For Rajendra Roy, it’s all about the passion. Beginning his fifth year as the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of the legendary Department Of Film at New York’s Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA), Raj (as he is affectionately known by friends and colleagues) can look back at significant accomplishments during his tenure and substantial challenges ahead. “The film world has changed so much since I started this job”, Roy shared with me in an interview in his intimate, no-frills office. “...
678 (Mohamed Diab, Egypt)
There is no doubt that we are living in historic times. The political and social upheaval in the Middle East and northern Africa are among the most stunning events of the new millennium, and it still remains unclear whether this will herald a period of unprecedented stability and its complete opposite. Helping us to understand the turmoil and the inner lives of those cultures, four films in the New Directors/New Film series, entering its first weekend...
When cold weather descends on New York City, our local meterologists generally lay the blame at the door of our massive neighbor to the north. They refer to a cold air mass as a "Canadian front" and when it is in the forecast, be prepared for your bones to chill.
Well, another Canadian front is on the horizon, but this one is much more benign, in fact it is downright welcome. Canadian Front 2011 is the yearly showcase of new Canadian cinema that starts tomorrow at New ...
In New York culture, all roads eventually lead to Andy Warhol. The pop prince, whose doodles now sell for millions at art auctions around the world, was prescient in so many ways about 21st century culture. He was a man of his times but also a prophet of sorts for the democratization and obsessive nature of celebrity (forget 15 minutes of fame......a spotlight can last a mere 15 seconds and still be a license to print money....paging Bristol Palin).
The celebrity of those famous...
Dooman River (China, Zhang Lu)
The New Year opens a window onto the world as the 2011 Global Lens festival is again presented by New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Global Film Initiative (GFI). The eighth annual touring film exhibition conceived to encourage filmmaking in countries with developing film communities will present nine films, each from a different country, which have received seed money from GFI. The series runs January 13–28, 2011 at the Roy and Niuta...
LITTLE ROCK (Mike Ott, USA)
In anticipation of the Gotham Independent Film Awards, the first significant awards show of the season that has been dubbed the "indie Oscars", the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art will again host public screenings of the five indie nominees in the awards category Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You.
As the title suggests, this category is devoted to films that have not yet been seen in theaters and may never find tra...
(A LETTER TO UNCLE BONMEE, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
September is only 9 days old, and already the pace of the worldwide film scene is in high gear. As the Venice International Film Festival goes into its final weekend, the excitement is just starting today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Add to that an excellent regional event on the lux island of Martha's Vineyard in Cape Cod, the Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival (www.mvfilmsociety.org), a...
The Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art, one of the most treasured film resources in New York and a major archive of world cinema, will present a true rarity next week in their film program. WORLD ON A WIRE, a lost television film directed by New German Cinema wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder that not been seen since its original broadcast on German television in 1973, is being resurrected and presented at the inestimable institutons for a run from April 14 to 19. The resto...
by Marla Lewin
I attended the Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas and there were many interesting talks and panels presented. Most were aimed directly at teaching how to run and program a film festival. The most important function of the event however was to provide networking opportunities for festival directors and programmers to meet with their peers in a casual environment. We will be posting more reports from this event shortly. First up is a talk by Rajendra Roy Chief Curator ...
In what has to be a first, the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in New York is devoting considerable museum space to a working Hollywood filmmaker. Just opening this weekend is Tim Burton, a major retrospective exploring the full scale of Tim Burton’s career, both as a director and concept artist for live-action and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer. On view through April 26, 2010, the exhibition brings together over 700 examples ...
by Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor
Being an independent distributor of European films in the American market is more a labour of love than it is a ticket to monied success. Among the most hard-working and celebrated of these arthouse distribution companies is Los Angeles-based Strand Releasing, which is receiving a 20th anniversary tribute next week at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
MoMA is presenting a six-film showcase of recent titles fro...
The Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art is mounting a career retrospective of Mike Nichols, one of the most successful and idiosyncratic filmmakers who has done the almost impossible: create original films with a specific voice within the gears of the assembly line Hollywood system. After a celebrated career as a comedian (part of the incomporable duo of Nichols and May) and theater director, Nichols, at the tender age of 32, took on the twin dragons of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burto...
Monday, July 28-------As the summer sizzles in New York City, the sound of samba cannot be too far behind. A revival of an old tradition----dancing to live music under the stars----has swept New York in the last few seasons, with many venues and styles of music for budding Fred Astaires. A favorite for summertime heat is samba, the music of Brazil. This summer, the sizzle is not only on the street, but up on the big screen.Since last week, the Museum of Modern Art has been presenting Premiere ...
