NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS April 2-13, 2025

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NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2025

FESTIVAL THREAD

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THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART AND FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
ANNOUNCE THE LINEUP FOR THE 54th EDITION OF
NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS, APRIL 2–13

Opening Night—Sarah Friedland's Familiar Touch
Closing Night—Alex Russell's Lurker

Presented in MoMA and FLC theaters
New York, NY (March 5, 2025) – The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center announce the 54th edition of New Directors/New Films (ND/NF), taking place from April 2 through April 13. Since 1972, New Directors/New Films has showcased new and emerging filmmakers whose distinctive visions and risk-taking works highlight the vitality and potential of cinema. This year’s ND/NF will present 24 features and nine short films, including 20 North American or U.S. premieres.

Opening ND/NF is the New York premiere of Familiar Touch, Sarah Friedland’s debut, which won three top prizes in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition and showcases an astonishing performance by Kathleen Chalfant. The festival will close with the New York premiere of Alex Russell’s feature debut Lurker, a tense thriller about the darker side of pop-star worship fresh from screenings at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals.

Films in the ND/NF program probe a diverse array of themes, including community and co-existence, family histories, the lives of artists, global political issues, and the complexities of youth and coming of age. A number of works experiment with hybrid forms, blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. In this geographically diverse lineup, works by emerging filmmakers from 22 countries are represented, many of which premiered at, and in many cases received awards and prizes from, prestigious international film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Locarno, CPH:DOX, Sundance, Rotterdam, and Berlin.​​

Festival highlights include reflections on family and family histories in Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s Listen to the Voices; Tato Kotetishvili’s Holy Electricity; Courtney Stephens’s Invention; and Drowning Dry by Laurynas Bareiša (ND/NF 2022), all Locarno Film Festival prize recipients. Political realities are observed through the lens of history and present-day events in Lorena Alvarado’s Lost Chapters; Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte! (winner of the top prize at Rotterdam); Bálint Szimler’s Lesson Learned; and Kateryna Gornostai’s (ND/NF 2021) documentary about life during wartime in Ukraine, Timestamp (Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award at CPH:DOX). Also of note are Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace (French Touch Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week), featuring the celebrated actor/director/screenwriter Lee Kang-sheng, and Suhel Banerjee’s CycleMahesh, an experimentation on the fiction/nonfiction hybrid form.

Dan Sullivan, 2025 ND/NF Co-Chair and FLC Programmer, says, “The lineup for this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films inevitably reflects the uncertainties and tragedies of our global situation in 2025, yet it also evinces the sheer resilience of cinema and the continued emergence of important new talents working within it. A number of films in this year’s lineup take up the challenge of recovering and reconceptualizing human connection as a cherished value, perhaps none more movingly than Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch, a sophisticated and boundlessly sensitive subversion of the coming-of-age film that challenges our preconceptions about the subjectivity of the elderly. Likewise, Alex Russell’s stylish and gripping Lurker trains its gaze on Gen Z, posing hard questions about the nature of ambition, fame, and friendship amid a culture that prizes selfish striving to the detriment of the fundamental bonds that unite us and make life worth living.”

La Frances Hui, 2025 ND/NF Co-chair and Curator, Department of Film, MoMA, observes, “Cinema dazzles in the hands of this remarkable class of new directors, who bring astonishing creativity to exploring and interpreting the vast spectrum of human experience. Their films abound with surprising, magical touches, weaving stories of love, family, and anguish, while also delving into themes of identity, history, and conflict. These filmmakers reaffirm the boundless potential of the moving image to regenerate, create meaning, and expand our horizons. Prepare to be captivated by this exceptional collection of new films.”

Over 54 festivals, ND/NF has maintained a commitment to its founding mission to showcase distinctive new voices and share the gift of discovery with audiences. Directors showcased in past festivals include Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Souleymane Cissé, Jia Zhangke, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai, Agnieszka Holland, Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, and many others.

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The complete 2025 New Directors/New Films lineup:

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THE ASSISTANT (Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal 2025) Polish
BLUE SUN PALACE (Constance Tsang 2024) Chinese
CACTUS PEARS (Rohan Parashuram Kanawade 2025) Marathi language, Indo-Aryan language of western and central India
CYCLEMAHESH(Suhel Banerjee 2024) Indian languages
DROWNING DRY (Laurynas Bareiša 2024) Lithuanian
FAMILIAR TORCH (Sarah Friedland 2024) English
FIUME O MORTE! (Igor Bezinović 2025) Croatian and Italian
GRAND ME (Atiye Zare Arandi 2024) Farsi
THE HEIGHT OF THE COCONUT TREES (Du Jie 2024) Japanese
HOLY ELECTRICITY (Tato Kotetishvili 2024) Georgian
INVENTION (Courtney Stephens 2024) English
KYUKA BEFORE SUMMER'S END (Kostis Charamountanis 2024) Greek
LESSON LEARNED Fekete pont (Bálint Szimler 2024) Hungarian
LISTEN TO THE VOICES (Maxime Jean-Baptiste 2024) French
LOST CHAPTERS (Lorena Alvarado 2024) Spanish
LURKERS (Alex Russell 2024)
MAD BILLS TO PAY - OR DESTINY, DIRE QUE NO SOY MALO (Joel Alfonso Vargas 2024) Spanish
NO SLEEP TILL(Alexandra Simpson 2024)
SAD JOKES (Fabian Stumm 2024) German
STRANGER (Zhengfan Yang 2024) Chinese
TWO TIMES JOÃO LIBERADA (Paula Marques 2025) Portuguese
THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE (Mo Harawe 2024) Somali
THE VIRGIN OF THE QUARRY LAKE (Laura Casabé 2025) Spanish

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Shorts Program I
Landscapes of Longing dir. Alisha Tejpal, Mireya Martinez, Anoushka Mirchandani
You Can’t See It From Here dir. Enrique Pedráza-Botero

Shorts Program II
Life Story dir. Jessica Dunn Rovinelli
Crushed dir. Camille Vigny
Maidenhair dir. Julia Sipowicz

In Retrospect, dir. Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhlutenko
The Inhabitants dir. Maureen Fazendeiro

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World dir. Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis
What We Ask of a Statue Is That It Doesn’t Move dir. Daphné Hérétakis

New Directors/New Films is organized by La Frances Hui (Co-Chair, MoMA), Dan Sullivan (Co-Chair, Film at Lincoln Center), Sophie Cavoulacos (MoMA), Rajendra Roy (MoMA), Francisco Valente (MoMA), Madeline Whittle (Film at Lincoln Center), Tyler Wilson (Film at Lincoln Center), Katie Zwick (Film at Lincoln Center).

New Directors/New Films is presented by The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center.

Film at Lincoln Center funding for New Directors/New Films is provided in part by Anne-Victoire Auriault and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Film at Lincoln Center.

NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2025: FILMS AND DESCRIPTIONS

Films will screen at either The Museum of Modern Art’s Titus 1 / Titus 2 Theaters (11 W. 53rd Street) or Film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th Street)

Opening Night
Familiar Touch
Sarah Friedland, 2024, U.S., 91m
New York Premiere
Octogenarian Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) has been living independently, but cracks have started to emerge: toast is placed to dry in the dish rack, confusion rests on her face, the dead are spoken of in present tense while the living (such as a son right before her) go entirely unrecognized. Her entrance into an assisted-living facility begins the strange, transcendent journey that is Familiar Touch, Sarah Friedland’s feature debut, which earned three awards in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition, including the Lion of the Future, Best Director, and Best Actress for Chalfant’s astonishing turn. Friedland builds her drama through sharp honesty, and tough as its material may be, few films are so tonally flexible, so able to turn on a dime: stray moments of tenderness, humility, even absurdity poke through, with a love and care for Ruth shown by characters and creators alike. Familiar Touch portends the arrival of major directorial talent. A Music Box Films release.

Wednesday, April 2
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Sarah Friedland, Kathleen Chalfant
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Sarah Friedland, Kathleen Chalfant

Friday, April 4
6:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Sarah Friedland, Kathleen Chalfant

Closing Night
Lurker
Alex Russell, 2025, U.S./Italy, 100m
New York Premiere
In Alex Russell’s irresistible, screw-turning thriller for the influencer age, Los Angeles clothing store clerk Matthew (Théodore Pellerin, Genesis) contrives his way into the entourage of up-and-coming musician Oliver (Archie Madekwe, Saltburn)—and once insinuated into the inner circle, refuses to give up his position without a fight. Lurker thrives on Pellerin’s remarkable turn—one rarely sees actors write such rich psychology in the flick of their eyes or curl of a smile—and Madekwe’s deft oscillations between affability and stone-faced detachment. A writer/producer on award-winning series The Bear and Beef, Russell helms his feature debut with a steady hand that captures the whirlwind rush of stardom and the unsettling chill of obsession as the line between friendship and fandom begins to blur beyond recognition. A MUBI release.

