Elia Suleiman, Asian-American Filmmaking, LA HAINE, FilmAfrica, And More Announced At BAM
By: A.A. Cristi Mar. 03, 2020
Elia Suleiman, Asian-American Filmmaking, LA HAINE, FilmAfrica, and more announced at BAM, April-May 2020
Apr 1
Caribbean Film Series: Zombi Child (2019)
Directed by Bertrand Bonello
BAM and Caribbean Film Series present Bertrand Bonello's latest film-a twist on the zombie film, and an unsparing critique of France's history of colonialism and slavery in Haiti.
ReelAbilities: Our Time Machine (2019)
BAM partners with ReelAbilities to present S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun's documentary portrait of Chinese artist Maleonn's creation of a magical, autobiographical stage performance, as he and his father confront memory loss and mortality.
Apr 3-9
Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film, the Sequel
Five years to the day after Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film opened at BAM, this sequel series presents a selection of thrillingly adventurous works that center the Black experience in alternate and imagined realities. Sun Ra's free jazz odyssey Space Is the Place (Coney, 1974) is the sole film to return from the 2015 program, accompanying an all-new slate including Sorry to Bother You (Riley, 2018); Yeelen (Cissé, 1987), screening with The Golden Chain (Bodunrin & Daniels, 2016); White Out, Black In (Queirós, 2014); Once There Was Brasilia... (Queirós, 2017); Les Saignantes (Bekolo, 2005), screening with Zombies (Baloji, 2019); the US premiere of The Relic Quadrilogy (Achiampong, 2017-2019), with discussion "Afrofuturism Now?;" The Passion of Remembrance (Blackwood & Julien, 1986); Crumbs (Llansó, 2015), screening with Hasaki Ya Suda (Ido, 2011); and Shorts Program: Bending Time, which includes The Changing Same (Smith, 2001), They Charge For The Sun (Nance, 2016), Specialised Technique (Igwe, 2018), I Snuck off the Slaveship (Holley, Moussavi, 2019), A Love Song For Latasha (Allison, 2019), and 1968 < 2018 > 2068 (Witherspoon, 2019).
Beyond the Canon: The Man Who Envied Women (1985) + Naked (1993)
Beyond the Canon returns to question and expand cinema's traditional canon-which has historically skewed toward lionizing the white, male auteur-by pairing one well-known, highly regarded 'canonized' film, with a thematically or stylistically related work that is equally brilliant, but less well-known-and, most importantly, made by a filmmaker traditionally excluded from discussions of the cinematic canon. This April, we present Mike Leigh's scorching portrait of rage-fueled, misogynistic drifter in London, Naked (1993), screening alongside choreographer-filmmaker Yvonne Rainer's politically and philosophically wide-ranging exploration of fractured male identity and subversion of the male gaze in cinema, The Man Who Envied Women (1985).
Apr 10-16
Thousand Pieces of Gold (1990)
Directed by Nancy Kelly
BAM presents a new restoration of this undersung gem of 90s American independent filmmaking, which offers a feminist lens on the classic Manifest Destiny tale. Developed at The Sundance Institute by Kelly, an acclaimed documentarian making her fiction debut, and with a lead performance by a radiant Rosalind Chao, the film subverts the Western genre's patriarchal and misogynistic worldview, instead lending a nuanced, emotional, and profoundly empathetic perspective to this story of frontier survival and immigrant isolation. New 4K restoration by IndieCollect. A Kino Lorber Repertory release.
Screen Epiphanies: Aisha Harris presents Some Like It Hot (1959)
Inspired by the BFI series of the same name, Screen Epiphanies once again brings a cultural luminary to BAM to introduce a film that inspired their love of cinema. For April's event, New York Times op-ed writer and editor Aisha Harris presents Billy Wilder's classic gender-bending comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), starring indelible comic performances by Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe.
The Time That Remains: The Films of Elia Suleiman
BAM presents a tribute to the acclaimed Palestinian auteur whose searching, darkly hilarious films explore the meaning of national identity for a people whose very existence has been called into question. Films include the New York premiere run of Suleiman's most recent film, It Must Be Heaven (2019), winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and Special Mention of the Jury at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and screenings of Divine Intervention (2002); Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996); The Time That Remains (2009); and a program of shorts.
(Dis)comfort Food: A Film Series by Mayukh Sen
Challenging traditional notions of the "food film," this thought-provoking program-assembled by James Beard Award-winning writer Mayukh Sen-offers a clear-eyed reminder that what and how we eat reveals a great deal about the power imbalances of the world around us. Films include Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata, 1988), introduced by Sen; Support the Girls (Bujalski, 2018), followed by a panel discussion with Sen and writers Margaret Barton-Fumo and Rebecca Flint-Marx; Gas Food Lodging (Anders, 1992); Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945); Daisies (Chytilova, 1966); Delicatessen (Jeunet & Caro, 1991); La Grande Bouffe (Ferreri, 1973); Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975), introduced by writer Britt Stigler; Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Scorsese, 1974); Life is Sweet (Leigh, 1990); Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006); Eating Raoul (Bartel, 1982); and Distant Thunder (Ray, 1973), also introduced by Sen.
