“It’s a Dangerous Day”: Films from the Arsenal

These films are a call for resistance. Across a great diversity of cultures and through the most imaginative of cinematic means, they document political and religious violence, bear witness and provoke outrage, and inspire freedom fighters to rise up against their colonial oppressors and women to spurn their own oppressive patriarchies. Almost criminally, none of these films have ever had a theatrical or streaming run in New York. All have been preserved by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video, which was founded in 1963 as the Friends of the German Film Archive and is now responsible for two essential components of the Berlin Film Festival: the Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded. As we rewrite the canon of world cinema and champion its most radical practitioners, we will hold a special place for filmmakers like Lana Gogoberidze from Georgia, Gadalla Gubara from Sudan, Ruy Guerra from Mozambique/Brazil, Marta Rodriguez from Colombia, and Mani Kaul from India.

This exhibition (whose title is taken from a protester’s comment in Ruy Guerra’s Mueda, Memory and Massacre) features two-week streaming runs, as well as newly conducted interviews with many of the artists. The series is organized along six themes, listed below.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.