Saturday, April 12
7:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 1 – Q&A with Alex Russell

Sunday, April 13
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Alex Russell

The Assistant / Człowiek do wszystkiego
Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal, 2025, Poland/U.K., 124m
Polish with English subtitles
North American Premiere
“I was just a button hanging by a thread that no one was willing to sew back on again.” So we’re introduced to Joseph, freshly fired from a menial job and stepping into a world that doesn’t want him. His fortunes seemingly reverse when he’s brought into the employ of Mr. Tobler, an inventor whose no-nonsense protocol sets in motion this riveting character drama from Wilhelm and Anka Sasnal, adapted from a 1908 Robert Walser novel. Buoyed by a star-making turn from Piotr Trojan, stunning pastoral locations, lush cinematography, a transfixing electronic score (to say nothing of its expertly deployed Smiths cue), and supreme fashion sense, The Assistant is a visually and sonically opulent film about the bonds that constrain us all.

Saturday, April 5
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Sunday, April 6
6:15pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Blue Sun Palace
Constance Tsang, 2024, U.S., 116m
Mandarin, English, and Min Nan with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
For more than 30 years the Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng has forged an indelible, inimitable creative partnership with Tsai Ming-liang. Lee makes as big an impression in Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace, which relocates him to working-class Queens. When wayward Taiwanese immigrant Cheung (Lee) finds his life of part-time work and light extramarital affairs shattered by violence, he connects with workers at a small Queens salon, victims themselves to the indignities forced upon strangers in a strange land. But Blue Sun Palace is no misery showcase. Intimacy and warmth co-exist with economic anxieties and deep grief that are articulated with uncommon intelligence and understanding of how adults endure any given day. In this debut feature, awarded the French Touch Prize by the jury at the 2024 Cannes Critics’ Week, Tsang shapes an immigrant’s tale, a relationship drama, a workplace comedy, and a great New York story in one. A Dekanalog release.

Saturday, April 5
5:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 1 – Q&A with Constance Tsang

Sunday, April 6
5:45pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Constance Tsang

Cactus Pears / Sabar Bonda
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, 2025, India/U.K./Canada, 112m
Marathi with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Western India’s stunning, cascading landscapes background Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s debut feature of familial bereavement and queer longing that earned Sundance’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize. A family consecrates the loss of its patriarch with a 10-day mourning period that strands Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) in the countryside he long ago deserted for Mumbai. Grief’s common phases (poring over old photos, sharing beloved memories) coexist with local rituals, all while Anand’s hidden desires materialize in a rekindled friendship with childhood companion Balya. Through these experiences, sensual discoveries, and Bhushaan Manoj’s ever-measured performance, Cactus Pears emerges as an exquisite character piece perfected by its heartrending finale.

Tuesday, April 8
6:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Wednesday, April 9
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

CycleMahesh
Suhel Banerjee, 2024, India/U.K./Canada, 61m
Odia, Marathi, and Hindi with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Just how far would you go to reach home? When the COVID-19 lockdowns left him stranded on the other side of India, delivery boy Mahesh became a national sensation by peddling 1,700 kilometers in seven days. It’s a story good enough for a movie, one that director Suhel Banerjee has broken apart and rendered a trancelike travelogue that combines fiction and nonfiction. CycleMahesh (winner of IDFA’s Best First Feature) guides us through breathtaking terrain—wheat fields, river valleys, and raging fires complemented by gorgeous sunrises and sunsets—on an alternately hyperactive and contemplative journey that, in just 60 minutes, compresses enough formal distinction and compelling ideas for a film three times its length.

Wednesday, April 9
6:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Thursday, April 10
9:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Drowning Dry / Sesės
Laurynas Bareiša, 2024, Lithuania/Latvia, 88m
Lithuanian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
It starts with a kick to the head. Mixed martial arts competitor Lukas has just handily defeated his opponent and celebrates with his wife, child, and friends backstage, setting the scene for a nimble combination of communal bonding and looming horrors. Writer-director Laurynas Bareiša, an ND/NF veteran for his debut feature Pilgrims, takes us on a non-linear journey through the experiences and recollections of those who survived tragedy (and those who didn’t), shot with unceasing patience and formal rigor. Drowning Dry was the second of Bareiša’s films selected as Lithuania’s entry for the Best International Feature Academy Award. Winner of Locarno’s Best Director and, in recognition of its indispensable ensemble of four, Best Performance awards. A Dekanalog release.

