Premieres
November 21, 2004–January 31, 2005

"You can't go home again," said a wise man—things are never quite the same. Therefore, to mark the opening of the new Museum of Modern Art, the Department of Film and Media returns to its newly upgraded and refurbished Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters with Premieres, an unprecedented ten-week series that celebrates the exciting and extraordinary breadth, style, and diversity of contemporary film and media by artists worldwide, many of whom will introduce their work.

December's program introduces three eagerly anticipated studio films—Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Terry George's Hotel Rwanda— and the New York premieres of films by Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Diao Yi'nan, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Claude Miller, João César Monteiro, and Alexander Sokurov. Fresh from their recent success at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals are Theo Angelopoulos's The Weeping Meadow, Jonathan Nossiter's Mondovino, Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll's Whisky, and Fatih Akin's Head-On. Alexandre Trudeau reports on war-torn Middle Eastern families in Embedded in Baghdad and The Fence, and Karen Slater chronicles a South African tribe in The Meaning of the Buffalo. Making special appearances are Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who will be interviewed by Quentin Tarantino on the occasion of Miramax's twenty-fifth anniversary; Alexander Kluge, the father of New German Cinema; the British artist Sam Taylor- Wood; the French filmmaker Laetitia Masson; and avantgarde filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Nancy Andrews. Several eclectic programs present new experimental work by Cory Arcangel, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Valérie Jouve, George Kuchar, Mark Leckey, Mary Lucier, Tracey Moffatt, The Residents, and Guy Richards Smit. Rounding out December are stunning restorations of Mack Sennett's Tillie's Punctured Romance, Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid, Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends, and shorts by Charles Chaplin and Carolee Schneemann.

Ringing in the New Year, Premieres opens with Christophe Barratier's Les Choristes. The program also features Spike Lee's vibrant Sucker Free City; fellow New Yorker Hal Hartley's mesmerizing The Girl from Monday; and Kore-eda Hirokazu's devastating feature Nobody Knows. Continuing its partnership with the Sundance Institute, MoMA presents Mercedes Moncada's The Immortal and Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. Michael Almereyda, Kenneth Anger, John Canemaker, Jem Cohen, James Herbert, and Yoko Ono introduce new works. Avant-garde musician John Zorn and electronic artist Ikue Mori accompany Ken Jacobs on one of his phantasmagoric Nervous System performances; Jennifer Todd Reeves collaborates with Icelandic composer Skúli Sverrison on a film-and-music performance; composer James Tenney and pianist Jenny Lin perform original scores of early Stan Brakhage films; and Chinese composer Tan Dun is profiled in Frank Scheffer's gorgeous Tea. Donna Cameron, Tom Kalin, Todd McCammon, and Bill Morrison explore the origins of cinema. Experimental work is represented by contemporary artists like Breda Beban, Paul Chan, Brice Dellsperger, Janie Geiser, Christian Jankowski, Jim Jennings, Lewis Klahr, Monteith McCollum, Satoshi Ono, John Pilson, Travis Preston, Kara Walker, Julie Wyman, and Yang Fudong. Drew Berry, Kota Ezawa, Lauri Faggioni, Candy Kugel, and Bill Plympton present new animation, and documentarians like David Dixon, Harun Farocki, Heddy Honigmann, Gary Keys, Matt Mahurin, and Jacques Richard travel the world in search of good stories. Restorations of classics by Michelangelo Antonioni, Philippe Garrel, Kenji Mizoguchi, Robert Siodmak, and Mauritz Stiller are also featured. We conclude the series with Jean-Luc Godard's epic Histoire(s) du cinéma, shown for the first time with English subtitles—truly a summa of the director's half-century of filmmaking, and indeed of cinema itself

Organized by the Department of Film and Media.

Special thanks to Anne Brogan; Brent Sikkema gallery; Channel 4/TV Learning; Cinematexas; Cinémathèque française; Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia; Gaumont; German Films Service + Marketing GmbH; Granada Kids; Holland Film; IFC Films; Maccarone Inc.; Catherine McKenzie; Mediaset; Oesterreichsches Filmmuseum; Possible Films; Renaissance Society; Seventh Art Releasing; Showtime Networks Inc.; Peggy Stern; The Sundance Institute; Svenska Filminstitutet; THINKFilm; Lily Thorne; UCLA Film and Television Archive; The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute; Women Make Movies.

The program is supported in part by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art. Hotels provided by Millennium Hotels and Resorts.

Five. 2004. France/Iran/Japan. Written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. One of MoMA's most recent acquisitions, Five mines the potential of digital imagery and sound while investigating the fluid limits of documentary practice. Canny and sublime, the film comprises five long takes of a beach on which Kiarostami observes a universe of change. The cast includes pedestrians on a boardwalk, dogs, ducks, a piece of driftwood, and moonlight reflected on stormy waters. Kiarostami has dedicated Five to Yasujiro Ozu. No dialogue. 74 min.
Sunday, November 21, 2:00. T1; Monday, November 29, 7:30.T2

ItalianAmerican. 1974. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Mardik Martin, Larry Cohen, Scorsese. With Scorsese and his parents, Catherine and Charles. Scorsese, then a young director, visits his parental home, where he gets sage advice from his mother on the proper way to cook spaghetti sauce. Scorsese noted, "I read an interesting theory […] about how ItalianAmerican was the counterpoint of Mean Streets. In many ways I think the documentary is far superior to the dramatic film. In the documentary, there's more of a truth you can get at." 45 min.
Sunday, November 21, 2:30; Wednesday, December 29. T2

Moments choisis des Histoire(s) du cinéma. France. Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, produced by Gaumont. Godard and Nicolas Seydoux, Chairman of Gaumont, have graciously offered MoMA the world premiere of the artist's recent 35mm feature. Godard, the collagist working in music, poetry, painting, and film, fashions a ruminative and exhilarating elegy to cinema and the twentieth century—more than a summation of his multipart video masterpiece Histoire(s) du cinéma. In French, English subtitles. 85 min.
Sunday, November 21, 5:00. T1; Saturday, November 27, 2:30; Thursday, December 2, 5:00; Saturday, December 4, 5:30. T2

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra). 1965. Italy. Directed by Luchino Visconti. Screenplay by Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Enrico Medioli, Visconti. With Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, Michael Craig. In what is arguably the most underrated of Visconti's films, Sandra (the gorgeous young Cardinale) returns to the ancient Italian hill-town of Volterra for the commemoration of a public park in honor of her Jewish father, who died in Auschwitz. Long-buried family secrets resurface in this contemporary reworking of Aeschylus's Greek tragedy Oresteia, and Visconti's brooding chiaroscuro effects have been sumptuously preserved in Sony Pictures Entertainment's new print. In Italian, English subtitles. 95 min.
Sunday, November 21, 5:30. T2

Avanim (Stones). 2003. Israel/France/USA. Written and directed by Raphaël Nadjari. With Asi Levi, Uri Gabriel, Florence Bloch. One of the discoveries of this year's Berlin Film Festival, Avanim is a showpiece for Levi's restrained but tough performance as a young Israeli woman struggling with the demands of her husband and small child, a clandestine romance, and the ethics of her father's financially questionable affiliation with orthodox religious institutions. In Hebrew, English subtitles. 105 min.
Monday, November 22, 6:15; Friday, November 26, 8:30; Sunday, November 28, 2:00. T1

What I'm Looking For. 2004. USA. Directed by Shelly Silver. Made up entirely of digital still images and taking place on the Internet and in various public spaces, this high-definition video narrates a strange adventure about the nature of photography, the desire to stop time, and what it means for a woman to photograph men. 20 min.
Triage. 2004. Canada. Directed by Michael Snow, Carl Brown. Music by John Kamevaar. The result of a kind of "Exquisite Corpse," Triage is a double-projection film. Snow's single-image frames—a high-speed "realism"—interact with footage shot by Brown that has been subjected to a wide range of photochemical transformations. These simultaneous projections are doubly counterpointed with an electronic collage soundscape. 30 min.
Monday, November 22, 6:30. T2

Wild Boy. 2004. USA. Directed by Guy Ben Ner. The artist plays an educator who tries to tame a wild child, played by his son, in this comically subversive video. 20 min.
The Magician. 2003. Morocco/France. Directed by Yto Barrada. Abdelouahid El Hamri, aka Sinbad of the Straits, displays his magical feats. In French, Arabic, and English, English subtitles. 18 min.
Adapting One's Senses to High Altitude Flying (For Intermediates)—An Almost Silent Version. 2004. Italy/USA. Directed by Luca Buvoli. The artist's parents' World War II memories unravel into a chain of free-associated words and animated sequences. 8 min.
The Best Decision Ever Made. 2004. USA. Directed by Chris Miner. The artist ponders life's big issues after his grandmother's death. 18 min. Program 64 min.
Monday, November 22, 8:30; Sunday, December 5, 2:30. T2

Pionieren in Ingolstadt (Recruits in Ingolstadt). 1970. West Germany. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Screenplay by Fassbinder, based on a 1929 play by Marieluise Fleisser. With Hanna Schygulla, Harry Baer, Irm Hermann. Although this was Fassbinder's ninth film in two years, it was the first to be reviewed in the United States. A melancholy comedy that could not be more timely, with its Brechtian depiction of disaffected soldiers uneasily interacting with civilians in a place where they're not welcome. New 35mm print, recently acquired for MoMA's archives. In German, English subtitles. 84 min.
Monday, November 22, 8:45; Friday, November 26, 6:15. T1

Lost and Found. 2004. USA. Directed by Jeff Scher. Music by Shay Lynch. Lumbering apes morph into stampeding bulls in this psychedelic homage to the animators of the 1930s, an exuberant exploration of cinematic color collisions. 3 min.
Le Lion volatil. 2003. France. Written and directed by Agnès Varda. In the heart of a Parisian neighborhood sits the beloved sculpture of a lion. Varda imagines its playful influence on a young romance. In French, English subtitles. 14 min.
Épreuve d'artistes (Words in Process). 2004. France. Directed by Gilles Jacob. Assisted by Samuel Faure. This delightful compilation of important press conferences at the Cannes Film Festival is a valentine to cinema by the Festival's current president and former longtime artistic director. Featuring more than three decades of great filmmakers from around the world, Words in Process is both mischievous and illuminating. In French and English, English subtitles. 52 min. Program 69 min.

Wednesday, November 24, 5:00; Saturday, November 27, 5:30.T2

Prólogus (Prologue). 2004. Hungary. Directed by Bela Tarr. In one magnificent reverse-tracking shot, Tarr observes the 2004 joining of ten new countries with the European Union. No dialogue. 12 min.
Paths of Glory. 1957. USA. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Screenplay by Jim Thompson, Calder Willingham, Kubrick. With Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Meeker. Kubrick's breakthrough film, stunningly restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, is a stark adaptation of Humphrey Cobb's factually based novel about military abuse and incompetence in the Great War. Kubrick's lateral- and reverse-tracking shots plunge the viewer grunt-level into the trenches and onto the field of battle, as two ruthlessly ambitious French generals lead their troops into certain and senseless death in an assault on an impenetrable German position. 86 min. Wednesday, November 24, 6:15; Saturday, November 27, 7:00. T1

An Evening with Ernie Gehr: screening of Essex Street Market. 29 min.; Noon Time Activities. 21 min.; Workers Leaving the Factory (after Lumière). 12 min.; Greene Street. 5 min. 2004. USA. Directed by Ernie Gehr. Images of New York from another era—the 1970s; exquisitely framed, mostly low-angle or hip-level shots of exceptional presence and texture. Once conceived as part of a larger work but then abandoned, these images were recently resurrected and edited into four separate sections that together channel a mournful difference between then and now.... The original 16mm films were transferred to digital video at their correct film projection speed of sixteen frames per second. Program 67 min.
Wednesday, November 24, 7:30; Wednesday, December 8, 6:00. T2

Love Me Tonight. 1932. USA. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein, Waldemar Young, George Marion. With Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy. When a tailor falls in love with a princess, they communicate their blossoming affection through the delightful music and lyrics of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. With songs like "Isn't It Romantic?" and "Mimi," this film has been described as one of the finest musicals ever made. 89 min.
Wednesday, November 24, 8:45. T1

Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan. 2004. USA. Directed by Manfred Kirchheimer. Best known for his documentary We Were So Beloved, Kirchheimer takes a poetic and wise new look at an important chapter in architectural history: the development of the American skyscraper between the late 1860s and early 1920s and the rivalry between Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham, two men who changed the urban skyline. 80 min.
Friday, November 26, 5:00; Sunday, November 28, 2:30. T2

Cistyj Cetverg (Clean Thursday). 2003. Russia. Directed by Aleksandr Rastorguev. Banned in Russia, this gripping documentary follows the weekly cycle of a Russian Army train in Chechnya, where soldiers shower, relax, and get clean clothes before returning to combat. In Russian, English subtitles. 45 min.
Dukhovnye Golosa (Spiritual Voices [Part 1]). 38 min.; Soldatski Son (A Soldier's Dream). 11 min. 1995. Russia. Directed by Alexander Sokurov. Subtitled From the War Diaries, these poetic accounts of lonely Russian soldiers stationed on the Tajiki Afghani border are a meditation on humanity's ultimately spiritual nature. Part 1 of Spiritual Voices—a single shot of a snow-covered landscape with almost imperceptible changes—is full of mystery and foreboding. A Soldier's Dream derives from the same material, but was edited to bring out a more lyrical tone. Program 94 min.
Friday, November 26, 7:30. T2

Zwolf Stühle (Twelve Chairs). 2004. Germany. Directed by Ulrike Ottinger. Screenplay by Ottinger. Based on what is perhaps the most popular comic novel written in the Soviet Union, by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, this picaresque 1928 satire follows the adventures of several rogues in search of jewels hidden in what was once private property: a set of twelve chairs that have been dispersed across a rather large country. Ottinger's version, shot completely on location, maintains the rollicking, feisty spirit of the original narrative while providing a gorgeous and intimate travel document of the landscape and people of eastern Europe. In Russian and German, English subtitles. 200 min.
Saturday, November 27, 2:30. T1; Sunday, December 5, 4:30. T2

Three Transitions. 1973. USA. Directed by Peter Campus. Newly restored by MoMA, this classic video plays with illusion and self-identity. 5 min.
Solace. 2001. USA. Directed by Eve Sussman. Reality and fiction meet at a Brooklyn breakfast table in late September 2001. 17 min.
Mahdokht. 2004. USA/France/Germany. Directed by Shirin Neshat. Set in a magical garden, this video is based on Shahrnoush Parsipour's story "Women without Men." 14 min.
Devotion. 2004. USA/Turkey. Directed by Cynthia Madansky. A meditation on nationalism and Islam, shot in Istanbul and woven through with a story of love and loss. 34 min.
The Animals. 2004. USA. Directed by Slater Bradley. Bradley's doppelgänger, in the guise of Michael Jackson, cavorts in a snowy zoo with two children. Silent. 3 min.
414-3-RAVE-95. 2004. USA. Directed by Cory Arcangel, Frankie Martin. Two dancers compete in a hot-wired arcade game. 4 min.
Beach Boys vs. Ghetto Boys. 2004. USA. Directed by Cory Arcangel. Linking two separate musical generations, Arcangel creates an unexpectedly cohesive mix. 3 min. Program 80 min.
Saturday, November 27, 8:00; Saturday, December 4, 8:00. T2

Kamikaze 1989. 1981. West Germany. Directed by Wolf Gremm. Screenplay by Gremm and Robert Katz, based on a novel by Per Wahlöö. With Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Günther Kaufmann, Boy Godert. Gremm directed fellow filmmaker and longtime friend Fassbinder in what turned out to be his last performance before his untimely death, on June 10, 1982. Set in a future city where citizens behave outlandishly, Kamikaze 1989 stars Fassbinder as a churlish detective in search of a ticking bomb. This is the first American screening of a new 35mm print restored in tribute to its producer Regina Ziegler and presented at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival. In German, English subtitles. 106 min. Sunday, November 28, 5:00; Friday, December 3, 6:15. T1

The Art and Technique of the American Television Commercial: The AICP Show at MoMA, 2004. USA. This thirteenth edition of the AICP's annual program of award-winning commercials celebrates the collaborative craft involved in the making of small films of persuasion. It honors twenty-four categories, including direction, writing, performance, and cinematography, in the best in advertising of the previous year as judged by industry peer panels. The AICP Show demonstrates that informing, influencing, and selling may also be moving, surprising, and entertaining. Each year, The AICP Show is donated to MoMA's Film and Media archives. 76 min.
Sunday, November 28, 5:30. T2

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. 2004. USA. Directed by Xan Cassavetes. When John Cassavetes would ground his daughter Xan, she would watch Z Channel, the once celebrated pay-TV station that was, according to its brilliant but troubled programmer Jerry Harvey, Los Angeles's "Museum of Modern Art." Cassavetes examines the profound influence Z Channel had on the culture of Hollywood cinema from 1976 to 1989, and interviews people who were close to Harvey before he committed murder and suicide. With appearances by Robert Altman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Verhoeven, and others. 118 min.
Monday, November 29, 7:00. T1

La Chambre des magiciennes. 2000. France. Directed by Claude Miller. Screenplay by Miller, based on a section of Siri Hustvedt's novel The Blindfold. With Anne Brochet, Mathilde Seigner,Yves Jacques. Director Miller used a vertiginous handheld camera to evoke the spellbinding downfall of an anthropology student who is admitted to a neurological clinic for migraines and fainting spells. In French, English subtitles. 80 min.

Wednesday, December 1, 6:15 (introduced by author Hustvedt); Saturday, December 11, 2:00. T1

Trilogia—To livadi pou dakrizi (Trilogy—The Weeping Meadow). 2004. Greece/Italy/France. Written and directed by Theo Angelopoulos.With Alexandra Aidini, Nikos Poursanidis, Giorgos Armenis. Blending elements from classical Greek theater with cinematic techniques, Angelopoulos follows a woman's journey from innocence to tragedy on a tide of twentieth-century war and displacement. In Greek, English subtitles. 170 min.

Wednesday, December 1, 8:15; Saturday, December 4, 2:00 (both introduced by Angelopoulos). T1

Monograph in Stereo. 2004. USA. Directed by Darrin Martin. The director's experience of hearing-loss provoked this playful exploration of the interdependency of the senses. 22 min.

Extending Trainer: Pressure Suits & Broom-Crafts. 2004. USA. Directed by Torsten Burns. Comical sight-gags and juxtapositions bring together "alternative space agencies" and "processed training exercises" with "past-regressed family workshops, feline androidal studies, [and] beams of light." 22 min.

The Good Things. 2003. The Netherlands. Directed by Marc Bijl. An urban landscape is spray painted with the lyrics of a song about terror threats. 4 min.

One-Minute Movies. 2004. USA. Directed by The Residents. Ten new music videos by the world's most famous unknown band. 10 min.

Oualalaradime. 2000. France. Directed by H5/Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain. A virtuoso short that runs the gamut of animation styles, from childlike drawings to Hanna-Barbera cartoons and Japanese anime. 4 min.

Shea Stars Flash. 2004. USA. Directed by Pia Lindman. Individuals reach for the stars in the immensity of a stadium crowd. 2 min.

We Are (Untitled). 2001. Great Britain. Directed by Mark Leckey. A highly mannered tableau vivant in the dark of a London night. 8 min. Program 72 min.

Wednesday, December 1, 8:30 (introduced by Martin, Burns, Bijl, and Cryptic Corporation); Monday, December 27, 5:00 (introduced by Lindman). T2

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra). 1965. Italy. Directed by Luchino Visconti. Screenplay by Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Enrico Medioli, Visconti. With Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, Michael Craig. Long-buried family secrets resurface in this contemporary reworking of Aeschylus's Greek tragedy Oresteia, and Visconti's brooding chiaroscuro effects have been sumptuously preserved in Sony Pictures Entertainment's new print. In Italian, English subtitles. 95 min.

Thursday, December 2, 6:15. T1

Alexandre Trudeau: Two Current Documentaries

Embedded in Baghdad. 2003. Canada/Iraq. 42 min. The Fence. 2004. Canada/Israel/ Palestinian Territories. 42 min. In his diaristic Embedded in Baghdad, Trudeau spends forty days with an educated middle-class family, the a-Saadis, during the end of one Iraqi regime and the explosive beginning of another. In The Fence, Trudeau visits families on both sides of the electrified security barrier that separates Israeli land from Palestinian territory.

Thursday, December 2, 8:00 (introduced by Trudeau). T2

Zhifu (Uniform). 2004. China. Written and directed by Diao Yi'nan.With Liang Hongli, Zeng Shuoqiong. A young unemployed man finds his life improving when, innocently at first, he begins wearing a policeman's uniform. Diao's style is filled with sly humor, subtle metaphors, and a confident realism. Presented in collaboration with The Global Film Initiative and 18 introduced by GFI Chairperson Susan Weeks Coulter. In Mandarin, English subtitles. 92 min.

Thursday, December 2, 8:30. T1

Top Spot. 2004. Great Britain. Written and directed by Tracey Emin. Emin, who was raped at a young age, traces the rites of passage of teenage girls from innocence to "being broken into." Shot in a faded seaside resort similar to the one in which the artist grew up, Top Spot is a non-narrative hybrid that moves between performance and documentary. 61 min.

Friday, December 3, 8:00; Sunday, December 12, 4:30. T2

Swapner Din (Chased by Dreams). 2004. India. Written and directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta.With Prosenjit, Rimi Sen, Raima Sen. A poignant story of deferred dreams in which a pair of young itinerant film projectionists befriend a pregnant Muslim girl whose husband was killed in a riot. In Hindi,

English subtitles. 93 min.

Friday, December 3, 8:30; Sunday, December 5, 2:00. T1

Le Grand Littoral. 2003. France. Directed by Valérie Jouve. Jouve observes a group of people on the periphery of Marseille whose biographies may or may not intersect. No dialogue. 20 min.

Layette. 2004. USA. Directed by Ariana Gerstein. The voice of a mature woman discussing her desire to have children merges with the fictional presence of a teenage girl from a found photograph. 16 min.

99 Vuotta elamastani (99 Years of My Life). 2003. Finland. Directed by Marja Mikkonen. Born in 1979, the filmmaker invents an autobiography that spans a virtual century. In Finnish, English subtitles. 33 min.

Spiskot na Toni Mandza (The List of Tony Mandza). 2003. Macedonia. Directed by Marija Dzidzeva. In 1998, a young delinquent escaped from prison and began killing his neighbors. Dzidzeva investigates what may have happened. In Macedonian, English subtitles. 31 min. Program 100 min.

