Documentary Fortnight Expanded
February 9–March 13, 2006

This monthlong showcase of contemporary nonfiction film and video reveals a rich variety of styles and subjects. It features new films by recognized masters like Robert Drew, a pioneer of cinema vérité, and Barbara Hammer, whose groundbreaking work combines documentary and avant-garde styles. The fourteen short works from Third World Newsreel production workshops display a refreshingly youthful dedication that invigorates the documentary form. One major theme of this year’s program is the conflict in Iraq, which courageous filmmakers have been risking their lives to document. Similarly, nonfiction films from Latin America reveal the difficulties that filmmakers and their subjects face when making a film. Violence is an urgent topic in this exhibition. So too are immigration, women’s and gay rights, and poverty. Some films in Documentary Fortnight Expanded examine alternative lifestyles; others explore new styles of the nonfiction visual essay form. Many of the directors will present their screenings, give first-hand reports of their experiences, and discuss the challenges of making documentaries.

A new release by Cinema Tropical, Natalia Almada’s Al Otro Lado (The Other Side), is given a special weeklong run at MoMA.

Organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, and William Sloan, Department of Film and Media.

The Tenth Planet, A Single Life in Baghdad. 2004. USA/Iraq/ Turkey. Directed by Melis Birder. "I am Kawkab [Arab for planet]. There are nine planets and I am the tenth." A secretary talks about everyday life as a single woman in Baghdad. In English and Arabic, English subtitles. 38 min. New York premiere.
Terror. 2005. USA. Featuring work directed by Dorothea Braemer, Connie Coleman, Matt Concannon, Meg Knowles, Michael Kuetemeyer, Carl Lee, Brian Milbrand, Alan Powell, Stephanie Rodden, Anula Shetty, Shashwathi Talukdar, and Ken Winnikur: Termite TV Collective. This artist/activist media group makes visual essays about the Iraq war, exploring the use of video war-games as a high school recruiting ploy and incidents of torture used in information gathering. 29 min.
Thursday, February 9, 6:00 (introduced by Birder and the Termite TV Collective). T1; Saturday, March 11, 4:00 (introduced by Termite TV Collective). T2

The Liberace of Baghdad. 2004. Great Britain. Directed by Sean McAllister. Samir Peter, once Iraq’s most famous concert pianist, now plays in a bar in a fortified Baghdad hotel. Violence escalates, and kidnapping is frequent. Samir must decide whether to move to the United States for what he calls "one last adventure in life." In English and Arabic, English subtitles. 72 min.
Thursday, February 9, 8:00 (introduced by McAllister); Saturday, February 11, 2:00. T1

Night Vision. 2005. USA. Directed by Alfred Guzzetti. This experimental vision depicts an apocalyptic landscape. 2 min.
Les Femmes du Mont Ararat (The Women of Mount Ararat). 2004. France. Directed by Erwann Briand. In this astonishing portrait of strong-minded Middle Eastern resistance fighters, Kurdish women guerillas create their own unit on the Iraqi/Turkish border. In French, English subtitles. 86 min. New York premiere.
Friday, February 10, 5:00. T1

Passers-by. 2004. The Netherlands. Directed by Jos de Putter. This poetic essay depicts conversations in bus shelters. 7 min. U.S. premiere.
One Track Mind. 2005. USA. Directed by Jeremy Workman. A man obsessed with New York City subway mosaics searches them out and records his discoveries. 30 min.
ParaUniVersesVersesVerses. 2003. USA. Directed by Phyllis Baldino. Seven "multi-universes" simultaneously occur in this single-channel version of an installation exploring parallel universes. 8 min.
River of Time. 2003. Denmark. Directed by Robert Fox. A portrait of Professor Igor Novikov, a world-renowned astrophysicist from Denmark who has developed theories of time travel. 30 min.
Program 75 min.
Saturday, February 11, 4:00 (introduced by Workman, Baldino, and Fox). T1

Animated Minds. 2004. Great Britain. Directed by Andy Glynne. Animations depict the experience of panic attacks, psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and manic
depression. 12 min. New York premiere.
Dumnezeula saxofon, draci la vioara (God Plays Sax, the Devil Violin). 2004. Romania/Germany. Directed by Alexandra Gulea. Inside a Romanian psychiatric institution, patients form a closed community for lack of therapy and work. Shot with vérité scenes, the story is edited as an essay. 43 min. U.S. premiere.
Sunday, February 12, 1:00. T1