Thursday, April 3
8:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Sunday, April 6
12:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Fiume o morte!
Igor Bezinović, 2025, Croatia/Italy/Slovenia, 112m
Croatian, Italian, Fiuman with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The past is present and fact made fiction in Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte!, a high-energy hybrid documentary about early-20th-century Italian warrior-poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. A model for Mussolini who ruled Rijeka, Croatia, with an iron fist, D’Annunzio’s 16-month reign left such a legacy that current denizens (street-cast in a brilliant montage) are more than a little willing to play-act as his soldiers. Bezinović elaborately restages Rijeka’s strange, bloody era in a duet between filmmaking and history that melds Wes Anderson, Straub-Huillet, and Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up while holding an uneasy mirror to contemporary fears of fascism. Winner of the top prize at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Friday, April 4
8:45pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Saturday, April 5
3:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Grand Me
Atiye Zare Arandi, 2024, Iran/Belgium, 80m
Farsi with English subtitles
North American Premiere
People are complicated and families are hard—two truisms that collide with tremendous force in Atiye Zare Arandi’s feature documentary debut, Grand Me. At 9 years old, Melina is of age to bring forth a legal case for her guardianship. The problem: neither of her divorced parents is especially interested in taking their daughter home. Melina might be cinema’s most independently minded youth this side of Antoine Doinel, but in looking closely at the circumstances, Zare Arandi—Melina’s aunt—discovers the hurt only children are capable of experiencing. Bracing but never overbearing, and with a Kiarostami-esque car ride brilliantly anchoring its narrative in contemporary Iran, Grand Me is a shining vision of both selfishness and resilience. Winner of the Next:Wave Award at CPH:DOX.

Saturday, April 12
2:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Sunday, April 13
1:15pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

The Height of the Coconut Trees / 椰子の高さ
Du Jie, 2024, Japan, 100m
Japanese with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Chinese cinematographer-turned-director Du Jie makes a seamless transition with The Height of the Coconut Trees, a Japan-set debut that is equal parts sumptuous and piercing. While Sugamoto’s relationship is coming undone, Rin mourns the suicide of his girlfriend. When calamity strikes, Sugamoto visits the countryside resort Rin has taken over to combat his grief, uniting two people for whom life has been an unbearable procession of yearning and loss. From these plots Du turns Coconut Trees into a miniature travelogue and existential road picture—come for the beautiful locales, stay for a conversation about fate, faith, and regret worthy of Rohmer—with faint wisps of a ghost tale.

Tuesday, April 8
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Du Jie

Thursday, April 10
6:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Du Jie

Holy Electricity / Tsminda Electroenergia
Tato Kotetishvili, 2024, Georgia/Netherlands, 95m
Georgian with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Winner of the Golden Leopard in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente section, Tato Kotetishvili’s debut feature is suffused with tenderness and danger alike. When young Gonga and his bookie-pressured cousin Bart find a bag of rusty crosses, they decide to fashion them into neon crucifixes and, something like Paper Moon transposed to Tbilisi, sell them door-to-door. Holy Electricity contains nary a clichéd or predictable image, nor one scenario Kotetishvili doesn’t exploit for all its comedic, dramatic, and emotional potential. It’s rare to see a film of such formal confidence assume so many new shapes and sizes (with a hilarious documentary parody for good measure), surprising us all the way to its final, ecstatic shot.

Saturday, April 12
5:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Sunday, April 13
3:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Invention
Courtney Stephens, 2024, U.S., 72m
New York Premiere
Personal anguish and noirish mystery are inextricably bound in Invention, wherein Callie Hernandez (who co-conceptualized the film, and plays a cross between herself and some other vision) seeks the truth about her father—an inventor of devices boasting untapped power—whose death is not what it seems. Traversing a backwoods America of oddballs, cretins, estate vultures, and even the occasional sweetheart, Hernandez’s journey is a constant reminder of how much our loved ones hide from us in life and death alike. Courtney Stephens’s years in experimental documentary cinema help turn this Super 16mm–shot investigation narrative on its head, while a commanding performance confirms Hernandez (winner of a Best Performance Prize in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente) as a captivating screen performer and artist.

