New Directors/New Films Festival, at Manhattan

choi

11 New Films Worth Seeing; The New Directors/New Films Festival is a showcase of efforts, some of them revelatory, from around the world. New York Times, Mar 28, 2018. (in the Arts section; photos in print and trailers in online versions)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/ ... u-need-to-know.html

two consecutive films

" 'An Elephant Sitting Still'  [大象席地而坐 (2018)]

"Set in contemporary China, this elegant, sensitive, at times wrenching movie plaits together the lives of four characters who over a single day set down separate, difficult paths that finally converge. A high school student struggles at home and at school, where he is savagely bullied; an elderly neighbor faces eviction from his own apartment by his family; and so on. The writer and director Hu Bo 胡波 [this is his only film] puts these lives into motion with compassion, a restlessly moving camera and an intricate narrative that never feels overdetermined. As day edges into night, each character’s life comes into crystalline view, and the ordinary becomes profound. Wholly immersive, the movie has a foreboding four-hour running time that you’ll soon forget. (Hu Bo died in 2017 from an apparent suicide [hanged himself at his home on Oct 12, age 29].)
MANOHLA DARGIS

" 'The Great Buddha +'   [大佛普拉斯 (2017)]

"Using a moody, noirish monochrome [black-and-white] palette (punctuated with garish swatches of color video) and mordant, monotone voice-over narration (interrupted by stretches of deadpan dialogue), Huang Hsin-yao 黃信堯 composes a dark satire of corruption and class resentment in Taiwan. Two friends, Pickle  [character 菜埔; pickle is 菜脯 in Hoklo 福佬話/ 閩南話] and Belly Button [character 肚財; navel is 肚臍 in both Mandarin and Hoklo (both words pronounced slightly in the two languages], spend their nights in compulsive voyeurism, watching and listening to dashcam recordings of Pickle's boss, a big shot named Kevin [董仔啟文; ' "董仔" 是董事長的意思': from the Web], as he drives around in his Mercedes looking for (and sometimes having) sex with a series of women. Pickle and Belly Button are envious, aroused and appalled by the amorality of the rich, and the viewer is at once dismayed by the cruelty of this society and seduced by Mr Huang's smooth and witty style.
AO SCOTT

Note:
(a) New Directors/New Films Festivals. Mar 28-Apr 8, 2018.
http://www.newdirectors.org/

The Festival is "organized [and 'hosted'] jointly by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. . Established in 1972 * * * " en.wikipedia.org. This year the Festival featured 27 films from abroad (outside US), of which 11 are introduced in this NYT short review.
(b) In print, brief description of each film ends with name of critics (shown above), whereas the online version uses "(M.D.)"  and "(A.O.S.)."
(c) Manohla Dargis (1961- ; female; white)  I fail to find out her ethnicity or name meaning.
(d) There is no need to read the rest.