Social Frictions: Asian American Filmmaking, 1991-2019
In an eclectic series programmed by independent curator Chi-hui Yang, BAM spotlights an aesthetically and politically radical counter cinema that gives nuanced expression to the complexities of Asian America. Films and events include Fresh Kill (Cheang, 1994); In Between Days (Kim, 2006), screening with Sangam (Bhargava, 2004); I Was Born... But (Bogawa, 2004); Colma the Musical (Wong, 2006); Mississippi Masala (Nair, 1991); Saving Face (Wu, 2004); Fatal Love: A Conversation with Visible Collective; Bontoc Eulogy (Fuentes & Yearian, 1995), screening with Memories (Schedelbauer, 2004); The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) (Kuras & Phrasavath, 2008); Man Push Cart (Bahrani, 2005); American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (Lee, 2013); Data Plan (Revereza, 2019), plus Revereza's short films Disintegration 93-96 (2017) and Distancing (2019); AKA Nikki S Lee (Lee, 2006), screening with From Alex to Alex (2006, Kobayashi); Wildness (Tsang, 2012); Better Luck Tomorrow (Lin, 2002); Cavite (Gamazon & Llana, 2006); and Batang West Side (Diaz, 2001). The series also includes a BAM sneak peak of episode 4, Generation Rising (Gandbhir, 2020), of the groundbreaking new five-part PBS series Asian Americans, screening with the short films Balikbayan (Sanchez, 2004) and Going Home (Nguyen, 2006); Discussion: Film Quarterly on Asian American Filmmaking, a panel featuring Josslyn Luckett (NYU) and Melissa Phruksachart (University of Michigan), moderated by Brian Hu and B. Ruby Rich; and an evening with celebrated photographer An-My Lê, in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, co-presented with Aperture.
May 13-21
La Haine (1995)
Directed by Matthieu Kassovitz
BAM hosts a NY exclusive 25th anniversary run of this explosive, still-stunning portrait of police brutality, deep-rooted racial and economic injustice in French society, and political rage and simmering unrest on the margins of Paris. The film screens in a 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative and Dolby soundtrack under the supervision of Director of Photography Pierre Aïm. A Janus Films release.
Beyond the Canon: Bless Their Little Hearts (1983) + Bicycle Thieves (1948)
May's Beyond the Canon pairs Vittorio De Sica's neorealist, postwar masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948) with Billy Woodberry's naturalistic portrait of an African-American family buckling under the strain of financial hardship, Bless Their Little Hearts (1983).
Screen Epiphanies: Hannah Gross presents Leviathan (2012)
In May's Screen Epiphanies, actor Hannah Gross (Falling, Mindhunter, The Mountain) presents Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel's radically immersive documentary, which captures the sensation of being on a small trawler as a fishing crew makes their way on the northern Atlantic.
May 21-25
FilmAfrica
The cinematic companion to DanceAfrica returns, showcasing the best new films from across Africa and the diaspora, with a special focus on films from and about Burkina Faso. Films include The Mercy of the Jungle (Karekezi, 2018); Fatwa (Mahmoud, 2018); Matwetwe (Lediga, 2018); Chez Jolie Coiffure (Mbakam, 2018); and a program of contemporary shorts. Featured titles from and about Burkina Faso include the New York premiere of Sankara Is Not Dead (Viver, 2019); Samba Traore (Ouédraogo, 1992); a shorts program spotlighting the work of Fanta Regina Nacro; and a spotlight on filmmaker Gaston Kabore, with the films Rabi (Kabore, 1991), screening with The Cora Player (Sawadogo, 1996), Wend Kuuni (Kabore, 1982), and Buud Yam (Kabore, 1997). Co-presented by the New York African Film Festival.
May 26-28
The Many Faces of Cate Blanchett
In honor of this year's BAM Gala honoree Cate Blanchett, we revisit four of her most beloved screen performances from the last two decades, including three that earned her an Academy Award nomination, demonstrating her extraordinary range of talent. Films include Carol (Haynes; 2015); The Talented Mr. Ripley (Minghella, 1999); Elizabeth (Kapur, 1998); and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fincher, 2008).
May 28
An Evening with Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Visual artist and filmmaker Tiona Nekkia McClodden presents and discusses selections from her ongoing film project Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic, which examines the intersections of Black woman identity politics within the context of American society. McClodden's exhibition, The Trace of an Implied Presence, is on view at The Rudin Family Gallery at BAM Strong April 1 through June 28.
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