Saturday, April 5
6:15pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Courtney Stephens

Sunday, April 6
4:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Courtney Stephens

Kyuka Before Summer’s End / Κιούκα Πριν το τέλος του καλοκαιριού
Kostis Charamountanis, 2024, Greece/North Macedonia, 105m
Greek with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Babis takes his twin children Konstantinos and Elsa (among the best-sketched, most-charming sibling duos in recent memory) sailing through the Greek isles, engaging in all the affection and jousting common to single parents and teenage offspring. It’s a seemingly standard trip laced with secret intent: Babis is en route to finally introduce the mother who abandoned Konstantinos and Elsa in infancy, a meeting that will dredge up difficult pasts and untreated hurt. Kostis Charamountanis’s feature debut is nevertheless a constant pleasure, its complexity and detail placed against piercingly blue seas, verdant flora, and glowing sunsets. Festival favorites Aftersun or Murina may come to mind, yet Kyuka moves at a speed all its own—peppered by hypnotic documentary interludes and tense, dazzlingly edited exchanges—up to Charamountanis’s perfectly orchestrated climax.

Sunday, April 6
8:45pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Monday, April 7
5:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Lesson Learned / Fekete pont
Bálint Szimler, 2024, Hungary, 119m
Hungarian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Palkó has been transferred to a new school, and finding new friends and battling tough teachers are making his adolescent life all the more complicated. Meanwhile, Juci (Anna Mészöly) is a young teacher staring down the other end of the barrel at myopic superiors, bullying parents who can’t fathom why their child is struggling, and fellow teachers whose cruelty crosses boundaries. From these intersecting strands Bálint Szimler, in just his second feature, captures all the intricacy and pleasure of a campus novel—from the shame-tinged tedium of detention lessons to a dazzling school-play sequence. Photographed on deeply textured 16mm, Lesson Learned is refreshingly frank about how kids act amongst themselves, the way teachers wield power (emotional and physical) to mask their insecurities, and what happens when clueless parents are brought into the fold. It’s hard to imagine a viewer who won’t recognize much of their own schooling experience moment by moment, or find themselves moved by Szimler’s roundly empathetic worldview. Winner of a Best Performance prize and Special Mention in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente.

Thursday, April 10
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Friday, April 11
5:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Listen to the Voices / Kouté vwa
Maxime Jean-Baptiste, 2024, ​​Belgium/France/French Guiana, 77m
French and Guianese Creole with English subtitles
New York Premiere
The relationship Melrick has forged with his grandmother is refreshingly candid and egalitarian: meals are cooked together, relationships discussed, feelings vented. The young boy has little choice in light of a tragedy that took his father, an event we witness only through a brilliantly abstract lens rendered by Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s feature debut, winner of a Special Jury Prize and Special Mention from the First Feature Jury in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente. Through ecstatic musical performances, close-quarter journeys through the beautiful streets of French Guiana, and dreamlike visions of the jungle, Jean-Baptiste has crafted a vision of trauma and recovery that, like too few films, understands life as distinct blocks of experience strung across one barely linear path.

Saturday, April 5
4:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Sunday, April 6
1:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Lost Chapters / Los Capítulos Perdidos
Lorena Alvarado, 2024, Venezuela, 67m
Spanish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
When a letter nestled deep inside her father’s library details the writing of an unknown author, the young, ambitious bibliophile Ena sets off to find his work. Is the fabled book real? Did the author even exist? Where most movies might use this to kick off a treasure hunt, Lost Chapters opens a door to Venezuela’s rich cultural history and troubled present. A master class in composition and sound design that leaves no detail to chance, Lorena Alvarado’s feature debut recalls the intellectual obsessiveness of Roberto Bolaño while achieving a remarkable sense of equanimity and emotional warmth from her real-life sister, father, and grandmother, whose on-screen naturalism never once lapses into mannerism.

Thursday, April 3
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Saturday, April 5
1:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
Joel Alfonso Vargas, 2025, U.S., 101m
English and Spanish with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Rico is going to be a father. The problem: he’s only 19, barely has a job, is astonishingly immature, and is barely concerned with Destiny, the girl he got pregnant. When Destiny moves in with Rico, his no-nonsense mother, and a sister enjoying this upheaval way too much, the young man finds these new responsibilities are far more than he bargained for. In his feature debut, Joel Alfonso Vargas looks to the side of New York—and the New Yorkers—in which cinema has distressingly little interest to carve a thriller of quotidian tension. Extended, electrifying dialogue sequences allow Vargas to sketch harsh dynamics, every fight and passive-aggressive gesture tightening the screws on Rico and his bad choices. It’s hard to take your eyes off the slow-motion wreckage of Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), a work that veers from pathos to agitation and back again.

