NEW YORK, NY.- For the 39th consecutive year, the acclaimed New Directors/New Films festival, presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, will showcase the finest in new filmmaking talent from around the world. The 2010 edition of this world-renowned film festival opens on Wednesday, March 24, and closes on Sunday, April 4.

New Directors/New Films is one of the premier showcases for the work of fresh, newly discovered international and American filmmakers. Over the course of nearly four decades, the festival has introduced innovative works by talented directors from around the globe, many of whom have become major figures in world cinema, including Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Héctor Babenco, Terence Davies, Atom Egoyan, Todd Haynes, Nicole Holofcener, Wong Kar-Wai, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Kelly Reichardt, Jason Reitman, John Sayles, Steven Spielberg, Wim Wenders, and Jia Zhangke among many others.

This is the first year that New Directors/New Films will have its own dedicated online presence, at www.newdirectors.org. This site will be live by the middle of February, just in time for the public to review the committee’s selections and ready their picks for screenings from this year’s event.

During its 39-year history, New Directors/New Films has premiered hundreds of films that have gone on to enjoy great critical and popular success, including such Academy Award–nominated titles as Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River (2008), Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s Trouble the Water (2009), John Carney’s Once (2007), Laura Poitras’s My Country, My Country (2006), Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson (2007), Phil Morrison’s Junebug (2005), Nathaniel Kahn’s My Architect (2003), and Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni’s The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003).

The New Directors/New Films selection committee is made up of members from both presenting organizations: Jytte Jensen, Laurence Kardish, and Rajendra Roy from The Museum of Modern Art; and, from The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Marian Masone, Richard Peña, and, the newest committee member, Gavin Smith.