New Directors/New Films 2009

The 39th edition of New Directors/New Films, the longstanding collaboration between the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, hits the screens at both locations, March 25 - April 5. This year's collection consists of 25 feature films and six shorts from 24 countries. Cherien Dabis's debut feature Amreeka is the festival's opening night film. Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public is the closing night selection.

The festival also salutes 75 years of the New York Film Critics Circle with the matinee series Critic's Choice. Here the agenda is looking back at New Directors/New Films premieres that went on to receive the Best New Director Prize from the nation's first and most prestigious film critics organization. The five choices are Big Night, Frozen River, Half Nelson, In the Company of Men, and Metropolitan.

Tickets to the New Directors/New Films screenings can be purchased online at filmlinc.com, moma.org or at the box offices at The Film Society of Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theatre, 165 W. 65th, near Amsterdam Avenue) and The Museum of Modern Art (11 W. 53rd Street).

We have been very impressed with the quality and variety of the films in this year's festival. From the 18 movies we have reviewed, here are some of our favorite characters:

• The Palestinian mother who comes to America with her son and struggles to keep her soul alive in Amreeka.

• The patient and loving Native American who compassionately takes a last journey with her former husband who is terminally ill in Barking Water.

• The indigenous Guarani Indian chief who leads his people off a reservation in Brazil to occupy their ancestral lands in Birdwatchers.

• An enthusiastic woman who brings zest into the life of an exhausted and depressed maid in The Maid.

• A brave band of dolphin lovers who go on a dangerous mission to expose a secret in Taiji, Japan, in The Cove.

• A resourceful and resilient six-year-old Korean girl who takes on adult responsibilities when she and her little sister are abandoned by their mother in Treeless Mountain.

• A nurturing and caring man who lives with his elderly and infirm mother in Rome who takes on the challenge of looking after three other old women during a holiday in Mid-August Lunch.

• An independent Frenchman and his family who face one obstacle after another when a highway opens up right outside their house in Home.

• A frustrated New York City actor who, in an attempt to get rid of his suffering, goes to a special facility and has his soul removed: he then tries to deal with the terrible consequences which follow in Cold Souls.

New Directors/New Films 2009

This year we highly recommend the following films (listed in screening order):

Amreeka
Stay the Same Never Change
Barking Water
Mukha
The Maid
Every Little Step
Treeless Mountain
Cold Souls
Unmade Beds
The Cove
$9.99
The Shaft
Birdwatchers
Home
Mid-August Lunch
Ordinary Boys
Parque Via
We Live in Public