Friday, April 4
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Joel Alfonso Vargas

Saturday, April 5
8:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Joel Alfonso Vargas

No Sleep Till
Alexandra Simpson, 2024, U.S./Switzerland, 93m
New York Premiere
The slice-of-life indie is alive and well in Alexandra Simpson’s feature debut, recipient of a Special Mention from the jury at the 2024 Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week. While a looming hurricane spells doom for a sleepy Florida town, citizens carry on: two friends pull pranks and ponder life; another pair captures terrifying footage of the storm; a young woman harbors a deep crush. Through this fleet exploration Simpson keeps audiences on their feet, no two stories told at the exact same tempo and no composition easily anticipated. And backgrounding it all is a sun-soaked, palm tree–lined Florida that has seldom looked as beautiful as it does in No Sleep Till.

Wednesday, April 9
8:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Alexandra Simpson

Friday, April 11
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Alexandra Simpson

Sad Jokes
Fabian Stumm, 2024, Germany, 96m
German, English, Italian, and Swedish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Joseph—a gay filmmaker and father to a young child whose work-life balance inspires little confidence—is writing a comedy. “What kind?” his therapist asks. In lieu of a good answer, Joseph stammers about his filmography’s move from “naturalistic” to “absurdist”—a confusion that perfectly captures the enlivening, unpredictable paths taken by Sad Jokes. As writer, director, and star, Fabian Stumm blends intense strife with hilarious slapstick so effortlessly it’s hard to tell where one stops or another starts, brilliantly paying off character relationships and conflicts in a tight frame. A refreshingly honest film about the trials of directors, the foibles of hookup culture, and realizing your therapist is crazier than you, replete with the flights of fancy that only artists are capable of experiencing, Sad Jokes won the Munich International Film Festival’s German Cinema New Talent Award for Best Director.

Friday, April 11
8:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Fabian Stumm

Saturday, April 12
4:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Fabian Stumm

Stranger
Zhengfan Yang, 2024, U.S./China/Netherlands/Norway/France, 113m
Mandarin, Cantonese, and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
A woman confesses on her livestream. Two men get interrogated by increasingly agitated police. Wedding photos are taken while the groom indulges a major secret. These and other scenarios unfold in Zhengfan Yang’s Stranger, which investigates China’s social, political, and economic identity through long takes that continually evolve, surprise, and dazzle. But Stranger is more than a bravura display to recall Chantal Akerman or Béla Tarr—its command of space and movement set the stage for an actor’s showcase and master class in narrative delineation that confirms Yang as one of China’s most exciting up-and-coming cinematic talents.

Sunday, April 6
2:45pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Zhengfan Yang

Tuesday, April 8
8:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Zhengfan Yang

Timestamp / Strichka Chasu
Kateryna Gornostai, 2025, Ukraine/Luxembourg/Netherlands/France, 125m
Ukrainian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have found humanity at its bravest and basest alike, conflicting energies given full display in Timestamp. A school day proceeds apace until air sirens send young children into an underground shelter. Just 18 kilometers from the front, others walk amidst classrooms turned to rubble. Adolescents train in a “patriotic military game” treated with seriousness that belies any sense of play. A combat vet bluntly informs a packed classroom that the front lines brought “nothing good.” Danger hovers over every moment of Timestamp—every expression of love, anger, friendship, and freedom. In this patchwork approach to a conflict no single film could sufficiently capture, director Kateryna Gornostai (whose previous fiction feature, Stop-Zemlia, was in ND/NF 2021) has achieved something grand, cutting through the noise and partisanship to put us in the shoes of a brave, battered populace. Winner of the Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award at CPH:DOX.

