Saturday/Sunday, December 2/3-----The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents the theatrical world premiere of Jonathan Nossiter's MONDOVINO in its 10 hour entirety, starting today at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. The 10-part series on the aesthetic, politics and commerce of winemaking is being presented in five two-hour programs.

MONDOVINO was one of the first documentary films ever presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Tracing winemaking’s past and present and, just as compellingly, the human element and follies it inspires, MONDOVINO: THE SERIES employs an elastic and unconventional form of storytelling that is more serial reportage or soap opera than traditional documentary.

Nossiter has had a personal relationship with wine since his youth. He is a trained sommelier, who supplements his income from filmmaking by suggesting wines to a list of high-end clients, restaurants and hotels.

Nossiter organized over 500 hours of footage, shot over several years in seven countries and five different languages, into the original MONDOVINO, which ran almost 3 hours in its original release. With this full series approach, the director has created an enlightening tapestry of 10 autonomous stories, each with its own complete narrative cycle. Taken together, the episodes create one vast narrative with its own distinctive arc. The spontaneity of digital filmmaking gave the director more freedom to explore the complexity of his subject matter and a greater intimacy with his enormous cast of characters.

Nossiter began his film career as an assistant to director Adrian Lyne on the film sensation FATAL ATTRACTION, making his own feature debut with the highly regarded American indie pic SUNDAY (1997), which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival that year. The film also won the Critics Award and the Grand Prize at the Deauville Film Festival.

His follow up film SIGNS AND WONDERS (2000), an intense drama starring Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skaasgaard, was nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The original feature-length MONDOVINO was one of the first documentaries ever in competition for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was also nominated in 2005 for a César Award (the French Oscar) as Best European Union Film. A co-production between Argentina, France, Italy and the USA, the film had a theatrical release in 2005 via Thinkfilm, a company that has specialized in presentation of high-end documentary films.

For those who are dedicated wine connoisseurs to others curious about the tension between craft and commerce, MONDOVINO: THE SERIES series is a unique event to sample, either in its entirety or each of its independent parts. The series runs through December 10.

For more information, log on to the Museum of Modern Art's official website: www.moma.org

Sandy Mandelberger
Film New York Editor