Saturday, December 4, 2:30; Friday, December 10, 5:00. T2

Whisky. 2003. Uruguay. Directed by Juan Pablo Rebella, Pablo Stoll. Screenplay by Gonzalo Delgado, Rebella, Stoll.With Andres Pazos, Mirella Pascual, Jorge Bolani. An inspired and beautifully assured tragicomedy about the earthquakes in ordinary people's not-so-ordinary lives. Three characters take a seaside trip during which farce, jealousy, and betrayal lead them to places of no return. Presented in collaboration with The Global Film Initiative and introduced by GFI Chairperson Susan Weeks Coulter. In Spanish, English subtitles. 95 min.

Saturday, December 4, 7:30. T1

Sam Taylor-Wood

MoMA presents ten years of single-screen works dating from 1995 to the present by the British artist noted for her photographs and media installations. Screenings include Brontosaurus, Method in Madness, Still Life, A Little Death, and the Elton John music video I Want Love. Approx. 70 min.

Monday, December 6, 6:15. T2

The Diary of a Chambermaid. 1946. USA. Directed by Jean Renoir. Screenplay by Burgess Meredith, based on the novel by Octave Mirbeau.With Paulette Goddard, Francis Lederer, Burgess Meredith. Goddard stars as a servant whose outspoken personality turns an aristocratic French household upside down. Restored by UCLA from original nitrate elements in MoMA's film archive. 87 min.

Monday, December 6, 8:00. T1; Thursday, December 30, 5:00. T2

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. 2004. USA. Directed by Wes Anderson. Screenplay by Anderson, Noah Baumbach. With Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston. From the Oscar-nominated writer-director of Rushmore—who cited Jaws as one of three films he would save from a burning building— comes this eccentric comedy about an oceanographer who sets forth on the high seas in search of the elusive "jaguar shark" that ate his partner. 120 min.

Wednesday, December 8, 8:00 (T2) and 8:30 (T1)

Nathaniel Dorsky: Luminosity

The Visitation. 2002. USA. Alaya. 1976/87. USA. Threnody. 2003/04. USA.

In these intimate and deeply affecting works by veteran avant-garde artist Dorsky, the subtle, rhythmic shift of light, shadow, and color, the discerning "polyvalent" montage, and the delicate framing of exquisite images create a luminous, meditative sanctuary. Introduced by Dorsky. Program 64 min.

Thursday, December 9, 6:00; Saturday, December 11, 5:00. T2

An Evening with Alexander Kluge

Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit (The Blind Director). 1985. West Germany. With Jutta Hoffmann, Armin Müller-Stahl. Kluge, founder of the 1960s New German Cinema movement and noted author and teacher, reads from his new book The Devil's Blind Spot: Tales from the New Century (New Directions, 2004) and introduces a screening of his recently restored feature The Blind Director (1985). In German, English subtitles. Program 145 min.

Thursday, December 9, 8:00. T2

Nopeon Eunduk (High Hill). 2003. South Korea. Directed by Choiha Dongha. In 2002 a Turkish teenage girls' soccer team achieved fame at the World Cup championships for competing in their everyday baggy pants and rubber shoes. South Korean filmmakers visit their village, where unemployed men sit in cafes and girls pick beans, gather wood, and find time for soccer practice. In Korean, English subtitles. 100 min.

Friday, December 10, 6:00 (T1); Saturday, December 18, 8:00 (T2)

T.S.H. (Telegrafía sin hilos/Wireless Telegraphy). 2004. USA/Mexico. Directed by Jesse Lerner. Static from the first Mexican radio broadcast in 1923 is combined with avant-garde poetry and visual images from the same period. 11 min.

Viet-Flakes. 1965. USA. Directed by Carolee Schneemann. Recently restored by MoMA, this deconstruction of the news media is composed from images of Vietnam War atrocity. 11 min.

Plumb Line. 1971. USA. Directed by Carolee Schneemann. A romantic relationship and a film break down, split apart, and burn up. Recent restoration by MoMA. 18 min.

Around the World Around the World Around. 1996. USA. Directed by Janine Antoni. A work inspired by the Shaker tradition of ecstatic dancing. 4 min.

Untitled. 2004. South Korea/USA. Directed by Seoungho Cho. Spinning machine parts poetically evolve from hard-edged to softer, illusionary forms. 15 min.

Arabesque. 2004. USA. Directed by Mary Lucier. "The work explodes into dance, the dance of the bucking horse, the bull, the clown, the rodeo rider. This is the resplendent West, but Lucier undermines its glory with loss" (Laurel Reuter, Director, North Dakota Museum of Art). 7 min. Program 55 min.

Friday, December 10, 7:30 (introduced by Lerner, Schneemann, Cho, Lucier)

Mondovino. 2004. USA/France. Directed by Jonathan Nossiter. A privileged look at the world of wine, spanning three continents. Depicting a complex tapestry of rivalries, alliances, and conspiracies between multinational conglomerates and a colorful cast of artisanal viticulturists, filmmaker-sommelier Nossiter makes a humorous and provocative statement against globalization. In English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English subtitles. 135 min.

Friday, December 10, 8:00; Sunday, December 12, 2:00 (both introduced by Nossiter). T1

Proteus: A Nineteenth-Century Vision. 2004. USA. Directed by David Lebrun. Narrated by Marian Seldes. Lebrun's awardwinning animated documentary tells the story of nineteenth-century biologist Ernest Haeckel, who discovered in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art. Lebrun's film is based almost entirely on images by nineteenth-century painters, graphic artists, photographers, and scientific illustrators. 60 min.

Saturday, December 11, 7:30; Monday, December 13, 5:00 (both introduced by Lebrun). T2

Nausea II. 2004. USA. Written and directed by Guy Richards Smit. With Smit, Rebecca Chamberlain, Luis Fernandez. Two adult-film stars are suddenly crippled with self-doubt in this hilarious send-up of porn movies—a rock opera scored by Maxi Geil! & Playcolt in the tradition of Hair and Boogie Nights, only with better songs, hygiene, and fashion sense. Following the screening, Maxi Geil! & Playcolt perform one of their flamboyant shows. Program approx. 120 min.

Saturday, December 11, 8:00. T1

SuperCell. 2004. USA. Directed by George Kuchar. Kuchar returns to tornado country in this autobiographical short. 9 min.

The Meaning of the Buffalo. 2004. South Africa. Directed by Karin Slater. South African wildlife filmmaker Slater journeys to remote African village Lekgophung, home to the "people of the buffalo." In English and Setswana, English subtitles. 61 min.

Monday, December 13, 6:00 (T1); Wednesday, December 22, 5:00 (T2)

The Aviator. 2004. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by John Logan. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale. Scorsese, master of American cinema, looks at the enigmatic and legendary Howard Hughes—a billionaire pilot, influential producer and director during Hollywood's Golden Age, and playboy who romanced Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Jean Harlow. 165 min.

Monday, December 13, 8:00. T1

Hotel Rwanda. 2004. South Africa/Great Britain/Italy. Directed by Terry George. Screenplay by Keir Pearson, George. With Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte. While outside powers failed to intervene in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, one sustained act of national heroism stood out: Paul Rusesabagina, the Hutu manager of a luxury hotel in Kingala, offered hundreds of Tutsis refuge, saving them from extermination. A true story, movingly told. 120 min.

Wednesday, December 15, 8:15 (T2) and 8:30 (T1)

Strangers When We Meet. 1960. USA. Directed by Richard Quine. Screenplay by Evan Hunter, based on his novel. With Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Walter Matthau. The portrait of a doomed love affair between an architect and a suburban housewife. Dismissed by critics on its release, Strangers is now recognized as one of Quine's finest pictures. Newly preserved by Sony Pictures Entertainment. 117 min.