Saturday, April 12
7:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Sunday, April 13
12:15pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Two Times João Liberada / Duas Vezes João Liberada
Paula Tomás Marques, 2025, Portugal, 70m
Portuguese with English subtitles
North American Premiere
There are so many movies about movies that one might wonder what’s left to say. Yet self-reflecting cinema finds new form in Two Times João Liberada, which charts the production of a biopic about Liberada (a gender-nonconforming nun who faced persecution during the Portuguese Inquisition) and its star, João, who’s conflicted about the job when not outright haunted by Liberada’s ghost. This is one of many bold, brilliant gestures Paula Tomás Marques makes with this feature debut that, in 70 minutes, tackles a flabbergasting number of concerns: the psychology of acting and directing, an abstract trans history, a contention with who tells what story, failed artistic ambition, and art as the means to make sense of ourselves. Two Times João Liberada forms a tapestry that’s as grand as it is intricate, with a lead performance from June João that makes emotional sense of intellectual complexity.

Monday, April 7
8:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Tuesday, April 8
6:15pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

The Village Next to Paradise
Mo Harawe, 2024, Austria/France/Germany/Somalia, 133m
Somali with English subtitles
New York Premiere
A news broadcast announces the U.S. drone strike that’s killed an Al Qaeda associate in a “remote area” of Somalia. When that story ends, The Village Next to Paradise begins: Mamargade is the hardworking civilian for whom burying this terrorist leader is but one way to provide for his family in a world of strivers and cheats. This deeply moving, brutally honest vision of Somali life probes economic and familial anxieties with a brilliance that recalls great works of Italian neorealism. In his feature debut, the first Somali film to be an Official Selection at Cannes, Mo Harawe has created a film of stirring music, rich colors, and fine textures, one that grants a better understanding of our planet and a deeper love for those on it.

Thursday, April 3
6:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

Saturday, April 5
1:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

The Virgin of the Quarry Lake / La Virgen De La Tosquera
Laura Casabé, 2024, Argentina/Mexico/Spain, 90m
Spanish with English subtitles
New York Premiere
It’s 2001 and the sun is hitting Argentina hard enough to cut power on the internet café from which Natalia (Dolores Oliverio) messages Diego, a local boy to whose looks and charm she’s entirely susceptible. The problem: her friend is also into him, Diego’s into an older woman, and his feelings toward Natalia never extend past friendship. From this no-win scenario director Laura Casabé extracts all the pleasures, anxieties, and frenzy of teenage life. Based on short stories from Mariana Enríquez’s acclaimed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake should please coming-of-age enthusiasts with its nostalgia-inducing details, but most remarkable is Casabé’s skill for pivoting to horror—and some of the most startling violence in recent memory—like the flip of a switch. None of this would be possible without Oliverio, whose lead performance brings Natalia to life in full frightening capacity.

Thursday, April 3
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Laura Casabé

Friday, April 4
8:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Laura Casabé

ND/NF 2025 Shorts Program I (89m)
Films are listed in the order that they will screen

Landscapes of Longing
Alisha Tejpal, Mireya Martinez, Anoushka Mirchandani, 2024, India, 14m
Hindi and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Three generations of women explore their connections and differences through a family archive of photographs, music, and storytelling in an intimate search for their identity and roots, bringing memories to life via the ever-evolving, dissociative experiences of longing and migration.

You Can’t See It From Here / No se ve desde acá
Enrique Pedráza-Botero, 2024, Colombia/U.S., 19m
Spanish and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
The state of the American Dream is assessed through a series of vignettes that follow the opportunities available to Latin American immigrants of disparate social and economic status arriving in modern-day Miami. Questions of identity, economic opportunity, and cultural assimilation play out against the bureaucracy of immigration, as archival footage underscores the nation’s obsession with American individualism.

In Retrospect / Rückblickend betrachtet
Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhlutenko, 2025, Germany, 14m
German with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Inaugurated in 1972, Munich’s Olympia mall was built by Gastarbeiter (“temporary workers”). In 2016, a mass shooting motivated by xenophobic, far-right extremism occurred in its vicinity. In Retrospect expertly uses archival footage, current images, and Sohrab Shahid Saless’s Addressee Unknown (1983)—about an affair between a white German woman and a Turkish architect—to offer a chilling reflection on our political present.

The Inhabitants
Maureen Fazendeiro, 2024, France/Portugal, 41m
French with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The co-director of The Tsugua Diaries (2021) draws inspiration from Chantal Akerman’s News from Home (1977) to blend images of the tranquil Parisian suburb of her upbringing with letters from her mother, one of the few women who defiantly assists the commune’s newest inhabitants: a Roma community.

