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Home , Alex Descas, Deepa Mehta, Featurette, Guy Maddin, Olivier Assayas, Zeitgeist Films

MOMA PRESENTS MONTHLONG SERIES IN HONOR OF TWO DECADES OF NEW YORK– BASED DISTRIBUTOR,

Guy Maddin, , Bruce Weber, and Yvonne Rainer to Introduce Their Films during Opening Weekend

Zeitgeist: The Films of Our Time June 26–July 23, 2008 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theatres

NEW YORK, June 4, 2008—The Museum of Modern Art celebrates two decades of films distributed by New York–based Zeitgeist Films with the 20-title exhibition Zeitgeist: The Films of Our Time, June 26–July 23, 2008, in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. Offering a fascinating snapshot of independent American and international film from the past 20 years, Zeitgeist: The Films of Our Time is a selection of works by critical figures in the company’s history and catalog. These range from artists the distributors embraced at early stages of their film careers, including Bruce Weber, Todd Haynes, , François Ozon, , and , to established masters like Agnes Varda, Yvonne Rainer, , and Jacques Demy. This monthlong exhibition includes several introductions and post-screening Q&A sessions with some of , along with appearances by Zeitgeist cofounders Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo. Many of the directors whose early work Zeitgeist championed will be present to introduce their films: Careful (1992), introduced June 26 by Guy Maddin, who will also introduce Jacques Demy’s Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964) the same night; Let’s Get Lost (1988), introduced June 27 by Bruce Weber; Poison (1991), introduced June 27 by Todd Haynes; Privilege (1990), introduced June 28 by Yvonne Rainer; Calendar (1993), introduced July 12 by ; and Ballets Russes (2005), introduced July 19 by co-directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine with dancer Freddie Franklin. The exhibition is organized by Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, The Museum of Modern Art. In 1988, in a tiny office in New York, Russo and Gerstman launched Zeitgeist Films. The films and directors that they have consistently sought out and championed encompass the full spectrum of international cinematic innovation over the last 20 years, spanning many . Film lovers first, Russo and Gerstman have always dedicated themselves to the time-tested arthouse experience, with focused releases and a dedication to building audiences, reserving risk for their often audacious acquisition choices. “The phrase ‘tenacity of tasteful commerce’ best describes the spirit of Zeitgeist Films,” says Mr. Roy. “For 20 years, Emily and Nancy have proven to be both die-hard businesswomen and uncompromising connoisseurs of excellent cinema. The artists they have championed are visionaries that MoMA takes pride in exhibiting in their honor.”

The Museum thanks , The George Eastman House, Bruce Weber, Eva Lindemann, and The Cinematheque Ontario for their assistance with this exhibition.

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Please join us for the following press screenings in The Roy and Niuta Titus 2 Theater:

Wednesday, June 11

10:00 a.m. Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa). 2002. Directed by Caroline Link. 141 min.

Thursday, June 12

10:00 a.m. Careful. 1992. Directed by Guy Maddin. 100 min. NEW PRINT

R.S.V.P. to [email protected] or (212) 708-9847

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No. 60 Press Contacts: for MoMA: Paul Power, (212) 708-9847, [email protected] for Zeitgeist: Gary Springer, (212) 354-4660, [email protected]

For high resolution images, please register at: www.moma.org/press

Public Information:

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019

Hours: Wednesday through Monday: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday: 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed Tuesday. Museum Admission: $20 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs) Target Free Friday Nights 4:00-8:00 p.m. Film Admission: $10 adults; $8 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D. $6 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only) Subway: E or V train to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street Bus: On Fifth Avenue, take the M1, M2, M3, M4, or M5 to 53rd Street. On Sixth Avenue, take the M5, M6, or M7 to 53rd Street. Or take the M57 and M50 crosstown buses on 57th and 50th Streets. The public may call (212) 708-9400 for detailed Museum information. Visit us on the Web at www.moma.org

SCREENING SCHEDULE

ZEITGEIST: THE FILMS OF OUR TIME

Thursday, June 26

6:00 . 2000. Canada. Written, directed, photographed, and edited by Guy Maddin. With Leslie Bais, Shaun Balbar, Greg Klymkiw. Maddin’s brilliant, breathless parody of silent Soviet propaganda films won acclaim from audiences and critics alike when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2000. 6 min.

