Ang Lee will join the 2012 New York Film Festival's HBO Directors Dialogue series, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced Friday, along with a list of its selections for its avant-garde and short film programming.
The "Life of Pi" director will join fellow filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami ("Like Someone In Love"), David Chase ("Not Fade Away"), Robert Zemeckis ("Flight").
The festival's short film series will include 12 titles from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe and Egypt, including Milad Alami's "Nothing Can Touch Me" about high school shootings and "Up the Valley and Beyond" by softcore-porn auteur Russ Meyer.
The four-day "Views from the Avant-Garde" program, in its 16th year, will kick off on Oct. 5 with Phil Solomon's "Empire" and a special day devoted to experimental filmmaker Peter Kubelka. It wil include Martina Kudlacek's documentary "Fragments of Kubelka" and a premiere of Kubelka's own "Monument Film," presented by the Austrian director himself.
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It won't be the only world premiere.
The program will also screen Michael Robinson's feature "Circle in the Sand," Laid Lertxundi's "The Room Called Heaven," Nathaniel Dorsky's "April," David Gatten's "The Extravagant Shadows," and cinematographer Jeff Preiss's "Stop," which will be installed in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's upcoming exhibit "Blues for Smoke."
A selection of what the Society described as "ultra rare film works" by Jerome Hiler will also screen with newly edited versions.
Other highlights of the program include showings of Ferdinand Khittl's "The Parallel Road," the late Chris Marker's "Sans Soleil," Raul Ruiz's "The Blind Owl," Luther Price's one-man show "A Luther Price Bestiary," and selections from a varied slate of filmmakers including Ben Russell, Deborah Stratman, and Janie Geiser, among others.
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The avant-garde series will also, for the first year, present $5,000 scholarships to two filmmakers featured in the program. The grants were funded by the estate of jewelry designer Kazuko Oshima.
"When the time came to decide where Kazuko's funds should go, the Film Society of Lincoln Center seemed like the ideal choice," Nora Coblence, the executor of Oshima's estate, said in a statement. "She loved film with a passion, always supported the Film Society, and was quite avant-garde in so many of her multi-artistic endeavors."