Wednesday, April 9
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Enrique Pedráza-Botero

Thursday, April 10
8:30pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Enrique Pedráza-Botero

ND/NF 2025 Shorts Program II (86m)
Films are listed in the order that they will screen

Life Story
Jessica Dunn Rovinelli, 2024, U.S., 10m, 35mm
U.S. Premiere
Philosopher and theorist McKenzie Wark (Hacker Manifesto, Raving) reads excerpts from an original text that intertwines the history of the Left with her own corporeality. The camera delicately traces her nude body, laying bare the marks of her gender transition, as she muses on love, the making of one’s self, and lost futures while the specter of death looms large.

Crushed
Camille Vigny, 2024, Belgium, 12m
French with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The haunting story of a toxic relationship resonates with images of wrecked cars racing in a demolition derby. In Crushed, Camille Vigny captures stock cars as though they were bodies bearing trauma, creating a moving, cathartic experience from memories of a young, abusive love driving around in circles.

Maidenhair
Julia Sipowicz, 2025, U.S., 7m
World Premiere
Winnie, a preacher’s daughter in Newbury, Ohio, spends her days tending to her horses and assisting with her father’s congregation. When a young Bible salesman pays a visit to her father’s church, a nascent sense of desire is awakened in Winnie that leads her to the edges of her repression.

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis, 2025, Greece/U.S., 26m
Greek with English subtitles
North American Premiere
In this intimate, observational work of docu-fiction, the nine remaining inhabitants in the village of Archia on the Greek island of Nisyros must relocate the remains of their ancestors to make room for those of the recently deceased. Steeled away from the confines of death in a timeless town, the spirits of the dead co-mingle with the living as a local priest leads the community’s procession to the top of a mountain to perform the ceremonial re-burial.

What We Ask of a Statue Is That It Doesn’t Move
Daphné Hérétakis, 2024, Greece/France, 31m
Greek with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Inspired by Greek poet Yorgos Makris’s 1944 proclamation that the Parthenon should be blown up, Daphné Hérétakis creatively blends and experiments with various styles—documentary, street interviews, and musical skits—to question the significance of history, cultural heritage, gentrification, and the disruption of local routines in a European capital as it accommodates mass tourism.

Friday, April 11
8:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Jessica Dunn Rovinelli, Julia Sipowicz, Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis

Sunday, April 13
3:30pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Jessica Dunn Rovinelli, Julia Sipowicz, Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis

Five new Filmleaf reviews of ND/NF films are now posted. Go HERE

THE ASSISTANT (Wilhelm Sasnal, Anka Sasnal 2025) Polish
CYCLEMAHESH (Suhel Banerjee 2024) Odia, Marathi, and Hindi
GRAND ME (Atiye Zare Arandi 2024) Farsi
THE HEIGHT OF THE COCONUT TREES (Du Jie 2024) Japanese
HOLY ELECTRICITY (Tato Kotetishvili 2024) Georgian

LESSON LEARNED/FEKETE PONT (Bálint Szimler 2024) Hungarian

This is a film about an elementary school in Hungary, a new idealistic teacher, and a ten-year-old boy who has been living in Berlin. They are both outsiders. Created using improvisation and non-actors and sriking 16mm photorahy, this is a prize-winner that takes the director to a new level of international recognition. It manages to be both documentary-real and hauntingly symbolic. Redommended.

ND/NF Showtimes:

Thursday, April 10
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Friday, April 11
5:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

LISTEN TO THE VOICES (Maxime Jean-Baptiste 2024) French

A visit to French Guyana and family grieving at different stages about a violent murder a decade ago. The filmmaker has made short films about his family; this is the first feature and focuses on his 13-year-old nephew from France and his grandmother.

ND/NF Showtimes:

Saturday, April 5
4:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater

Sunday, April 6
1:45pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2

NO SLEEP TILL (Alexandra Simpson 2024) English

In this poetic, fiction and real, portrait of Florida as it rolls into a hurricane, Simpson uses her non-actors skillfully to capture calm amid chaos. Glowing night images evoke the innovative and beautiful American color photographyy of the early eighties. Simpson was born and grew up in France but spent all her summers in the little Florida town of Neptune Beach where most of this was filmed. Her role model is Claire Denis. Recommended.

Showtimes:

Wednesday, April 9
8:00pm at MoMA, Titus Theater 2 – Q&A with Alexandra Simpson

Friday, April 11
6:00pm at FLC, Walter Reade Theater – Q&A with Alexandra Simpson