MoMA | Tag: The Contenders

Posts tagged ‘The Contenders’

January 9, 2015 | Film

The Contenders: Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu

Posted by Sophie Cavoulacos, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Film

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.

The Contenders: Paul W. S. Anderson’s Pompeii

Posted by Dave Kehr, Adjunct Curator, Department of Film

Pompeii. 2014. Canada/Germany/USA. Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. Image courtesy of Sony Pictures/Photofest

Paul W. S. Anderson’s Pompeii is the very model of the kind of movie usually dismissed from contention during awards season. It’s a genre piece, pure and simple, directed with great skill and efficiency but innocent of any desire to impress Oscar voters with flashy performances or profound moral lessons.

Going to the Engine: Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer

Posted by Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film

Snowpiercer. 2013. South Korea/Czech Republic/USA/France. Directed by Bong Joon-ho. Courtesy of Radius TWC

The first time I remember going to “the Engine,” I was probably six or seven years old and I was taking my little sister with me. We were flying across the country alone, unaccompanied minors in the late 1970s. I remember feeling in charge; I’d been on planes since I was 10 days old.