WHAT:             MoMA Film Screening Schedule

WHEN:             March 16 – March 23

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

Monday, March 16, 2009

6:00pm            Megane. 2007. Japan. Written and directed by Naoko Ogigami. With Satomi Kobayashi, Mikako Ichikawa, Ryo Kase. Megane revisits the pet motifs of hospitality and food set forth in Ogigami's debut feature Kamome Diner (screening on March 12 and 14). In Megane, Taeko, a middle-aged school teacher from the city, arrives at a small, obscure seaside inn in the south of Japan, where she discovers that the quaint residents of this unreal place—including the eccentric innkeeper Yuji—have the surprising ability to create an odd sense of individuated community. Composed in picturesque, planar shots that unfold like a scroll painting, Megane is a wry, subtle, and revealing continuation of the modern comedy of vacations and resorts typified by Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot films; a gentle piece of whimsy that suggests Beckett, if Beckett depicted paradises instead of purgatories. In Japanese; English subtitles. 106 min.

7:00pm            An Evening with Tehching Hsieh

Artist Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan) gives a talk in conjunction with the exhibition Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh, the inaugural installation in an ongoing series that brings performance documentation, original performance pieces, and live reenactments of historic performances to various locations throughout the Museum. The artist will show highlights of the stunning and versatile visual documentations he made of his durational performances, the last of which, Thirteen Year Plan, was completed in 1999. In a conversation with Adrian Heathfield, professor of performance and visual culture at Roehampton University, London, Hsieh will address the fundamental concept of lived duration in his oeuvre, and how the forceful resilience and rigorous lengths of his performances challenge the conventional division of artistic and lived time.

Program 90 min.
Theater 2

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

1:30pm            Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. 1948. USA. Directed by H. C. Potter. Screenplay by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank, from the novel by Eric Hodgins. With Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Louise Beavers. Preserved with funding from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund, from original materials in the Museum's Turner Collection. 94 min.

Theater 3

4:30pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 1

7:00pm            The Necessities of Life (Ce qu'il faut pour vivre). 2008. Canada. Directed by Benoit Pilon. Written by Bernard Émond. With Natar Ungalaaq, Eveline Gélinas, Vincent-Guillaume Otis. Canada's official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year's Academy Awards is a poignant, lump-in-the-throat melodrama about displacement. Ungalaaq, the Inuit star of The Fast Runner, plays a man wrenched from his family and community when he is diagnosed with tuberculosis in the mid 1950s. The former hunter must convalesce in a strange land where seasons are as foreign to him as the French spoken in the sanatorium. Both director and writer areCanadian Front veterans, Pilon with his documentary Roger Toupin, and Émond with two dramas, Summit Circle and 20h17 rue Darling. Courtesy of IFC Films. In French, Inuktitut; English subtitles. 102 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

Thursday, March 19, 2009

1:30pm            Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. 1948. USA. Directed by H. C. Potter. Screenplay by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank, from the novel by Eric Hodgins. With Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Louise Beavers. Preserved with funding from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund, from original materials in the Museum's Turner Collection. 94 min.

Theater 3

4:30pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

6:15pm            Pontypool. 2008. Canada. Directed by Bruce McDonald. Screenplay by Tony Burgess, from his novel Pontypool Changes Everything. With Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly. Maverick filmmaker Bruce McDonald, whose The Tracey Fragments was a highlight of last year's Canadian Front, is back in full force withPontypool, a taut, smart chamber horror story in which a virus, spread by language, turns listeners into flesh-eating zombies. The action takes place in a radio station whose broadcasts may be a big part of the problem. Courtesy of IFC Films. 96 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

8:30pm            Mommy's at the Hairdresser (Maman est chez le coiffeur). 2008. Canada. Directed by Léa Pool. Screenplay by Isabelle Hébert. With Marianne Fortier, Céline Bonnier, Laurent Lucas, Gabriel Arcand. Pool, who has earned an international following with such films as Anne Trister (1986) and Set Me Free (1999), has crafted an astringent, unsentimental tale about a pubescent girl whose world crumbles, one summer in the 1960s, with her parents' separation. Sustained by the beauty of the Quebec countryside and the grudging friendship of a strange man, she attempts to keep her shell-shocked father and brothers from complete social retreat—but her admirable gumption is severely tested. In French; English subtitles. 99 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

Friday, March 20, 2009

1:30pm            Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. 1948. USA. Directed by H. C. Potter. Screenplay by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank, from the novel by Eric Hodgins. With Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Louise Beavers. Preserved with funding from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund, from original materials in the Museum's Turner Collection. 94 min.

