New York Film Festival lineup unveiled

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Auteurs return to New York Film Fest
Alain Resnais, Pedro Almodovar are back again
By SHARON SWARTThe New York Film Festival is throwing a party for old friends.
The fest's curated selection of 29 pics, unspooling Sept. 25-Oct. 11, is filled with returning auteurs.

The showcase opens with Alain Resnais' "Wild Grass" and closes with Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" -- respectively, the filmmakers' 10th and eighth pics to play at the festival.

The selection also marks two marquee slots for Sony Pictures Classics, the distributor of both titles and a perennial supplier to the event. Both films premiered in the Cannes competition in May.

Backed by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and now in its 47th year, the Gotham fall fixture usually has a best-of-fests bent to its programming.

Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," winner at the Sundance Film Festival, serves as the Centerpiece premiere.

Other returning fest alumni are Marco Bellocchio (with Cannes competition title "Vincere"), Catherine Breillat (Berlin fest bow "Bluebeard"), Claire Denis (Venice fest title "White Material"), Manoel de Oliveira (Berlin pic "Eccentricities of a Blonde"), Michael Haneke (Cannes prize winner "The White Ribbon"), Jacques Rivette (Venice selection "36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak"), Todd Solondz (Venice and possible Telluride bow "Life During Wartime"), Lars von Trier ("Antichrist," another Cannes competitor) and Andrzej Wajda (Berlin pic "Sweet Rush").

New directors headed to the fest include Maren Ade ("Everyone Else"), Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor ("Sweetgrass"), Zhao Dayong ("Ghost Town"), Samuel Maoz ("Lebanon"), Raya Martin ("Independencia"), Joao Pedro Rodrigues ("To Die Like a Man") and Sabu ("Kanikosen").

Filling out the slate are Don Argott's Toronto-bound docu "The Art of the Steal," An Jong-hwa's 1934 "Crossroads of Youth," Bruno Dumont's Toronto bow "Hadewijch" and Andrey Khrzhanovsky's Rotterdam fest pic "Room and a Half," as well as more Cannes travelers: Serge Bromberg's "Inferno," Bong Joon-ho's Cannes bow "Mother," Corneliu Porumboiu's "Police Adjective," Pedro Costa's "Ne change rien" and Souleymane Cisse's "Min Ye."

A restored version of Victor Fleming's "The Wizard of Oz," celebrating its 70th anniversary, completes the lineup.

The event also puts the spotlight on works from India and China with a series to screen at the Walter Reade Theater.

Fest's main slate was programmed by Film Society program director Richard Pena and critics Melissa Anderson, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman and Dennis Lim.

Festival will be based at Alice Tully Hall, which recently underwent a $150 million renovation.