Careful. 1992. Canada. Directed by Guy Maddin. Screenplay by Maddin, George Toles. With Kyle McCulloch, Gosia Dobrowolska, Sarah Neville. Set in a nineteenth-century mountain village, viewed through an expressionistic, color-saturated lens, Maddin’s parable of sexual repression advises caution despite the allure of sin. The threat of avalanches—both real and metaphorical—keeps the inhabitants of “Tolzbad” sage and silent. One incestuous dream sets off a chain reaction that ironically displays the dread results of not being…careful! 100 min. (Introduced by Maddin)

8:30 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). 1964. France. Written and directed by Jacques Demy. With Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon. Demy’s 1964 Palme d’Or winner remains a masterwork of musical cinema. Brilliant color, effervescent songs with music by Michel Legrand, and the newly discovered 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve combine to stunning effect. This restoration, supervised by Demy’s widow and fellow Zeitgeist filmmaker Agnes Varda, returns one of the most beloved French films of all time to its original splendor. In French; English subtitles. 82 min. (Introduced by Guy Maddin)

Friday, June 27

6:00 Let’s Get Lost. 1988. USA. Directed by Bruce Weber. Filmmaker and photographer Bruce Weber’s striking 1988 cinematic portrait of jazz icon Chet Baker remains as seductive as the subject himself. As much trouble as he was once beautiful (which is to say exceedingly so), Baker traversed a landscape of fame that saw him embody 1950s cool at the height of his talent as a jazz trumpeter and singer, before landing in the depths of alcoholism and drug abuse. With the alluring menace of a , Let’s Get Lost tells a smoky tale of dangerous charm. 120 min. (Introduced by Bruce Weber)

8:30 Dottie Gets Spanked. 1994. USA. Written and directed by Todd Haynes. With Evan Bonifant, Barbara Garrick, Julie Halston. In this sly featurette, fans of Haynes’s much lauded Far from Heaven (2002) will find an early indication of his uncanny ability to capture suburban unease and buried, transgressive sexual desires. 30 min.

Poison. 1991. USA. Written and directed by Todd Haynes, based on the novels of Jean Genet. With Edith Meeks, Millie White, Buck Smith. It’s hard to overstate the impact of Todd Haynes’s remarkable feature debut. Inspired by the writings of Genet, Poison rocked the world when it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and helped launch a decade-long wave of . The film was also attacked by the religious right, a headline-grabbing feat at a time when AIDS and gay activism were entering mainstream dialogues on a critical scale. A seminal work of artistic innovation, the film remains powerfully engaging today. 85 min. (Introduced by Todd Haynes)

Saturday, June 28

7:00 Privilege. 1990. USA. Written and directed by Yvonne Rainer. With Rainer, Blaire Baron, Novella Nelson. The spectacularly talented Yvonne Rainer began her work as an artist in the world of dance. After choreographing over forty works, she turned her focus to cinema and directing. Privilege, her award-winning sixth , tackles menopause with a keen eye, focusing on the experience from differing perspectives of origin and class. As in her dance pieces, risk is an essential component—appropriately so for a film that takes on sex, race, and ageism with wit and grace. 103 min. (Introduced by Rainer)

Sunday, June 29

5:00 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). See Thursday, June 26, 8:30.

Monday, June 30

8:30 The Heart of the World. Careful. See Thursday, June 26, 6:00.

Wednesday, July 2

5:00 Dottie Gets Spanked. Poison. See Friday, June 27, 8:30.

Thursday, July 3

5:30 Privilege. See Saturday, June 28, 7:00.

Sunday, July 6

3:30 The Corporation. 2004. USA. Directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. This award-winning documentary integrates an exploration of corporate culture, its origins and possible future, with critical analysis and commentary from some of the most influential and polarizing contemporary thinkers, including Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Milton Friedman. Advertising, television news and industrial films combine to spectacularly entertaining effect. 145 min.

