47th NYFF Selection Committee and Sidebars

47TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
SELECTION COMMITTEE AND SIDEBARS ANNOUNCED
The Film Society’s premiere festival returns to Alice Tully Hall, Sept. 25 – Oct. 11

NEW YORK— The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that the New York Film Festival will return to its traditional home, the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall, for its 47th edition, Sept. 25 – Oct. 11. This year’s selection committee also welcomes a new member as film critic Melissa Anderson joins The Film Society’s Richard Peña and Kent Jones and critics Scott Foundas and J. Hoberman in choosing the approximately two-dozen features that will make up the 2009 slate.


“Melissa Anderson is one of the most perceptive critics writing in America today,” says Peña, program director at The Film Society and New York Film Festival selection committee chairman. “She will, I’m sure, be invaluable to the New York Film Festival.”

Anderson has been a film critic in New York since 2000, when she began writing regularly for The Village Voice. She was film editor and a film critic at Time Out New York from November 2005 to January 2009. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and a frequent contributor to Film Comment magazine.

“The New York Film Festival has always been—and will always be—the premiere cinema event of our city, one where I’ve had some of my most fantastic movie-going experiences,” says Anderson, who is introducing a Saturday, Feb. 28, screening of Robert Aldrich’s “The Killing of Sister George” during the Film Society’s Film Comment Selects series. “It’s a true honor to serve on the selection committee.”

She replaces Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, who completed her five-year term on the selection committee last year.

Additionally, the 47th New York Film Festival will mark the 60th year of the People’s Republic of China with the first major U.S. retrospective of the remarkable cinema produced during the so-called Seventeen Years. The period, between establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, was a time of intense political and aesthetic ferment when the arts, film in particular, were searching for a relevant and influential voice within the newly Socialist society.

Also scheduled for the 2009 New York Film Festival is an expansive tribute to Hindi director, producer, and actor Guru Dutt, frequently credited with ushering in the golden era of Indian cinema in the 1950s and ’60s. These sidebars will screen during the festival at The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater.

Presented by The Film Society, the 17-day New York Film Festival presents a select perspective on the state of contemporary cinema by handpicking the best new works by both emerging talents and internationally recognized artists. All filmmakers regardless of experience are invited to submit work. Visit filmlinc.com for more information. This year’s slate will be announced in early September.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, The Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals—The New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films—as well as the annual Gala Tribute and a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater. It also offers definitive examinations of essential films and artists to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center is located at 165 West 65th St. between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway.