With a distinctly personal voice in independent cinema, filmmaker Ira Sachs explores the universal themes of love and desire, beginning with his touching debut The Delta to his forthcoming feature Keep the Lights On. From August 25 through September 4, 2012, Museum of the Moving Image will present Looking for Love: The Films of Ira Sachs, the first comprehensive New York retrospective of Sachs's work that includes all of his feature films and a selection of short films, each followed by a Pinewood Dialogue with Sachs in person. The series culminates on Tuesday, September 4, with a preview screening of his latest feature Keep the Lights On.
"Ira Sachs has quietly become a significant American filmmaker, with a body of work marked by intelligence, intimacy, and emotional authenticity," said
David Schwartz, the Museum's Chief Curator. "
Looking for Love will mark the first major retrospective of Sachs's films in New York."
Having moved to New York from his hometown of Memphis in the 1980s, Sachs became a driving force in the New York film world, as the founder and co-curator of the monthly series Queer/Art/Film and as a teacher at New York University. With his feature debut
The Delta being accepted to the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, Sachs immediately broke in to the independent cinema scene. Though he would not make his second feature for another nine years, Sachs returned to the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 with
Forty Shades of Blue, this time winning the Grand Jury prize. Both of Sachs's early romantic dramas capture the physical intimacy and emotional distance between lovers struggling to accept their quietly tragic circumstances.
In his third feature, Sachs collaborated with
Oren Moverman to adapt
John Bingham's 1953 novel
Five Roundabouts to Heaven into a major motion picture. With an all-star cast including
Pierce Brosnan,
Patricia Clarkson,
Chris Cooper, and
Rachel McAdams, Sachs's
Married Life is rich in artifice and dark humor reminiscent of Hitchcock's wry comedic mysteries.
Keep the Lights On is Sachs's most revealing personal film yet. His fourth feature chronicles a decade-long relationship among the changing landscape of New York City around the turn of the 21
st century. This special preview screening is courtesy of Music Box Films, and will open theatrically on September 7.
A complete schedule for
Looking for Love: The Films of Ira Sachs is included below. With the exception of the preview screening of
Keep the Lights On, tickets for screenings are free with Museum admission ($12 adults, $9 senior citizens and college students, $6 children 3–17) and free for Museum members. For information about becoming a member, visit
http://movingimage.us/support/membership/.
