Museum of the Moving Image Announces Events for Grand Re-Opening, 1/15

Rochelle Slovin, Director of Museum of the Moving Image, today announced further details of the events and programs that will celebrate the grand re-opening of America's only museum dedicated to film, TV and digital media in all their forms. Transformed through a $67 million project, the Museum will open to the public on January 15, 2011, having doubled in size (from 50,000 to 97,700 square feet) and been given striking new physical expression by architect Thomas Leeser.

Highlights of the opening weekend will include:

·  screenings throughout the weekend, including the premiere of a newly restored print of the 1961 drama The Hustler, starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason; the premiere of a newly restored 3D digital version of the 1954 thriller The Mad Magician, starring Vincent Price; works by American avant-garde masters; and the 1985 independent feature Mala Noche, shown as the first film in a complete retrospective of director Gus Van Sant
·  Signal to Noise, a late-night Art Party on January 15, featuring a three-ring circus of live electronic music, DJ and VJ sets, moving image performances and interactive art
·  an artist's talk by Paul Kaiser of the OpenEnded Group, presented in the new William Fox Amphitheater, about his group's work in the inaugural digital media exhibition Real Virtuality
·  Magic, Music and Early Movies (January 16), with rising new music star Sxip Shirey performing as a one-man band on handmade instruments to accompany the magical silent films of Georges Méliès, all shown in archival 35mm prints
·  free admission on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 17), when the Museum will show an archival 35mm print of the landmark documentary King: A Filmed Record, Montgomery to Memphis (1970)
·  and family workshops three times a day, throughout the weekend, in the Museum's core exhibition Behind the Screen, inviting children to participate in creating animations, sound effects and visual effects

The entire six weeks of inaugural programs will be titled Celebrating the Moving Image, in honor of the Museum and of screen culture itself. Among the newly announced events scheduled after the opening weekend of Celebrating the Moving Image is a personal appearance on January 24 by director Gus Van Sant, presenting a preview screening of his new film Restless as part of his Moving Image retrospective.

Film programs in Celebrating the Moving Image, to be shown in the new 267-seat main theater and the new 68-seat Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room, will include:
·         Recovered Treasures: Great Films from World Archives, presenting new and recently restored prints of films including The Stranger (Agantuk) (1991), a late masterwork by Satyajit Ray (print from the National Film Development Corporation, India); The Valiant Ones (1975), King Hu's lavish martial arts epic (Hong Kong Film Archive); a double feature of Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), a landmark of Italian Neorealism (Cineteca Nazionale, Rome) and Federico Fellini's Roma (1972), a poetic and autobiographical portrait of the city (Cineteca di Bologna); The Hustler (1961, directed by Robert Rossen) in a beautiful black-and-white restoration (20th Century-Fox); and L'Argent (1928), directed by Marcel L'Herbier (Centre National du Cinéma, France) with live music performed by the Mont Alto Orchestra and Avant-Garde Masters, presenting recently restored films and videos by artists including Gregory Markopoulos, George and Mike Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Carolee Schneemann, Abigail Child and Andy Warhol

In its new Video Screening Amphitheater, the Museum will present a specially commissioned animated film, Dolls vs. Dictators, by New York-based artist Martha Colburn (who will also participate in the Signal to Noise party with an analog VJ/live film loop performance). On the 50-foot-long projection wall in its completely new lobby, the Museum will show the video work City Glow, by artist Chiho Aoshima in collaboration with animator Bruce Ferguson. In its new gallery for changing exhibitions, the Museum will present Real Virtuality, five experiments in art and digital technology, including three Moving Image commissions (from Workspace Unlimited, OpenEnded Group and Pablo Valbuena), the New York premiere installation of the experimental video game The Night Journey by Bill Viola, and the New York premiere museum installation of RMB City by Cao Fei.

"There is going to be something for everyone during the opening celebrations for Museum of the Moving Image," Rochelle Slovin stated, "from connoisseurs of classic cinema to fans of video games and current TV, from children and their families to New York's new-media artists. We welcome audiences from all around New York and all around the world to our transformed Museum, which has been so brilliantly designed by Thomas Leeser."

Following are preliminary lists of films and events to be presented in Celebrating the Moving Image. Further information about all programs will be announced closer to the January 15 grand re-opening of Museum of the Moving Image.