Monday, July 7

5:30 The Corporation. See Sunday, July 6, 3:30.

Wednesday, July 9

5:30 Fire. 1996. /Canada. Directed by Deepa Mehta. With Karishma Jhalani, Ramanjeet Kaur, and Dilip Mehta. Director Mehta triumphs with this provocative and passionate story of love between two women in India. Traditional obligations to family collide with a tender awakening of unanticipated desire. The touchstone for controversy and debate in India and worldwide when it was released, FIRE remains a brave and pioneering work. In Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi with English subtitles. 101 min.

8:00 Shijie (The World). 2004. China. Directed by Jia Zhangke. With Tao Zhao, Taisheng Chen, Jue Jing, and Zhong-wei Jiang. Virtuoso filmmaking infuses this often surreal portrait of contemporary China with a sense of wonder. Set in “Beijing World Park”, a faux landscape of replicas and monuments from across the globe, Jia Zhangke captures a culture in flux, a people the cusp of a new chapter in a storied history. In Mandarin and Shanxi dialect with English subtitles. 139 min.

Thursday, July 10

5:30 Iklimler (Climates). 2006. France. Directed by . With Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Nazan Kirilmis, and Mehmet Eryilmaz. The jagged terrain of the Aegean coast calls to mind a tortured earth scarred by loss and the struggle for happiness in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s nuanced rumination on love. Ceylan and his wife Ebru play a couple destroyed and in search of reconciliation in a delicate film that recalls the work of Antonioni. 101 min.

8:00 Calendar. 1993. Armenia/Canada. Directed by Atom Egoyan. With Arsinée Khanjian, Ashot Adamyan, and Atom Egoyan. Renowned Canadian director Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) and his muse Arsinee Khanjian explore Armenian roots real and invented in this evocative exploration of shifting desire. Egoyan stars as a photographer on assignment in Armenia, in danger of loosing his wife (Khanjian, also his wife in real-life) to their heritage. 75 min.

Friday, July 11

5:30 Shijie (The World). See Wednesday, July 9, 8:00.

8:00 . 1997. France. Directed by Olivier Assayas. With , Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Nathalie Richard. Asian action superstar Maggie Cheung is Maggie Cheung, and New Wave actor Jean-Pierre Leaud plays a New Wave Director in this razor sharp satire. Exploding romantic notions of filmmaking and celebrity, Assayas employs a cool directorial hand in creating a hilarious portrait of escalating cinematic chaos. In English and French with English subtitles. 96 min.

Saturday, July 12

3:30 Irma Vep. See Friday, July 11, 8:00.

6:00 Calendar. See Thursday, July 10, 8:00. (Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo will be interviewed post-screening by director Atom Egoyan)

8:30 The Films of the Brothers Quay. Identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay began imparting their particular cinematic genius in the late 1970s. Their arrival and subsequent decades-long dedication to an exacting and influential stop-motion process has riveted audiences and artists alike. This program features highlights from their substantial body of work, and ranges from the sublime to the macabre.

The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer. 1984. United Kingdom. 14 min.

Street of Crocodiles. 1986. United Kingdom. 21 min.

The Comb. 1990. United Kingdom. 18 min.

Stille Nacht IV (Can’t Go Wrong Without You). United Kingdom. 1994. 4 min.

The Phantom Museum. 2003. United Kingdom. 12 min.

Program 69 min.

Sunday, July 13

3:30 The Films of the Brothers Quay. See Saturday, July 12, 8:30.

6:00 Aimée & Jaguar. 1998. Germany. Directed by Max Färberböck. With Maria Schrader, Juliane Köhler, Johanna Wokalek, and Heike Makatsch. 1943, wartime Berlin, a verboten love affair between a Jewish member of the underground resistance and prominent member of the Nazi establishment blossoms. Adding to the danger is the fact that this affair involves two women. Farberbock’s award winning debut adds a lush and devastating new chapter to the torturous history of Nazi- era Germany. In German with English subtitles. 125 min.

Monday, July 14

5:30 Aimée & Jaguar. See Sunday, July 13, 6:00.

8:00 Fire. See Wednesday, July 9, 5:30.