Thursday, December 16, 5:00 (T2); Saturday, December 18, 3:00 (T1)

A Conversation with Harvey and Bob Weinstein

In celebration of Miramax's twenty-fifth anniversary, MoMA hosts filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in an onstage discussion with Co-Chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein. A reel of clips from films produced by Miramax and its division, Dimension, will be shown, followed by a new 35mm print of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992, USA). Released by Miramax, Tarantino's maverick first feature, a pitch-black and brutal existential comedy about a caper gone wrong, so reinvigorated the gangster film with its time-shift plotting, explosive and fluid action, and foul-mouthed, intelligent dialogue that it virtually established its own genre. Program 175 min. Thursday, December 16, 7:30. T1

Kings of the Sky. 2004. USA. Directed by Deborah Stratman. A gripping documentary about the daring and dangerous tradition of tightrope walking practiced by a circus troupe in India. 68 min.

Friday, December 17, 5:00; Saturday, December 18, 5:30 (introduced by Stratman). T2

British Advertising Broadcast Awards 2004: Award-Winning British Commercials. This twenty-second edition of the annual series presents approximately 100 British commercials made in 2003 for television and cinema, selected for excellence in various product categories by British advertising professionals. 77 min.

Friday, December 17, 6:15. T1; Monday, December 20, 5:00. T2

The Floorwalker. 1916. USA. The Cure. 1917. USA. Both written and directed by Charles Chaplin.With Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell. Tillie's Punctured Romance. 1914. USA. Directed by Mack Sennett.With Marie Dressler, Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand. The UCLA Film and Television Archive's definitive restoration of the world's first feature-length comedy, now nine minutes longer than any previously available version, is paired with MoMA's own recent restoration of two short films made by Chaplin for Mutual. Program approx. 130 min. Silent.

Friday, December 17, 8:30 (with piano accompaniment by Ben Model); Sunday, December 26, 2:00 (with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman). T1

The Next Generation. 2004. Germany. Nine short films—fiction, documentary, and animation—by graduates of eight German film schools: AnnaOttoAnna (Clemens Pinchler); Annie & Boo (Johannes Weiland); Business as Usual (Tom Zenker); Himmelfahrt (Ulrike Grote); Himmelfilm: How Were the Skies Like When You Were Young (Jiska Rikels); Me, Myself and the Universe (Hajo Schomerus); Driving Volkswagen (Sebastien Poerschke); Lucia (Felix Goennert); and Neon Eyes (Thomas Gerhold, Markus Wambsganss). Program 96 min.

Saturday, December 18, 2:30; Wednesday, December 29, 8:30. T2

Vai e vem (Come and Go). 2003. Portugal/France. Written and directed by João César Monteiro.With Monteiro, Rita Pereira Marques, Joaquina Chicau. In the late Portuguese master's last film, Monteiro plays his otherworldly self—a reclusive widower in Lisbon whose pleasures of the body and spirit include lessons on the art of Chinese fellatio, dialectical encounters with lazy housekeepers, and a daily ride on local bus #100. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 179 min.

Saturday, December 18, 7:00. T1

Pourquoi (pas) le Brésil. 2004. France. Written and directed by Laetitia Masson.With Elsa Zylberstein, Marc Barbé, Bernard Lecoq. Fiction and reality blur when Masson tries bring an unadaptable novel to the screen. Zylberstein plays the dual role of director Masson and novelist Christine Angot, and producer Alain Sarde, actor Daniel Auteuil, and Masson and Angot themselves make cameo appearances. In French, English subtitles. 92 min.

Sunday, December 19, 2:00 (introduced by Masson); Wednesday, December 22, 6:00. T1

The Uncles. 2004. Great Britain. Directed by Tacita Dean. A British artist renowned for her photographs and 16mm film installations, Dean is related by birth and marriage to two of Great Britain's most important cinema pioneers, Basil Dean and Michael Balcon, who ran the celebrated film studio Ealing. In late 2003, Dean filmed her uncles—Dean's eldest son Winton and Balcon's only son Jonathan—as they discussed film and family with MoMA Senior Curator Laurence Kardish. 77 min.

Sunday, December 19, 2:30; Thursday, December 23, 8:30. T2

Rêve de Cheval. 2004. France. Directed by Ariane Michel. In this mythical scenario, a wild Prezwalski horse is enclosed in pen with domesticated horses. 10 min.

Themes. 2004. USA. Directed by Dan Boord, Luis Valdovino. This ironic fantasy the future centers on the globalization of historical theme parks. 29 min.

Love. 2003. Australia/USA. Directed by Tracey Moffatt. Male and female icons battle it out in this charged montage of Hollywood movie scenes. 21 min.

Placebo. 2002. Great Britain. Directed by Saskia Olde Wolbers. Olde Wolbers's mysterious images unfold as a woman describes how her lover suffers from pseudologia fantastica. 4 min.

Pictures from Dorothy. 2003. USA. Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson. A 16mm color film relating to The Wizard of Oz. 6 min. Program 70 min.

Sunday, December 19, 5:30 (introduced by Valdovino, Boord, Moffatt, Everson); Thursday, December 30, 8:30. T2

Gegen die Wand (Head-On). 2004. Germany. Written and directed by Fatih Akin.With Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck. A forty-year-old Turkish man who welcomes a violent end to his life falls in love with a vivacious twenty-year-old woman who sees suicide as the only escape from her devout Muslim family. Winner of the Golden Bear, 2004 Berlin International Film Festival. In German, Turkish, and English, English subtitles. 120 min.

Monday, December 20, 6:15; Wednesday, December 22, 8:15. T1

An Evening with Nancy Andrews

The Dreamless Sleep. 2004. USA. 31 min. Monkeys and Lumps. 2003. USA. 38 min. Mixing live action with stop-motion photography and puppetry, Maine-based filmmaker Andrews creates a singular and delirious universe. Program 69 min.

Monday, December 20, 8:30. T2

Two by Alexander Sokurov

Peterburgski dnevnik. Kvartira Kozintseva (The St. Petersburg Diary. Kozintsev's Flat). 1998. Russia. A soulful homage to the influential director Grigori Kozintsev, set in his apartment. In Russian, English subtitles. 47 min.

Peterburgski dnevnik. Motsart Rekviem (The St. Petersburg Diary. Mozart Requiem). 2004. Russia. Sokurov staged and then filmed Mozart's Requiem with the Rossica Choir in the magnificent hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, creating a new visual aesthetic for the music. In Russian, English subtitles. 70 min.

Monday, December 20, 8:45; Thursday, December 30, 6:00. T1

Een Sjtetl die niet meer Bestaat (A Sjtetl that Doesn't Exist Anymore). 2004. The Netherlands. Directed by Heddy Honigmann. Honigmann's Cook-docs are little pearls made for Dutch television in her inimitably intimate style. In this episode, the filmmaker's mother makes Polish vrennekes and relates how her family and hometown were devastated during World War II. In Spanish, English subtitles. 20 min.

Confliction/Homeland. 2004. USA. Directed by Mike Jarmon. A personal film essay about growing up American and German—the child of a GI and fräulein living in North Carolina. 84 min.

Wednesday, December 22, 8:00. T2

Sommersturm (Summer Storm). 2004. Germany. Directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner. With Robert Stadlober, Kostja Ullmann, Alicja Bachleda-Curus. The twenty-six-year-old director's lively second feature follows three provincial teenage friends—two boys and a girl—who discover that their opponents in a rowing competition will be a young gay team from Berlin. Passions are awkwardly expressed, loyalties tested, relationships rearranged, and lessons learned. In German, English subtitles. 98 min.

Thursday, December 23, 6:15. T1; Friday, December 24, 5:30. T2

Niceland. 2004. Iceland. Directed by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. Screenplay by Huldar Breidfjord. With Gary Lewis, Martin Compston, Gudrun Bjarnadottir. Two sweet, naïve youngsters fall in love and plan to get married and live a good, simple life. Suddenly Chloë withdraws, and Jed is convinced that if he brings her the meaning of life she will recover. A fable distinguished by beautiful performances and exquisite cinematography.
In English. 90 min.