The Texture of Life. 2003. USA. Directed by Ray and Judy Schmitt. A portrait of two elderly, self-sufficient West Virginian Mennonite sisters who farm and create museum-quality weavings. 28 min.
Poumy. 2005. France. Directed by Sam Ball. The French resistance during World War II is examined through the eyes of a magnetic woman who faced her wartime assignments and child-rearing with great courage. In French, English subtitles. 30 min.
Sunday, February 12, 3:00 (introduced by R. and J. Schmidt, Ball). T1; Saturday, March 11, 8:00 (introduced by R. and J. Schmidt). T2

From Two Men and a War. 2004. USA. Directed by Robert Drew. The filmmaker recounts his experiences as a World War II fighter pilot, when he was shot down near Cassino, Italy, and spent months behind enemy lines. Drew later pioneered the development of cinema vérité. 60 min.
Sunday, February 12, 5:00 (introduced by Drew). T1

Oh, uomo (Oh, Man). 2004. Italy. Directed by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi. Oh, Man concludes the experimental filmmakers’ pacifist trilogy on World War I (starting with Prisoners of War [1995] and On the Heights All Is Peace [1998]). Rare archival footage is reworked to interpret the consequences of physical suffering and violence during wartime. 71 min.
Monday, February 13, 8:00; Saturday, February 18, 2:00 (introduced by Gianikian, Ricci Lucchi). T1

Melancholin 3 huonetta (Three Rooms of Melancholia). 2004. Finland. Directed by Pirjo Honajsolo. A poetic study of the effects of the war in Chechnya on children on both sides of the conflict, in St. Petersburg and Grozny. Harrowing and painfully beautiful. In Finnish, English subtitles. 106 min.
Wednesday, February 15, 6:00. T1

Song’s Inn. 2004. China. Directed by Yang Yun. China’s Three Gorges Dam, one of the largest dam projects in history, is scheduled to be completed by 2009. In the meantime, many villages will be flooded to accommodate its construction. This documentary reveals the effects of the dam on townspeople living in a soon-to-be-destroyed Chinese village. 52 min. U.S. premiere.
Thursday, February 16, 8:30 (introduced by Yang and Somi Roy, independent curator); Sunday, February 19, 2:00 (introduced by Yang). T1

Moving Forward. 2005. USA. Directed by Karen Zider. Three women in Colombia receive micro-loans to finance their small businesses, thereby becoming economically empowered. In English and Spanish, English subtitles. 27 min. New York premiere.
Yo soy Alcántara (I Am Alcántara). 2004. Mexico. Directed by Gisela Sanders Alcántara. An exploration of the dynamics of a family scattered throughout Mexico City. In Spanish, English subtitles. 32 min. Copresented by Cinema Tropical.
Tropico de Cancer (Tropic of Cancer). 2004. Mexico. Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky. Survival in the arid desert of Potosi, Mexico, depends on trapping and selling wild animals and birds. In Spanish, English subtitles. 52 min. Copresented by Cinema Tropical.
Friday, February 17, 6:00 (introduced by Zider, Alcántara). T1; March 4, 8:00. T2

La Sierra. 2005. USA. Directed by Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez. A searing exploration of three young (violent) lives in Medellín, Colombia, where guerillas and the paramilitary are engaged in an ongoing war. In Spanish and English, English subtitles. 84 min.
Friday, February 17, 8:30 (copresented with Cinema Tropical and followed by panel discussion co-organized with Columbia University School of Journalism). T1

What Is Gay? 2005. USA. Directed by Jacqui Frost. Children of gay and lesbian parents insightfully and movingly discuss what the term gay means to them. 25 min. New York premiere.
Bachelor Farmer. 2005. USA. Directed by Michael Culpepper and Nikki Draper. Gay men from a small Idaho town negotiate rural living in this examination of outsider status. 58 min.
Saturday, February 18, 4:00 (introduced by Frost, Culpepper and Draper). T1; Saturday, March 11, 6:00. T2

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 1. 1968. USA. Directed by William Greaves. This movie-within-a-movie explores the creative side of the filmmaking process. The director films an arguing married couple while the crew candidly analyzes the director’s style. The use of scripted scenes, cinema vérité, and split screens reveals multiple levels of filmmaking and reality, documentary and dramatic techniques. 75 min.
Saturday, February 18, 6:00 (introduced by Greaves). T1

