MoMA Announces Film Exhibitions for September 2013

An Auteurist History of Film Reprise
September 1-17
Because MoMA's Auteurist History of Film weekday-afternoon screenings are not easily accessible to many museum-goers, this series of reprise screenings is intended to enable folks to catch up on many of the films from the 1950s that have been screened over the past year. You can read curator Charles Silver's in-depth blog posts about each film at MoMA.org/inside_out.

Lame Brains and Lunatics: Cruel and Unusual Comedy, Part 4
September 11-17
Drawing from the Museum's holdings of silent comedy, acquired largely in the 1970s and 1980s by former curator Eileen Bowser, Cruel and Unusual Comedy presents an otherwise little-seen body of work to contemporary audiences from an engaging perspective. The series continues with comical takes on crime and punishment, movie making, sports, eating habits, and the rituals of romance. All films are from the U.S. and are silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model. Each screening is introduced by Steve Massa, author of Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Forgotten of Silent Comedy.

Roddy Bogawa: If Films Could Smell
September 18-23
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Japanese American artist Roddy Bogawa (b. 1962) studied art and sculpture and played in punk bands before turning to film. Bogawa's work explores internal conflict, the relationship between individuals and their environment, and how identity is shaped by culture and history. He casts non-actors and actors side by side and layers his stories with metaphors, abstract material, and multiple narrative voices. His feature-length films, a unique blend of experimental and narrative styles, range from loosely (Some Divine Wind) and strictly (I Was Born, But...) autobiographical to science fiction (Junk) to documentary (Taken by Storm: The Art of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis).

Dante Ferretti: Designing for the Big Screen
September 23, 2013-February 9, 2014
Constructing "a working space for narrative" is how production designer Ferretti describes his role in the collaborative process of filmmaking and in his practice of conceiving, for each project, a single set piece intended to stimulate the director's imagination and crystallize the visual style and character of the film. Indulging his preference for both dreamlike and historical subjects, and drawing on his knowledge of painting, sculpture, and poetry, Ferretti categorizes his designs as "period" (Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom), "fantasy" (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), or "contemporary" (Todo Modo). Presented in conjunction with MoMA's Dante Ferretti gallery exhibition, this 22-film retrospective demonstrates how the designer's settings have served to guide directorial practice with signature distinction.

Gaumont Presents: Maurice Pialat's Police
September 30
Each year at MoMA, Gaumont presents a title from its archives in France. This year, Nicolas Seydoux, President, and Sidonie Dumas, General Manager, Gaumont, introduce a digital restoration of Police as a tribute to the great Maurice Pialat and Daniel Toscan du Plantier on the 10-year anniversary of both of their deaths. Gérard Depardieu stars as Mangin, a cop on a mission to bust a drug-trafficking ring run by a band of Tunisian brothers.

An Auteurist History of Film
Throughout September
Drawing on auteur theory-which contends that, despite the collaborative nature of the medium, the director is the primary force behind the creation of a film-this ongoing screening cycle is intended to serve as both an exploration of the richness of the Museum's film collection and a basic introduction to the emergence of cinema as the predominant art form of the 20th century.

Modern Mondays: The One Minute Film Festival
Monday, September 30, 7:00 p.m.
From 2003 through 2012, in a "barn cinema" in bucolic upstate New York, the artist-curator duo Jason Simon and Moyra Davey hosted The One Minute Film Festival, inviting fellow artists, musicians, writers, and moviemakers of all stripes to contribute a short film of their own devising. The festival became a cherished ritual: friends would religiously mark their calendars for the first Saturday after the Fourth of July. The films presented in Modern Mondays-by artists as far ranging as Peggy Ahwesh, Mark Dion, Chris Marker, and Josiah McElheny-are a joyous sampling of the hundreds that were screened during the festival's decade-long run. Presented by Jason Simon, Moyra Davey, and other artists.