Thursday, December 23, 8:30; Monday, December 27, 6:15. T1

Where the Sidewalk Ends. 1950. USA. Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Ben Hecht. With Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Karl Malden. When Andrews, a brutal cop with an obsessive interest in Tierney, accidentally kills a murder suspect during an interrogation, he tries to cover it up as a gangland slaying.World premiere of Twentieth Century Fox's newly preserved print. 95 min.
Sunday, December 26, 5:00. T1; Friday, December 31, 5:30. T2

Les Choristes (The Chorus). 2004. France. Directed by Christophe Barratier. Screenplay by Barratier, Philippe Lopes-Curval. With Gérard Jugnot, François Berleand, Jacques Perrin. MoMA kicks off the New Year with Barratier's enormously successful debut feature, a Miramax release and France's submission for Best Foreign-Language Feature. In 1949, at a rural dormitory school for recalcitrant boys, a mild-mannered teacher starts up a choral group to channel the boys' unruliness into song. In French, English subtitles. 95 min.

Saturday, January 1, 7:30; Thursday, January 6, 6:00. T1

L'Avventura. 1960. Italy. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Screenplay by Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra. With Monica Vitti, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lea Massari. A group of young, attractive, and emotionally alienated friends explore an island off the coast of Italy. When one of the women in their party mysteriously disappears, they begin a desperate search to find her. This newly preserved print is part of a continuing collaboration between the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and Mediaset, whose program Cinema Forever headlines the restoration of cherished classics of Italian cinema. In Italian, English subtitles. 138 min.

Saturday, January 1, 8:00. T2; Sunday, January 16, 5:00. T1

Ray Milland Presents an Important Message for All Americans. 1951. USA. 1 min. The Dark Mirror. 1946. USA. Directed by Robert Siodmak. Screenplay by Phyllis Loughton, Nunnally  Johnson, Vladimir Pozner. With Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell. A psychiatrist is summoned by the police to determine which of two identical twins has committed a murder. Siodmak, a master of the psychological thriller, uses tricks of German Expressionism—shadows, distortion, and mirror images—to render his characters "lost and confused in a world that seems to reward alienation and depression." 85 min. Sunday, January 2, 5:00. T1; Saturday, January 15, 8:30. T2

Een Sjtetl die niet meer bestaat (A Sjtetl That Doesn't Exist Anymore). 2004. The  Netherlands. Directed by Heddy Honigmann. In this Cook-doc, made for Dutch television, Honigmann's mother makes Polish vrennekes and relates how her family and hometown were devastated during World War II. In Dutch, English subtitles. 20 min.

Confliction/Homeland. 2004. USA. Directed by Mike Jarmon. A personal film essay about growing up the child of a GI and fräulein living in North Carolina. Archival footage, magazines, old movies, and more enter the frame to reveal a complex, multilayered exploration of historical subject and subjective history. 84 min.

Sunday, January 2, 5:00. T2

Sissy Boy Slap Party. 2004. Canada. Directed by Guy Maddin. Set to an African drumbeat, this hypnotically ridiculous short is as uniquely twisted as Maddin's celebrated features. 5 min.

Guard Dog. 2004. USA. Directed and animated by Bill Plympton. Maniacal wildflowers and homicidal squirrels lurk menacingly in this dog's-eye view of a walk in the park. 5 min.

Three by John Pilson. 2005. USA. In Axis, a woman answers arcane computer questions while dressing for a big night out. In Sports, two friends engage in pillow talk about the latest sporting news. And in Hic et Ubique, a woman's daily life is punctuated by the ubiquitous "beeps" of the modern world. 13 min.

Sombra Dolorosa. 2004. Canada. Directed by Guy Maddin. A crazy Mexican melodrama. 7 min.

Dogs Have No Hell. 2002. Finland. Directed by Aki Kaurismaki. With Kati Outinen, Markku Peltola. In this trademark Kaurismaki short, a man dreams of a hard-working life in the Siberian oilfields. In Finnish, English subtitles. 10 min.

Buoyant. 2003. USA. Directed by Julie Wyman. A troupe of overweight synchronized swimmers, the Greek mathematician Archimedes' obsession with floating bodies, and the "Drystroke Swimulator" tantalize us with the prospect of a fat body that literally, and culturally, rises like cream to the top. 27 min. Program 67 min.

Monday, January 3, 8:00 (introduced by Pilson, Wyman); Friday, January 21, 5:30 (introduced by Wyman). T2

Shin Heike Monogatari (New Tales of the Taira Clan). 1955. Japan. Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Screenplay by Yoshikata Yoda, Masashige Narusawa, Hisakazu Tsuji. With Raizo Ichikawa,Yoshiko Kuga. In this U.S. premiere of a new digital restoration, undertaken by the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in collaboration with Kodokawa Pictures, Inc., an audacious rebel comes to power against the backdrop of a struggle between soldier monks backed by the nobility and a rising Samurai class of warriors. In Japanese, English subtitles. 107 min.

Wednesday, January 5, 6:00; Sunday, January 9, 2:30. T1

The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation. 2004. USA. Directed by John Canemaker. With the voices of Eli Wallach and John Turturro. In Canemaker's candid and beautifully animated new film, constructed as an imagined conversation between a troubled father and his estranged son, the Academy- and Emmy-award-winning filmmaker interweaves childhood photographs and home movies withdiverse styles of hand-drawn animation. World premiere. 24 min.

I'm Bobby. 2004. India. Directed by Xav Leplae. A pastiche of Raj Kapoor's Bobby— Bollywood's scandalous answer to Romeo and Juliet—Leplae's short is a visually sophisticated delight. The film offers an embracing, irony-free rendition, with a mix of nonprofessional child actors (who wear false moustaches and lip-synch Kapoor's dialogue) and imaginative animated sequences to string it all together. 32 min.

Wednesday, January 5, 7:30 (introduced by Canemaker and Leplae); Saturday, January 8, 2:30 (introduced by Leplae). T2

Heaven. 2004. USA. Directed by Todd McCammon. A personal journey through the history of cinema, culminating in its earliest form. 1 min.

Projector. 2004. USA. Directed by Donna Cameron. Cameron takes a portrait of a 16mm Kodak projector and finds it a heroic source of light. 3 min.

With D.W. Griffith program.

Wednesday, January 5, 8:15. T1; Thursday, January 6, 5:00. T2 (both introduced by the directors)

Happy Rebirth. 2004. Germany. Directed by Bjørn Melhus. Melhus's blue-faced Smurf lip-synchs to Marilyn Monroe's cooing rendition of "Happy Birthday" to John F. Kennedy. 1 min.

Hollywoodschnee (Hollywood Snow). 2004. Germany. Directed by Christian Jankowski. In this wickedly perverse video, various members of the German media risk life and limb in their search for transcendent meaning. 12 min.

16mm Mystery. 2004. USA/Germany. Directed by The Brothers Strause. German artist Christian Jankowski collaborated with the special effects wizards of The Day after Tomorrow on this short film, which perhaps explains why it packs in more action than most two-hour features. 3 min.

Body Double 4. 1996. France. Directed by Brice  Dellsperger. Dellsperger has confounded audiences with his Body Double video projects, in which a performer plays all the roles in famous film scenes; here the artist himself plays Donna Summer playing Janet Leigh playing Marion Crane. 12 min.

The Shoe and the Umbrella. 2004. USA. Directed by Greg Smith. Smith's protagonist constructs a "shoeclock"—a clock attached to a lowly shoe—which he wears in the New York subways. 7 min.