Theater 3

6:00pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

6:30pm            Nurse.Fighter.Boy. 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Charles Officer. With Karen LeBlanc, Clark Johnson, Daniel J. Gordon, Walter Borden. A young boy lives in multicultural Toronto with his single mother, a nurse with a health problem of her own. When a boxer who has seen better days comes into their lives, "wondrously the boy's incantations conjure a potent love for his mother, and a protector for himself" (Officer). Nurse.Fighter.Boy is a song of survival and the magic of faith. 93 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 1

8:30pm            The Death of Alice Blue. 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Park Bench. With Bench, Alex Appel, Kristen Holden-Reid. A young woman goes to work for an advertising agency and finds that her new job is a dead end in more ways than one. Why is she not surprised? This punkish, hyperreal spin on the vampire-beside-you genre is a clever reminder that there is still young blood in this old story. Hypnotic music, bone-dry performances, and a darkly comic take on the business of doing business meld into a truly captivating whole. 87 min.

World premiere
Theater 1

8:30pm            The Rules of the Game (La Regle du Jeu). 1939. France. Directed by Jean Renoir. Screenplay by Renoir and Carl Koch, based on Les Caprices de Marianne by Alfred de Musset. With Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Roland Toutain, Jean Renoir. As ineffable as it is influential, The Rules of the Game transcends genre. Scorned by the French on the eve of World War II, Renoir's masterpiece was eventually named one of the three greatest films of all time in a 1962 international critics' poll. This print was acquired for the collection in the name of Andrew Sarris, who has championed the film and its director for half a century. Sarris, best known for his book The American Cinema, is widely considered the most influential film critic in the English-speaking world. 105 min.

Introduced by Sarris
Theater 2

Saturday, March 21, 2009

2:00pm            It's Not Me, I Swear! (C'est pas moi, je le jure!) 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Philippe Falardeau. Based on novels by Bruno Hébert. With Antoine L'Écuyer, Suzanne Clément, Daniel Briére, Catherine Faucher. The filmmaker who so impressed New Yorkers with Congorama in New Directors/New Films 2007 returns with a fast-moving, boisterous account of Léon, a young boy in 1960s suburban Montreal who seems to practice, with some cheer, serial attempts at suicide. His mother has always intervened, but eventually even she gets fed up with her harried existence. Soon Léon's wild behavior—and his relationship with the girl next door—head in truly unexpected directions. In French; English subtitles. 110 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

2:30pm            Nurse.Fighter.Boy. 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Charles Officer. With Karen LeBlanc, Clark Johnson, Daniel J. Gordon, Walter Borden. A young boy lives in multicultural Toronto with his single mother, a nurse with a health problem of her own. When a boxer who has seen better days comes into their lives, "wondrously the boy's incantations conjure a potent love for his mother, and a protector for himself" (Officer). Nurse.Fighter.Boy is a song of survival and the magic of faith. 93 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 2

4:15pm            Well Done (Durs à cuire). 2008. Canada. Directed by Guillaume Sylvestre. This rollicking documentary examines two famed Montreal restaurants, Toque and Au Pied de Cochon; the friendship between their chef owners, Norman Laprise and Martin Picard; and the extreme-sport attitude they take toward their profession. When they aren't busy pleasing customers and creating signature dishes, the restaurateurs keep the filmmaker breathless on their trail as they travel worldwide promoting the local produce of Quebec. In French; English subtitles. 102 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 1

5:00pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

5:00pm            Malls R Us. 2008. Canada. Directed by Helene Klodawsky. Klodawsky and producer Ina Fichman, the team behind Canadian Front 2008 highlight Family Motel, return with a spirited, genuinely surprising documentary about the global phenomenon of urban and suburban shopping centers. The filmmakers traveled from North America, where the shopping mall originated, to recent examples in Poland, Japan, India, and Dubai. Along the way they encounter "dead mall" bloggers and anti-mall activists, as well as proponents like legendary sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, who sees the mall as the modern Main Street of small-town America. 78 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 1

7:30pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

8:45pm            Pontypool. 2008. Canada. Directed by Bruce McDonald. Screenplay by Tony Burgess, from his novel Pontypool Changes Everything. With Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly. Maverick filmmaker Bruce McDonald, whose The Tracey Fragments was a highlight of last year's Canadian Front, is back in full force withPontypool, a taut, smart chamber horror story in which a virus, spread by language, turns listeners into flesh-eating zombies. The action takes place in a radio station whose broadcasts may be a big part of the problem. Courtesy of IFC Films. 96 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

Sunday, March 22, 2009

1:00pm            The Necessities of Life (Ce qu'il faut pour vivre). 2008. Canada. Directed by Benoit Pilon. Written by Bernard Émond. With Natar Ungalaaq, Eveline Gélinas, Vincent-Guillaume Otis. Canada's official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year's Academy Awards is a poignant, lump-in-the-throat melodrama about displacement. Ungalaaq, the Inuit star of The Fast Runner, plays a man wrenched from his family and community when he is diagnosed with tuberculosis in the mid 1950s. The former hunter must convalesce in a strange land where seasons are as foreign to him as the French spoken in the sanatorium. Both director and writer areCanadian Front veterans, Pilon with his documentary Roger Toupin, and Émond with two dramas, Summit Circle and 20h17 rue Darling. Courtesy of IFC Films. In French, Inuktitut; English subtitles. 102 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 2