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 21/2. 2005. USA. Directed by William Greaves. This experimental hybrid film continues to probe the fiction/documentary divide Greaves developed with the actors and crew of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 1 thirty-five years earlier. The now-middle-aged couple tries to reconcile, the crew rebels, and conflict and chaos mount. 99 min.
Saturday, February 18, 8:00 (introduced by Greaves). T1

The Devil’s Miner. 2004. USA. Directed by Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani. A fourteen-year-old Bolivian silver miner works twenty-four-hour shifts in order to support his family. Although he and his family worship God, they also believe that the mine is the domain of the devil Tio, whom they venerate with effigies and sacrifices. In Spanish, English subtitles. 82 min. Copresented by Cinema Tropical.
Sunday, February 19, 2:00. T2

In Whose Name. 2004. India/USA. Directed by Nandini Sikand. A co-opting of icons for political agendas using comic books, Bollywood films, and poster art. 11 min.
Cesky sen (Czech Dream). 2004. Czech Republic. Directed by Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda. A promotional campaign staged for the opening of a fictitious supermarket. This
hilarious and disturbing performance-action-turned-film comments on consumerism, advertising, and the gullibility of the public. In Czech, English subtitles. 93 min.
Sunday, February 19, 4:00 (introduced by Sikand). T1

Third World Newsreel: Call for Change [part 1]. 2005. USA. The activist media group Third World Newsreel has produced a series of shorts on national issues and on New York City’s communities of color. The program includes Rising Up: The Alams, on the issue of Muslim immigration; Saj: Muslim in America, on a Muslim woman living in New York; Dastar: Defending Sikh Identity, on job discrimination against Sikhs; Among the First to Die, on Guatamalan immigrants in the Marines; Just Ralph, on a Palestinian immigrant; and Work and Respect, on organizing domestic workers. Program 69 min. New York premiere.
Monday, February 20, 6:00 (introduced by Dorothy Thigpen, Director, Third World Newsreel, and by the directors). T1

Third World Newsreel: Call for Change [part 2]. 2005. USA. Untold Legacy, on reparations for slavery; Latino Poets Speak Out, a series of performance pieces; Fulton and Franklin, on police bag searches; Voices in the Street, on security at the Republican National Convention; Military Option, on the military recruitment of high schoolers; Military Promises, on mental health in the military; She Rhymes Like a Girl, on Black women rappers; Walking with FUREE, on demonstrations by Welfare recipients. 75 min. New York premiere.
Monday, February 20, 8:30 (introduced by Dorothy Thigpen, Director, Third World Newsreel, and the directors). T1

Commune. 2005. USA. Directed by Jonathan Berman. The Black Bear Ranch in northern California, a utopian community founded in 1968, is a successful experiment in free love and common property. Its story provides a revealing look at basic assumptions about family, work, child rearing, the role of women, and the nature of relationships. 78 min. New York premiere.
Wednesday, February 22, 6:00. T1

Rampage. 2005. Australia. Directed by George Gittoes. A depressed area of Miami is dominated by gangs, drugs, AK-47s, and "gangsta" rap. Rampage focuses on three
brothers: a fighter, a poet, and a rap performer. As the fighter is gunned down, the fourteen-year-old rapper strives to win a recording contract. 118 min. New York premiere.
Wednesday, February 22, 8:00 (introduced by Gittoes). T1; Sunday, February 26, 3:00. T2

Neue Welt (New World). 2005. Austria. Directed by Paul Rosdy. A montage of scenes of the old and new worlds of Central Europe, once the Austro-Hungarian Empire, incorporating collages, anecdotes, legends, old guidebooks, newspaper clippings, archival footage, current photographs. In English and other languages, English subtitles. 100 min. U.S. premiere.
Thursday, February 23, 8:00 (introduced by Rosdy). T1; Saturday, February 25, 6:30. T2

Lover Other. 2006. USA. Directed by Barbara Hammer. During World War II, two Surrealist artists, lesbian half-sisters, leave Paris for the Isle of Jersey. Together they make advanced, gender-bending photographs and art and carry out creative resistance activities during the German occupation, narrowly escaping execution. In English, French, and German, English subtitles. 55 min.
Friday, February 24, 8:15 (introduced by Hammer). T2

