NEW YORK, NY September 21, 2009 —The 47th New York Film Festival kicks off this Friday in the renovated Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. The 26 films being screened are from a variety of filmmakers, both familiar and unknown. And this year, ticketing will be handled differently -- 50 rush tickets for each screening will be released one hour before showtime. Program director Richard Pena says the changes are part of an effort by organizers to make this year's festival more accessible to all new Yorkers.

PENA: The New York film festival to an extent was a victim of its own success. It’s been a very successful institution for many years and it led to a kind of perception that it was a closed shop, that unless you were a member or a patron there was just no way to get tickets so people simply stopped trying.

Pena hopes this year's screenings will attract new and younger audiences. Highly anticipated films include Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," and Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire" which debuted at Sundance earlier this year. The festival runs until October 11th.