Since 2001, February has marked the return of Documentary Fortnight, MoMA’s annual showcase of innovative recent nonfiction film and media. This year’s festival includes 20 feature films, 10 shorts, two classics, and one installation, from more than 20 countries, in an examination of the relationship between contemporary art and nonfiction filmmaking, and of new approaches to nonfiction practice. Several video works will be screened in theatrical versions, and one video installation from the Museum’s collection will be on display in the galleries.
The features, shorts, and installations in this year’s festival show filmmakers and artists responding to contemporary concerns by capturing and analyzing events on a global stage, or by pulling from their own countries, communities, and backgrounds to tell documentary stories with intimacy, depth, and formal innovation.
As a whole, the works in this year’s program seek to move beyond the search for “empirical truth,” and delve into the inner realities of their subjects, focusing on states of being, memories, dreams, ideas, desires, and utopias lost and found.
Organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, with Matthew Freundlich, Festival Liaison, and Paulina Kowalcyck, Film Intern. The Selection Committee consists of Sally Berger; Chi-hui Yang, independent curator; and Lucy Raven, artist. Presented in collaboration with Cinema Tropical and True/False Film Festival.