The Film Society of Lincoln Center Announces Complete Lineup for Fifth Annual Nonfiction Showcase

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces the fifth edition of Art of the Real, an essential showcase for the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking, April 26 - May 6. The 2018 lineup features a host of brilliant new works and exciting artist spotlights, including one world premiere, eight North American premieres, and seven U.S. premieres, with many of the filmmakers in person.

"In addition to a lineup packed with ambitious first features, premieres, and festival favorites from around the world, this year we are thrilled to spotlight a group of remarkable artists who work with documentary aesthetics and practices in formally exciting ways," said Film Society of Lincoln Center Programmer-at-Large Rachael Rakes, who organized the festival with Director of Programming Dennis Lim. "By bringing these artists and their works, typically exhibited in gallery contexts, to the cinema, we are acknowledging the intimate, focused environment that the theater and its audience offers."

The Opening Night selection is the North American premiere of Julien Faraut's John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, an essayistic found-footage ode to the capricious tennis legend. Closing Night is the World Premiere of Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer's hallucinatory Empty Metal, which investigates personal politics in an apathetic world of mass surveillance and pervasive policing.

Highlights include the North American premiere of Infinite Football, Corneliu Porumboiu's hilarious portrait of a Romanian bureaucrat attempting to change the rules of the game; the U.S. premiere of Sergei Loznitsa's Victory Day, which documents Berlin's annual gathering to commemorate the Red Army's victory over the Nazis in World War II; Jake Meginsky & Neil Cloaca Young's portrait of a radical jazz icon, Milford GRAVES Full Mantis, with GRAVES and the directors in person; Irene Lusztig's fascinating Yours in Sisterhood, which features modern women reciting and reacting to letters about feminism sent to Ms. magazine in the 1970s; Karim Aïnouz's Central Airport THF, a chronicle of a year in the life of asylum seekers in the titular German airport, originally built as a symbol for Hitler's Germania; a tribute to late Mexican director Eugenio Polgovsky; and a special event featuring a performance lecture by Nicolás Pereda.

New works by familiar names at the festival include Wild Relatives from director Jumana Manna (A Magical Substance Flows Into Me), which documents the complex path taken to protect endangered seeds amidst climate change; black-and-white maritime vérité doc Inland Sea by Kazuhiro Soda (Oyster Factory); I Remember the Crows by Gustavo Vinagre (Nova Dubai), a deeply personal and illuminating portrait of the director's collaborator Julia Katharine, filmed in a single all-night marathon session; and Once There Was Brasília from Adirley Queirós (White Out, Black In), a visually inventive rebuke of Brazil's structural racism. THE LINEUP also features several standout works by first-time filmmakers: Luise Donschen's CASANOVA Gene, an utterly captivating visual exploration of desire; Gürcan Keltek's poetic Meteors, which captures a critical political moment in Turkish-Kurdish conflict; and Juliana Antunes's Baronesa, filmed with an almost exclusively female crew and cast of nonprofessional actors.

Art of the Real will also host a series of "Artist Spotlights," four presentations and career-spanning conversations with visual artists whose work resonates with nonfiction filmmaking. Featured participants are Hiwa K, who will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the New Museum this May, and will present works from his recent "Pre-Image" series, among others; Amar Kanwar, who will present two works from his celebrated The Sovereign Forest series; Steffani Jemison, who will present her singular film and audio works, which merge politics, poetics, and aesthetics; and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, presenting a survey of their recent immersive audiovisual works.

This year, Art of the Real is proud to continue its collaboration with curated streaming platform MUBI. A selection of titles from the 2018 program will be featured on MUBI after their presentation at the festival. Details on the films and schedule will be announced at a later date.

Organized by Dennis Lim and Rachael Rakes. Art of the Real is sponsored by MUBI.

Tickets go on sale April 13, with Film Society members receiving an early access period beginning April 9. Tickets are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and MUBI subscribers; and $10 for Film Society members. See more and save with a 3+ film discount package and All-Access Pass. Plus, introducing a special $50 Student All-Access Pass. Learn more at filmlinc.org.