The Simpson Verdict. 2002. USA. Directed by Kota Ezawa. In this stylized animation, O. J. Simpson and his lawyers await the verdict of the "Trial of the Century." 3 min.

Body Code. 2003. Australia. Directed by Drew Berry. DNA threads and cell division are animated to illustrate the molecular workings of the human body. 8 min.

Now Promise Now Threat. 2004. USA. Directed by Paul Chan. In this visual manifesto for the twenty-first century, Chan uses digital video that a computer has "accidentally mistranslated" and transformed into images of undulating color. 30 min. Program 76 min.

Thursday, January 6, 7:30 (introduced by Jankowski, Smith, Chan); Sunday, January 23, 2:30. T2

Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows). 2004. Japan. Written and directed by Kore-eda  Hirokazu. With Yuya Yagira, Ayu Kitaura, Hiei Kimura. A director of uncommon intelligence and courage, Kore-eda based his latest fiction film on the notorious true story of four young siblings, born to different fathers, who were deserted by their mother and left to fend for themselves. That Hirokazu could transform this harrowing tale into one of innocence and grace is largely due to his child actors, particularly Yagira, who won the top acting prize at the 2004 Cannes Festival. In Japanese, English subtitles. 141 min. Thursday, January 6, 8:30. T1

Walk of Three Chairs. 2003. Serbia/Montenegro/Great Britain. Directed by Breda Beban. This precarious yet celebratory performance by Beban and a troupe of musicians takes place on a raft floating along the Danube. 10 min.

The Boat. 2004. USA. Directed by David Dixon. A fantastical yet real story about a "Viking" funeral held in New Orleans during Mardi Gras for a young mother who has died of cancer. 26 min.

Nothing Ventured. 2004. Germany. Directed by Harun Farocki. The essential paradox of venture capital: banks only lend money against collateral, and entrepreneurs who lack backers must pay hefty fees to venture-capital firms. Farocki documents a single negotiation running over two days that concludes unexpectedly. In German, English subtitles. 52 min. Program 88 min.

Friday, January 7, 5:00 (introduced by Dixon); Wednesday, January 12, 8:30. T2

Spione (Spies). 1928. Germany. Directed by Fritz Lang. Screenplay by Lang and Thea von Harbou. With Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Willy Fritsch, Gerda Maurus. A master spy who doubles as a banker is relentlessly pursued by government agents. Despite his skilled network of agents and female accomplices, he is finally unmasked. This 2004 restoration, completed by the Friedrich-Wilhelm–Murnau-Stiftung, combines nitrate elements from four FIAF archives—Narodní Filmov´y Archiv, Filmarchiv Austria, ScreenSound Australia, and Cinémathèque française—to create the most complete version seen since its initial release. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model (January 7) and John Spurney (January 8). German intertitles, simultaneous English translation. Approx. 145 min.

Friday, January 7, 5:45; Saturday, January 8, 2:00. T1

Timbuktu. 2003. Ireland. Directed by Alan Gilsenan. With Eva Birthistle, Karl Geary, George Jackos. An Irish monk is reported abducted in Algeria, and his sister struggles to bring him back home. The rescue mission takes the form of an existential travelogue as the sister, a family friend, and a volatile  guide traverse the North African desert on a voyage of selfdiscovery. 93 min.

Friday, January 7, 8:00; Sunday, January 9, 5:00. T2

Sucker Free City. 2004. USA. Directed by Spike Lee. Screenplay by Alex Tse. With Ben Crowley, Ken Leung, Anthony Mackie. Made for broadcast on the Showtime network and shot with great verve on HDCAM, this gritty and authentic exploration of the constant social drain on changing neighborhoods in San Francisco shows Lee in top form. Lee was able to work on a broad multicultural canvas while maintaining dramatic tension through scenes of great emotional impact. 116 min.

Friday, January 7, 8:30 (introduced by the director). T1

Command Z. 2004. USA. Directed by Candy Kugel, Vincent Cafarelli. Design by Lee Lozano. Another charming animated film from New York's Buzzco studio. What if the "undo" computer command could solve all of life's problems? 5 min. Screened with Strictly Ballroom.

Saturday, January 8, 5:00; Wednesday, January 12, 8:00. T1

Tous les blancs sont des Français (All White People Are French). 2004. Germany. Directed by Katja Straub. A powerful film that layers images of Berlin's former prison for asylum seekers with the equally haunting narration of an African refugee in Germany. 12 min.

Good Morning YOKOHAMA. 2003. Japan. Directed by Satoshi Ono. Ono's video captures the bustling port city of Yokohama, with images of commuter trains bursting with people during rush hour. 12 min.

A House Is Not a Home. 2005. USA. Directed by Travis Preston, Lewis Klahr. Klahr, an experimental filmmaker and master collagist, and Preston, an acclaimed stage and opera director, shot this quasi-improvised psychodrama in Los Angeles in a single day, using 1940s trance films as their jumping-off point. 15 min.

Britton, South Dakota. 2004. USA. Directed by Vanessa Renwick. Renwick selected a haunting group of cinematic snapshots of children from the Prelinger Archives to fashion an eerie parade of tentative looks and confused faces. 8 min.

World Contact. 2004. USA. Directed by Joshua Thorson. A man externalizes his obsessions, hoping to convince a group of scientists that aliens communicate for world peace via telepathy. Based on real events. 14 min.

All About a Girl. 2004. USA. Directed by Cecelia Condit. In a small, wild corner of her backyard, a young girl tries to balance the real world with that of her imagination. 5 min.

What I'm Looking For. 2004. USA. Directed by Shelly Silver. Made up entirely of digital still images and taking place on the Internet and in various public spaces, this high-definition video narrates a strange adventure about the nature of photography, the desire

to stop time, and what it means for a woman to photograph men. 20 min. Program 86 min.

Saturday, January 8, 5:00 (introduced by Straub, Renwick, Thorson, Silver); Saturday, January 22, 2:00. T2

Chain. 2004. USA. Written and directed by Jem Cohen. With Miho Nikaido, Mira Billotte. The subject of a MoMA retrospective in 2004, Cohen is known for his illuminating portraits of underground musicians, gorgeously rendered cityscapes, R.E.M. music videos, and quietly subversive political films. Filmed over seven years in dozens of locations across the globe, his ambitious Chain joins together a disquietingly homogenized "superlandscape" of malls, theme parks, hotels, and corporate centers that circumscribe the lives of two women. 99 min.

Saturday, January 8, 7:30. T1; Saturday, January 15, 5:30. T2 (both introduced by the director)

Ce qu'il reste de nous (What Remains of Us). 2004. Canada. Directed by François Prevost, Hugo Latulippe. A young Tibetan woman smuggled a digital camera and video player into Tibet to record this deeply moving portrait of life under Chinese occupation between 1996 and 2004. When groups gather in herders' tents, remote monasteries, private houses, and hidden rooms in Lhasa to watch the Dalai Lama's first message inside Tibet since China invaded the country in 1950, their responses are unforgettable. In English and French, English subtitles. 84 min.

Saturday, January 8, 8:00 (introduced by the directors). T2

The Illustrated Mum. 2003. Great Britain. Directed by Cilla Ware. Screenplay by Debbie Isitt, based on the novel by Jacqueline Wilson. With Michelle Collins, Alice Connor, Holly Grainger. Dolphin and her older sister Star know that their mother is different. But it is just that difference—the magic and wonder that Marigold brings to life, along with her gloriously colored tattoos—that makes her unique. This screening is also part of Watch This! Films for Tweens, part of Ford Family Programs at MoMA. 101 min.

Sunday, January 9, 11:30. T2

Testimony. 2004. USA. Directed by Kara Walker. Silhouetted cut-paper characters engage in a danse macabre of racial and sexual violation. 7 min.