2:00pm            Maman est chez le coiffeur (Mommy's at the Hairdresser). 2008. Canada. Directed by Léa Pool. Screenplay by Isabelle Hébert. With Marianne Fortier, Céline Bonnier, Laurent Lucas, Gabriel Arcand. Pool, who has earned an international following with such films as Anne Trister (1986) and Set Me Free (1999), has crafted an astringent, unsentimental tale about a pubescent girl whose world crumbles, one summer in the 1960s, with her parents' separation. Sustained by the beauty of the Quebec countryside and the grudging friendship of a strange man, she attempts to keep her shell-shocked father and brothers from complete social retreat—but her admirable gumption is severely tested. In French; English subtitles. 99 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

3:00pm            The Death of Alice Blue. 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Park Bench. With Bench, Alex Appel, Kristen Holden-Reid. A young woman goes to work for an advertising agency and finds that her new job is a dead end in more ways than one. Why is she not surprised? This punkish, hyperreal spin on the vampire-beside-you genre is a clever reminder that there is still young blood in this old story. Hypnotic music, bone-dry performances, and a darkly comic take on the business of doing business meld into a truly captivating whole. 87 min.

World premiere
Theater 2

4:30pm            Well Done (Durs à cuire). 2008. Canada. Directed by Guillaume Sylvestre. This rollicking documentary examines two famed Montreal restaurants, Toque and Au Pied de Cochon; the friendship between their chef owners, Norman Laprise and Martin Picard; and the extreme-sport attitude they take toward their profession. When they aren't busy pleasing customers and creating signature dishes, the restaurateurs keep the filmmaker breathless on their trail as they travel worldwide promoting the local produce of Quebec. In French; English subtitles. 102 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 1

5:00pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

Monday, March 23, 2009

4:30pm            C.R.A.Z.Y. 2005. Canada. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Written by Vallée, François Boulay. With Michel Côté, Marc-André Grondin, Danielle Proulx. In French; English subtitles. 127 min.

Theater 2

6:00pm            C'est pas moi, je le jure! (It's Not Me, I Swear!). 2008. Canada. Written and directed by Philippe Falardeau. Based on novels by Bruno Hébert. With Antoine L'Écuyer, Suzanne Clément, Daniel Briére, Catherine Faucher. The filmmaker who so impressed New Yorkers with Congorama in New Directors/New Films 2007 returns with a fast-moving, boisterous account of Léon, a young boy in 1960s suburban Montreal who seems to practice, with some cheer, serial attempts at suicide. His mother has always intervened, but eventually even she gets fed up with her harried existence. Soon Léon's wild behavior—and his relationship with the girl next door—head in truly unexpected directions. In French; English subtitles. 110 min.

East Coast premiere
Theater 1

7:00pm            An Evening with Julius Ziz

Julius Ziz (Lithuanian, b. 1970) liberates cinema from its theatrical underpinnings, elevating it with a poetic vision at once singular and beautiful. Stories spin off like whirling flanges of plot from conventional narrative, and the films rely on rhythm to suggest what the mind knows in a preconscious manner. It is this "capturing" of thought before its articulation that makes a Ziz experience resonant and valuable. Ziz graduated from the Film Academy in Tbilisi before moving to New York, where he worked with Jonas Mekas at the Anthology Film Archives. In addition to making films, Ziz writes for the theater.

The Wolf (Vilkas). 2008. Lithuania. Directed by Julius Ziz. With August Varkalis. Based on a pair of novels by Jonas Mekas. In Lithuanian; English subtitles. 20 min.

The Window. 1999. USA. Directed by Julius Ziz. 19 min. 
Et le cochon fut né (And the Pig Was Born). 2001. USA. Directed by Julius Ziz. Made from footage found in the basement of Anthology Film Archives. 23 min.

Program 90 min.
Theater 2

8:30pm            Malls R Us. 2008. Canada. Directed by Helene Klodawsky. Klodawsky and producer Ina Fichman, the team behind Canadian Front 2008 highlight Family Motel, return with a spirited, genuinely surprising documentary about the global phenomenon of urban and suburban shopping centers. The filmmakers traveled from North America, where the shopping mall originated, to recent examples in Poland, Japan, India, and Dubai. Along the way they encounter "dead mall" bloggers and anti-mall activists, as well as proponents like legendary sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, who sees the mall as the modern Main Street of small-town America. 78 min.

U.S. premiere
Theater 1

Public Information:     The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019

Hours:                         Films are screened Wednesday-Monday. For screening schedules, please visit www.moma.org.

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.) The price of a film ticket may be applied toward the price of a Museum admission ticket when a film ticket stub is presented at the Lobby Information Desk within 30 days of the date on the stub (does not apply during Target Free Friday Nights, 4:00–8:00 p.m.). Admission is free for Museum members and for Museum ticketholders.

Tags: MOMA