The control + F combination on my keyboard has gotten a workout lately now that Film at Lincoln Center’s ‘New Directors/New Films‘ web site has added a History tab. It’s not entirely surprising to see the breadth and depth of careers launched (Steve Spielberg, Spike Lee), propelled (Chantal Akerman, Joachim Trier) and films (“Welcome to the Dollhouse,” “Orlando”) that have, over the years, been awarded an early spotlight necessary to generate debate and hype.
Now for the fifty-fifth iteration of this essential festival, Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art yet again plays host to twenty-four features and ten shorts from around the world. The common thread among the five films I saw is that there isn’t one, except that all present distinct, meticulously-crafted worlds that might be strange and confusing, but remained proudly niche and stubbornly independent.
‘Strange River; (2025); Dir. Jaume Claret Muxart
A movie’s title can mean some or many things, and I’m still parsing through the loaded meanings swirling around both words in the title of Jaume Claret Muxart’s moody, smoldering “Strange River” (2025). On vacation with family, Dídac (Jan Monter) keeps seeing a nude male body swimming in the river. Out of the water—love is a stream, after all—that same presence seems to lurk, and when 17-year old Dídac finally confronts the boy face-to-face, neither of them want to escape, unless it’s together.
Dídac’s two younger brothers bicker, fight and jostle for attention, while his parents aren’t shy about sharing their own regrets and desires. Muxart’s feature debut is rich on themes—generational conflict, young love and lost youth—and the script (co-written by Meritzell Collel) occasionally delivers them all at once, with blunt force impact. The perspective mostly belongs to Dídac, but Muxart skillfully interjects the adults’ overlapping, long-simmering fantasies, particularly when mom Mònica (Nausicaa Bonnín)—a stage actor—meets a German actress she’s fond of, and probably has a crush on. Rather than let down her guard, however, Mònica literally can’t find words, and scampers back to her family.
More New Directors/New Films Coverage: ‘A Different Man’ New Directors/New Films Festival Review: On the Stage and Off the Rails in A24’s New Film
“Strange River” looks and sounds (a dad/son Ravel piano duet is expertly placed at the midpoint, when dream logic submits to reality) like a vacation—for better and worse—and depending on its popularity, the film could drive some foot traffic to the hilly lakeside retreat where the drama unfolds. No matter what definition of strange Muxart intended in the title – probably the hookup parlance since both Dídac and maybe Mònica find some strange—his sharp observational instincts and 16mm gives “Strange” a charged intimacy that’s cozy yet impermanent. Just how Dídac prefers it.
Grade: B-
“Strange River” has its New York Premiere at ND/NF, screening on April 11th and 12th.
‘Two Seasons, Two Strangers’ (2025); Dir. Shô Miyake
Nothing against navel gazing, but Shô Miyake’s “Two Seasons, Two Strangers” (2025) might have kept the emphasis on the seasons, rather than the strangers. It’s four strangers, really, and the first two Natsuo (Mansaku Takada) and Nagisa (Yuumi Kawai) promise a dreamy, mysterious energy that the remainder of the film struggles to match. When Li (Shim Eun Kyung) seizes control of the narrative—she is writing a film-within-a-film starring Natsuo and Nagisa—Miyake’s creative gambit sags rather than sways like the young maybe-would-be-lovers Natsuo and Nagisa.
The seasons change, too, from summer to winter, and on the hunt for shelter and inspiration, Li finds both in Benzo (Shinichi Tsutsumi), a gruff innkeeper estranged from his family. Miyake, who wrote and directed the film, displays a keen eye for arresting visuals (Yûta Tsukinaga is cinematographer here) but often wanders through his on-screen auteur Li, giving a long leash to her fitful process for transposing thoughts to words, and life experiences into art. The sum of the parts never exactly coheres to much more than a bewitching, meditative essay that’s easy on the eyes but underwhelming to the other senses.
Grade: C+
“Two Seasons, Two Strangers” has its North American premiere at ND/NF, screening on April 17th and 19th.