The Tailenders. 2005. USA. Directed by Adele Horne. Filmed in the Solomon Islands, Mexico, India, and the United States, The Tailenders explores the connections between missionary activity and global capitalism. A missionary organization founded in 1939 uses low-tech audio devices to evangelize indigenous communities facing crises caused by global economic forces. This documentary explores how the messages and media introduced by the missionaries into remote communities play a role in larger socioeconomic transformations, and how meaning changes as it crosses language and culture. 72 min. New York premiere.
Saturday, February 25, 4:00 (introduced by Horne); Sunday March 12, 2:00 (Horne present). T2

Sentenced Home. 2005. USA. Directed by David Grabias and Nicole Newnham. Raised as Americans in inner-city projects near Seattle, three Cambodian men who made rash decisions as teenagers are deported back to Cambodia years later. 76 min. New York premiere.
Rosevelt’s America: A Refugee’s Inspiring Journey. 2005. USA. Directed by Roger Weisberg and Tod Lending. Rosevelt escapes civil war in Liberia, reunites his family in Chicago, and achieves prosperity and freedom. 30 min.
Saturday, February 25, 8:15 (introduced by Grabias and Newnham, Weisberg and Lending); Friday, March 3, 8:00. T2

Traffic. 2005. USA. Directed by Perry Bard. New York City street peddlers sell counterfeit goods under the watchful eyes of the police. 5 min.
The Ballad of Greenwich Village. 2005. USA. Directed by Karen Kramer. This valentine to New York’s Bohemian community covers art movements, jazz clubs, gay liberation, folk music, hippie lifestyles, and writers. 70 min.
Sunday, February 26, 5:30 (introduced by Bard, Kramer). T2

MediaScope: Ricardo Nicolayevsky: Portraits 1982-2005. 2005. Mexico. Artist presents experimental documentary portraits. See MediaScope 2006 for details. Program 90 min.
Monday, February 27, 8:30 (introduced by Nicolayevsky). T2

Al Otro Lado (The Other Side). 2005. Mexico/USA. Directed by Natalia Almada. For many in Sinaloa, a coastal Mexican fishing state, the way out of poverty is in drug trafficking or illegal immigration. Others, like young Magdiel, strive to escape poverty by singing popular corridos, ballads about the lives of outlaws and smugglers. In English and Spanish, English subtitles. 66 min.

Wednesday March 1, 8:30 (introduced by Almada); Thursday, March 2, 6:00; Friday, March 3, 6:00; Saturday, March 4, 6:00; Sunday, March 5, 4:00; Monday, March 6, 6:00; Wednesday, March 8, 8:30. T2

A Model for Matisse: The Story of the Vence Chapel. 2005. USA/France. Directed by Barbara Freed. A French Dominican nun and the legendary twentieth-century artist Henri Matisse worked together on his Chapelle du Rosaire (Chapel of the Rosary) in the French village of Vence. This film tells the story of their little-known friendship. In French, English subtitles. 66 min.

Sunday, March 5, 6:00; Monday, March 13, 8:30 (introduced by Freed). T2

Original Child Bomb. 2004. USA. Directed by Carey McKenzie (formerly Schonegevel). Meditations on the human cost of the atomic age are based on Thomas Merton’s poem “Original Child Bomb” (after the Japanese name for the nuclear bomb). Declassified footage, photographs, animated drawings, and testimonies describe the 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as their aftermath. This film offers a new interpretation of these catastrophic events. 57 min.

Thursday, March 9, 6:00 (introduced by McKenzie); Sunday, March 12, 4:00. T2

Land Mines: A Love Story. 2005. Australia. Directed by Dennis O’Rourke. Shah, a former Mujahideen soldier, and Habiba, a young Afghan woman injured by a land mine following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, overcome the obstacles of religion and tra dition in their search for love. Filmed against the backdrop of the United States 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, this work celebrates life while exposing the human costs of war. 73 min.

Thursday, March 9, 8:00; Friday, March 10, 8:00. T2

God Sleeps in Rwanda. 2005. USA. Directed by Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Hutus killed over 800,000 Tutsis, leaving the country seventy percent female. This film tracks the lives of five women survivors now rebuilding their nation. 28 min. New York premiere

Les petits soldats (The Little Soldiers). 2004. France. Directed by François Margolin. During years of civil unrest in Liberia, heavily armed child fighters waged vicious warfare. With peace in 2004, rehabilitation is attempted. In English and French, English subtitles. 70 min. U.S. premiere.

Friday, March 10, 6:00 (introduced by Acquaro and Margolin). T2

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