Friday, May 23-----If you are a lover of film (guilty) and also a lover of jazz (guilty again), then you are destined for movie and musical heaven at the on-going film series Jazz Score at the Museum of Modern Art. Starting last month, this unique retrospective will showcase 50 feature films and a selection of shorts that meld the power of jazz and the moving image.The series celebrates well-known and obscure jazz scores composed for films from the 1950s to the present, with a particular emph...
Wednesday, March 26----As another sign of seasonal change, the venerable New Directors/New Films festival returns to the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center in what is one of New York’s rites of Spring. Dedicated to the discovery and support of emerging artists, ND/NF has earned an international reputation for its cutting-edge programming and commitment to more artistically ambitious filmmaking. This year, a total of 26 features and 6 short films made the cut, spotlig...
Wednesday, March 19------In a bitter twist of irony, Americans know far more about the film culture of Europe and Asia than they do about their neighbor to the north. Canadian cinema, which has flourished for decades, makes an occasional dent in the United States in an unfair balance of trade that sees American films flooding the Canadian market (as they do everywhere else in the world). Well, for the past week, the Museum of Modern Art has attempted to redress this imbalance with thei...
Wednesday, January 9-------The cinema of Eastern Europe is one of the world’s most complex and rewarding for filmgoers willing to take the journey into the hearts and minds of its singular film artists. Among the most idiosyncratic of these talents is Goran Paskaljevic, one of Europe’s most respected and critically acclaimed directors. While New York audiences may have caught a few of this iconoclastic director’s choice films at film festivals over the years, the Museum of Modern Art (Mo...
Friday, November 16-------Although every Friday sees a glut of film openings making their way to film theaters, the truth is that a large number of worthy films never find traditional theatrical distribution. That is one of the reasons that the brave new worlds of internet downloads and other non-traditional distribution methods hold such promise. However, until these new methodologies take hold in such a way that they can generate the same or similar revenue, theatrical distribution remains t...
Monday, October 1---------Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke is among the most celebrated and controversial figures in the world of contemporary world cinema. His films have been divisive and disturbing affairs that leaves audiences shaken and uncertain. He holds up a mirror to a world of extreme anxiety, offensive violence and a lack of human empathy. He has inspired amazing performances from his actors, leading many to win international awards. His cinema is ferocious, compelling and unforget...
Wednesday, August 15------The title of the latest film series at the Museum of Modern Art strikes one as somehow.....wrong. THE OTHER CLAUDE CHABROL? Could there be such a thing? Chabrol is one of the most prolific and consistent French directors of the past half-century. Well into his 70s, he continues to come out with at least one film per year, and his notoreity and influence continue unabated, long after his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries have either bitten the dust or become obscured in th...
Monday, July 23-------You may think you know the film that many major film critics chose as the best of last year. But in reality, with little fanfare or certainly Oscar buzz, the film that garnered the most uniform praise from top film scribes was a French thriller, shot in 1959 and set in occupied France during World War II by a director who has been six feet under for more than three decades. That film, ARMY OF SHADOWS, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was an astonishingly gritty and involvi...
Monday, July 16--------As the summer turns sizzling in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is appropriately presenting a program of sultry cinema from Brazil in its fifth annual exhibition of contemporary Brazilian cinema, entitled PREMIERE BRAZIL! The program began last Thursday and continues through January 23rd in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. The series is a collaboration between MoMA and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. This year, 12 new films, all US or New...
Wednesday, June 27--------One of the most talked about art events in New York City these days is the career retrospective of famed American sculptor Richard Serra, which is attracting capacity crowds at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The highlights of this summer art blockbuster are three new massive sculptures that have been installed in MoMA's second floor galleries devoted to contemporary art. One of the preeminent sculptors of our era, Richard Serra has long been acclaimed for his cha...
Monday, June 18---------He still rides tall in the saddle. John Wayne, known to his friends as Duke, would have turned 100 years old this month. In celebration of the iconic actor's 100th anniversary, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is presenting the John Wayne Centenary, a six-film retrospective of selections from the Museum's film archive. The series begins on Thursday, June 20 and runs through June 30. Films will be screened in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at the Museum.The serie...
Monday, June 4------The Museum of Modern Art is one of the leading forces in the world of film preservation. With one of the largest and most diverse film archives in the world, the Museum's film department has been a tireless champion of restoring and resurrecting the films and reputations of artists both well known and virtually forgotten from the early years of cinema. The Museum is celebrating its commitment to film restoration with To Save and Project, its fifth annual festival of prese...
