growing thriving industry.

There was a variety of riveting subjects portrayed with fantastic, state of the art photography that uses incredibly inexpensive tehnology. This makes it diffficult to say what is the difference between a seasoned film maker and a neophyte but that is the question this festival puts to its audiance over and over again. The anwser in part is the acting. Professional seasoned actors are very important to give depth to the story. Editing is another important, often ignored art. An editor who knows what to show and how much time to allow per image is essence to conveying the story in an emotionally driven work.
In general the plots were based on important and interesting evens but they didn't seem to go anywhere. A few moments might have sufficed to convey what was said in well over an hour.

A case in point is a compartison or twp the film; Water Lilies and Man. Water Lilikes was shown right after Man.

Water Lilies has been reviewed by Prairie Miller and LindaZ. on their blog Critical Women on film. They seemed to concer on the impression that Water Lilies is borerline kiddy porn. This is a trend that needs to be identified and rectified before it becomes too common. Water Lilies plot, simply stated is the loss of an adolescent ' innocence" done in a one dimentional depiction of teenage life and struggles to achieved maturity. Why are these children allowed to work in film but not as drug store cashiers and what is the role they are acting: These borderline explicit sex scenes have meaning to the actors!

This same theme of loss of virginity to a virtual unknown boy, is the plot of Man where the internet is used as the vehicle for the assignation. What is a long drawn out event in Water Lilies is achieved with such briliant subtley in Man that suffice it to say, making films today is too cheap, doesn't cost enough for the director to think of putting less on the screne rather than more., And it didn't hurt Myra Joseph's efforT tthat she used professional actors to achieve her desired end.

Waer Lilies Celeine Sciamma
France/2007/85mn

Man
Myna JosephUSA?2007/15m



Sleep Dealer
Alex Rivera
USA/Mexico/2008/90m


This film is well worth seeing. It is an attempt to bring to light the essense of how the U.S. views the Mexican workers upon whom they are so dependent and yet how little the U.S. wants to deal with the people. They want the work done without dealing with the people who perform the needed tasks.

Alex Rivera presents a creative, computer game type answer to this less than pleasant view of slave versus worker posed by current politics. We don't cry during the film because we are too entertained but the trip to another deminion in human productivity is well worth seeing., If the acting had been better, the characters drawn with more attention to detail, this film would have hit the top fo my chart. But I am an old lady and computer games are not just one more new age everyday event. Maybe the younger genrations will not be so enthalled.

I applaud Alex Rivera's effort and hope to see more of his work in the not so distant future.


LindaZ
WBAI Women;s Collective