White Cons. 2003. USA. Directed by Aaron Young. Young unsettles his audience by violently kicking a camera along snow-covered ground. 4 min.

One Bed Room. 2004. Japan/USA. Directed by Koki Tanaka. A bizarre late-night vision, centering on a simple floor lamp. 1 min.

Vapor Drama. 2004. USA. Directed by Janie Geiser. "A disembodied woman wanders, trancelike, through an impossible landscape of paper-thin buildings. At times, through many generations of rephotography, [the performer] appears to disappear, willingly, into the fabric of cinematic space" (Geiser). 7 min.

Every Wandering Cloud. 2004. USA. Directed by Tom Kalin. Oscar Wilde and Eadweard Muybridge come together in this hand-drawn, idiosyncratic reverie that brings frozen images back to life. 8 min.

Double Dummy. 2004. Great Britain. Directed by Jennet Thomas. A visual poem about love and symmetry with four Dummies, two cats, a hair ball, and a mess of string. 7 min.

Seven Chinese Intellectuals, part 2. 2004. China. Directed by Yang Fudong. In this contemporary version of a traditional tale, seven intellectuals retreat to a 1920s-style Shanghai apartment, where sensual pleasures are mixed with pain. 45 min. Program 79 min.

Sunday, January 9, 2:00 (introduced by Walker, Kalin); Monday, January 31,5:30. T2

Histoire(s) du cinéma. 1998. France/Switzerland. Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. A magisterial work: Godard uses video technology to rephotograph shots and sequences from cinema history, which he then layers with printed text, personal narration, and music to comment upon the twentieth century and its cataclysms. In French, English subtitles.

Monday, January 10, 5:30: Chapters 1(a) Toutes les histoires and 1(b) Une Histoire seule (94 min.); Monday, January 10, 7:30: Chapters 2(a) Seul le cinéma and 2(b) Fatale beauté (54 min.); Thursday, January 13, 6:00: Chapters 3(a) La Monnaie de l'absolu and 3(b) Une Vague Nouvelle (53 min.); Thursday, January 13, 7:30: Chapters 4(a) Le Côntrole de l'univers and 4(b) Les Signes parmi nous (61 min.). Sunday, January 16, 2:00: In its entirety, with one intermission (4 hours 20 min.). T2

Stan Brakhage and Company

Little-known work by premier abstract filmmaker Stan Brakhage, presented by legendary "Gadfly" collaborators Stan Phillips, James Tenney, and Janice Albert. With acclaimed pianist Jenny Lin.

Interim Talking Heads. 2004. USA. 3 min.

Colorado Legend (excerpt). 1961. USA. Directed by Phillips. 3 min.

Ballad of the Colorado Ute (excerpt). 1963. USA. Written and directed by Phillips. Sponsored works; photography and pictorial continuity by Brakhage. 15 min.

In  Between. 1955. USA. Directed by Brakhage. A Surrealist nightmare. Tenney performs score by John Cage. 10 min.

Interim. 1952. USA. Directed by Brakhage. Drama of adolescent love. Lin performs score by Tenney. 25 min. Program 85 min.

Monday, January 10, 6:15. T1

Die Andere Frau (The Other Woman/Fucking for the Fatherland). 2004. Germany. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. Screenplay by Pamela Katz. With Barbara Sukowa, Barbara Auer, Stefan Kurt. In von Trotta's steely revenge melodrama, set after German reunification, a woman who worked for the West German government and who was seduced into giving state secrets to an East German agent masquerading as an international peace worker is now a prisoner. She writes an insinuating letter to another woman, a stranger in a contented marriage. In German, English subtitles. 90 min.

Wednesday, January 12, 6:00; Saturday, January 15, 2:00. T1

Grand Luncheonette. 2004. USA. Directed by Peter Sillen. "The closing of one of Times Square's unforgettable lunch counters—Fred Hakim's Forty-second Street hot dog stand—marks the final phase of the much-publicized gentrification of the area" (Sillen). 5 min.

I Like Killing Flies. 2003. USA. Directed by Matt Mahurin. This film portrait of the familyowned restaurant Shopsin's brims with energy and irreverence, capturing the genuine New York character of a neighborhood landmark. While cooking up a variety of wild dishes, chef Kenny talks bluntly about everything from food and sex to politics and a city in transition, contemplating the future of the thirty-five-year-old institution as it is forced to relocate. 80 min.

Friday, January 14, 5:00 (introduced by Sillen, Mahurin); Thursday, January 20, 7:30 (introduced by Mahurin). T2

Outerborough. 2005. USA. Directed by Bill Morrison. Made expressly for Premieres, Outerborough explores the narrative power of reframing images from vintage films. Redeploying footage from Across Brooklyn Bridge (1899), Morrison commemorates the iconic nineteenth-century structure through twenty-first-century artistic reconsideration. 10 min.

Hämnaren. 1915. Sweden. Directed by Mauritz Stiller. With John Ekman, Richard Lund, Edith Erastoff. Svensk Filminstitutet has discovered a nearly complete print of Stiller's oldest surviving work, a dark and tensely paced melodrama about a young student who abandons a Jewish girl and their illegitimate child on his way to becoming a priest. Approx. 44 min.

Der Mandarin (The Mandarin). 1918. Austria. Directed by Fritz Freisler. With Harry Walden, Karl Götz, Gretel Ruth. While visiting a mental institution, a novelist meets the "Baron," who recounts the circumstances that led him from privilege to mental collapse. Hämnaren and The Mandarin silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model (January 14) and John Spurney (January 16). Swedish and Italian intertitles, respectively. English synopses provided. Approx. 60 min. Program approx. 114 min.

Friday, January 14, 7:30 (introduced by Morrison) (T2); Sunday, January 16, 2:00 (T1)

Yoko Ono: New Work

Throughout her long and productive career, Ono has broken down traditional boundaries and fractured entrenched narrative structures. An accomplished visual artist, poet, and composer with a lively interdisciplinary practice, Ono moves freely between performance, music, film, and now all things digital. At home both on the experimental fringes and in the mainstream, this pioneer of Conceptual art presents her latest work, Onochord (2005). 90 min.

Friday, January 14, 8:00. T1

Close Quarters. 2004. USA. Directed by Jim Jennings. New York–based experimental filmmaker Jennings, known for his gorgeously photographed black-and-white portraits of urban life, turns to a more intimate setting: the home he calls a "sanctuary. A place of relationships. A place where sleep happens." 7 min.

Lawn. 2004. USA. Directed by Monteith McCollum. Using time-lapse, stop-motion, long takes, and traditional animation, this exceptionally beautiful film collage layers

stories and music to enhance its exploration of lawn as a reflection of character. 12 min.

The Birdpeople. 2004. USA. Directed by Michael Gitlin. Several threads involving birds and bird-watching are woven together to create an evocative tapestry that is part cultural history, part self-reflexive anthropology. The images of birds, optically printed from Kodachrome Super-8, form a counterpoint to the portraits of the bird-watchers, shot on 16mm film, adding texture to this poetic work. 61 min. Program 80 min.

Saturday, January 15, 2:30 (introduced by Jennings, Gitlin); Thursday, January 20, 5:00. T2

Tea. 2005. The Netherlands. Directed by Frank Scheffer. This stunning film follows the Amsterdam rehearsals of Chinese composer Tan Dun's Tea-Opera and its 2002 world premiere in Tokyo, intercut with a Japanese tea ceremony and images of the cultivation of tea in China inspired by old Chinese painting. Scheffer, who is also the video designer of Tea-Opera, uses images of water, fire, earth, and wind as a visual bridge between culture and nature and East and West in this sophisticated work. In Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, English, English subtitles. 90 min.

Saturday, January 15, 8:00 (introduced by the director, preceded by a performance produced by Tan). T1; Monday, January 17, 5:00. T2