Neighboring Scenes spans a wide geographic range, featuring established auteurs as well as fresh talent from the international festival scene. Opening night is the U.S. premiere of Anahí Berneri’s award-winning Alanis, an unflinching portrait of a young mother eking out a living as a prostitute in Buenos Aires.  Closing out the weekend is the world premiere of a new restoration of Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes (1998), celebrating its 20th anniversary. Bruno Stagnaro and Adrián Caetano’s landmark film, which follows a pair of less than talented thieves, launched the New Argentine Cinema movement and has continued inspiring Latin American filmmakers for generations.

Other highlights in this year’s lineup include such festival favorites as Niles Atallah’s formally daring Rey, which won the Special Jury Prize at Rotterdam; Santiago Mitre’s political thriller The Summit, an Un Certain Regard selection from Cannes, featuring an impressive international cast; and Fellipe Barbosa’s around-the-world travelogue Gabriel and the Mountain, a two-time prizewinner at Cannes Critics’ Week. The festival also features documentaries about Mexican fishermen, showgirls of the ’70s and ’80s, and the colonialist history of Easter Island; adaptations of Dostoevsky (António, One, Two, Three) and Hans Christian Andersen (The Little Match Girl); and a number of debut features including visual artist Adrián Villar Rojas’s The Theater of Disappearance, a cinematic reimagining of his acclaimed Met rooftop installation.

New York: Feb. 28 - March 4 at Film Society of Lincoln Center.