Wednesday, July 16

5:30 Iklimler (Climates). See Thursday, July 10, 5:30.

8:00 Lumumba. 2001. France/Belgium/Haiti/Germany. Directed by . With Eriq Ebouaney, , Théophile Sowié, and Maka Kotto. Celebrated director Raoul Peck delivers a powerful recounting of the life and struggles of the visionary African leader, Patrice Lumumba. The first post-colonial prime minister of the Congo, Lumumba's efforts to create a united Africa made him the enemy of many in Europe and the United States. Their political pawns would ultimately seal his fate, as well as that of a truly free Africa. In French and Lingala with English subtitles. 115 min.

Thursday, July 17

5:30 Ballets Russes. 2005. USA. Directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine. A whimsical and often magical investigation of the origins of ballet as American audiences have come to know it. Tracing the journey of such artists as Nijinsky and Balanchine from Europe to the U.S., Ballets Russes combines archival footage with astonishing interviews with original members of the companies that transformed dance. 118 min.

8:00 Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa). 2002. Germany. Directed by Caroline Link. With Juliane Köhler, Merab Ninidze, Sidede Onyulo, and Matthias Habich. In 2002, Caroline Link's extraordinary film, portraying the journey of a German Jewish family fleeing the Nazis for a new life in Kenya, brought her nation the first Foreign Language Film Oscar in decades. The film also thrust Zeitgeist Films into an elite group of distributors able to focus critical mainstream attention on deserving international works of cinema. In German and Swahili with English subtitles. 141 min.

Friday, July 18

5:30 Lumumba. See Wednesday, July 16, 8:00.

8:00 Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa). See Thursday, July 17, 8:00.

Saturday, July 19

3:30 Ballets Russes. See Thursday, July 17, 5:30. (Introduced by directors Dan Geller, Dayna Goldfine, and dancer Freddie Franklin)

6:00 Les Glaneurs et la gleneuse (The Gleaners and I). 2001. France. Directed by Agnès Varda. A major force of the , Varda embarks on an introspective cinematic journey in one of the most acclaimed documentaries of the new century. She investigates the margins of French society and finds herself amongst those whose work and lives exist primarily “out-of-focus” for the mainstream. In French with English subtitles. 82 min.

8:30 Regarde la mer (See the Sea). 1997. France. Directed by François Ozon. With Sasha Hails, Marina de Van, and Paul Raoux. One of contemporary French cinema’s most successful provocateurs, François Ozon has proven to be a master of atmosphere. In this perfectly paced early work, a young mother vacationing by the sea is drawn to a mysterious, and possibly dangerous female traveler. In French with English subtitles. 52 min.

Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress). 1996. France. Directed by François Ozon. With Sébastien Charles, Frédéric Mangenot, and Lucia Sanchez. A young man swims nude in the summer ocean waves. A young girl offers a summer dress in exchange for favors offered . . . . In French with English subtitles. 15 min.

Sunday, July 20

3:30 Blue. 1993. United Kingdom. Directed by Derek Jarman. By the early 1990's, AIDS had ravaged many communities around the world; perhaps none so visibly as the creative community, which counted many gay men amongst its numbers. Derek Jarman, pioneer of queer cinema, created Blue, as a last testament to his life and work. A lush narrative soundscape transforms the pure blue image into a fantastic realm of spirituality and poetics. 76 min.

6:00 Die Große Stille (Into Great Silence). 2006. Germany. Directed by Philip Gröning. Rarely has a film captured the essence of a spiritual experience to the degree achieved in Philip Gröning’s quiet masterpiece. Shot over six months at the monastery of the Carthusian order in the French Alps, rituals of prayer, meditation and daily routine merge to create a transcendent cinematic event. In French with English subtitles. 162 min.

Monday, July 21

5:30 Les Glaneurs et la gleneuse (The Gleaners and I). See Saturday, July 19, 6:00.

8:00 Blue. See Sunday, July 20, 3:30.

Wednesday, July 23

5:30 Regarde la mer (See the Sea). Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress). See Saturday, July 19, 8:30.

8:00 Die Große Stille (Into Great Silence). See Sunday, July 20, 6:00.