The New York Film Festival, which features the latest works from established masters, also is a vehicle for introducing curious audiences to more challenging work by new film artists. This weekend, the Festival is hosting its annual avant-garde showcase that holds some of this event's most memorable programming.

The New York Film Festival provides extraordinary access to some of world cinema's most interesting film talents via the HBO Films Directors Dialogue Series. Among those who are participating (all of whom have films in the festival proper):

The horrors of war and the toll that it takes on both civilians and the soldiers themselves are film topics that, unfortunately, never go out of style. While it can be argued that audiences tend to stay away from such strong fare, a film that brings the audience to the center of the action and that involves it emotionally has a better chance to transcend the grimness of the material and make an impact with what is often a reluctant public.

Portugese cinema has had a bit of a low profile of late (overshadowed by its Iberian neighbor Spain) but this year's New York Film Festival has a surprising number of new films from Portugal that are among the highlights of this year's film gathering.

The global film industry is a road map of national cinemas that are viewed in ascendancy or in decline, sometimes both. In the past few years, there has been a good amount of attention paid to the emerging auteurs from Romania. Corneliu Porumboiu has been of the "Romanian new wave" stars, with his debut feature 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST winning the Camera d'Or (for best first feature) at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and a slew of prominent film festival awards and premieres.