Out on the Street. 2015. Egypt. Directed by Philip Rizk, Jasmina Metwaly
In recent weeks, filmmakers featured in the series Films from Here: Recent Views from the Arab World have been sending me their thoughts on their films (which we will be sharing on MoMA’s social media channels).
Production still from Piercing Brightness. 2013. Directed by Shezad Dawood. Courtesy of UBIK Productions Ltd. The image features Halo, an artwork by John Kennedy, commissioned by Mid Pennine Arts
A sense of place pervades the work of British artist Shezad Dawood, but we’re not talking about your picture-postcard nostalgia. Dawood’s first feature film, Piercing Brightness, is at the surface a stylized science-fiction tale, but it could equally be read as a public artwork of sorts.
San Siro. 2014. Italy. Directed by Yuri Ancarani
At its core, New Directors/New Films celebrates the unexpected and cutting-edge in movie making, and the 16 short films in this year’s festival offer plenty of excitement about the future of the medium.
A notable amount of these short films experiment with modes of storytelling, at times eschewing dialogue-driven narratives altogether.
Timbuktu. 2014. France/Mauritania. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group
Alongside Citizenfour, Timbuktu might be the most urgently topical film of the year, but unlike Citizenfour, Timbuktu is not a documentary. This narrative film, the latest by Malian auteur Abderrahmane Sissako, was inspired by a 2012 entry in a local Malian newspaper about a couple being stoned to death for having children out of wedlock. Sissako’s interlocking stories of Timbuktu residents bring texture to tragically frequent headlines chronicling the rise and bloody tactics of foreign jihadists on the African continent.
Installation view of Glamour Vérité—Paris/Hollywood: Cinema’s Pour Vous Magazine, 1928–1940. February 6–August 12, 2013. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Jonathan Muzikar
Although it was only published from 1928 to 1940, the French film weekly Pour Vous was remarkably modern in its international perspective. Curators and consumers of contemporary culture are familiar with increasingly transnational modes of artistic production
Installation view of Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets. August 12, 2012–January 7, 2013. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photograph by Thomas Griesel
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