Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of August 9th

Top Picks for Art Online Week of August 9th 

The Magical Negro-Online Discussion with Naima Ramos-Chapman
Color Positive/Discussion, Instagram Live 
August 9, 2020/9pmET/Free

Naima Ramos-Chapman's short film debut And Nothing Happened (2016) is a singular film. Its tone and the depths it explores in its short 15minute runtime are incomparable-- just watch it, don't make me try to explain its utterly astounding, surreal beauty and pain. Since that film Ramos-Chapman has been pretty busy: she's made other shorts, music videos, was part of the Bric TV series Brooklyn Is Masquerading as the World, was part of HBO's Random Acts of Flyness and, most recently, seems to have had something to do with the Louis Vuitton/Virgil Abloh show (that show though, let's talk)? There is a long tradition of women in experimental film coming from the world of dance (Maya Deren!) and it is obvious in Ramos-Chapman's work as a deep sense of time, space and body sit on the edge of every cut and shot. Also, I don't know why Showtime isn't moving forward with How to Make Love To A Black Woman (Who May Be Working Through Some Sh*t) (Exec Produced by Lena Waithe, written by Casallina “Cathy” Kisakye w/a Ramos-Chapman directed pilot) but: that is a mistake. 

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Film at Lincoln Center Talks-Virtual with Amy Seimentz
Film at Lincoln Center presented by HBO/Online Talk
August 11, 2020/5pm ET/Free, Submit questions via Twitter or Instagram before + during #AskFLC

Amy Seimentz is an exceptional actress whose name listed in a project's credits always validates the work, she tends to steal the scene even with the tiniest of roles. Seimentz is also a director with such projects as her feature directorial debut Sun Don't Shine (2012)  and her television directorial debut The Girlfriend Experience (an anthology based on Steven Soderbergh's film of the same name). Her latest offering, the psychological thriller She Dies Tomorrow starring equally as prolific actress Kate Lyn Sheil, is being touted as the perfect movie for the times. The film revolves around a contagious omen that convinces its host of their impending death, a chain reaction of doom that feels all too familiar right now. This conversation is part of Film at Lincoln Centers' free Talk series which, like most of the film world has gone virtual. She Dies Tomorrow is currently available on-demand through Neon.

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At Home With Mike Kelley: Kappa (1986) by Mike Kelley, Bruce + Norman Yonemoto 
Electronic Arts intermix & the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts/ Online Screening + Conversation with Curator Andrea Lissoni and Artist Bruce Yonemoto
August 11, 2020/5pmPT/Free

The images and descriptions of this one are creepy af. Mike Kelley plays the mythic amphibious Japanese imp Kappa (who legend has it is known for love of cucumbers, sumo...and organ-stealing anal play?) while his co-star, Warhol & Corman fave Mary Woronov, plays Hollywood exploitation vamp Jocosta. Their characters swirl through narrative archetypes and sexualities, reciting dialogue pulled from Freud, Buñuel, pop culture and other sources as they play out the myth of Oedipus siphoned through a Japanese folk story and modern film iconography. The end result sounds like an eerie collage full of symbol swapping, myth-playing and psycho-sexual channel surfing. Following the screening of the film artist Bruce Yonemoto and Artistic Director of Haus der Kunst, Munich Andrea Lossini will host a conversation.  

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Frieze, August: Sessions-Watch: I May Destroy You
Frieze/Zoom Webinar
August 12, 2020/6pm London (1pmET)/Free w/Registration

Freize Sessions is an online discussion series that consists of the magazine's editors and writers speaking on films, books and music. Attendees are encouraged to send in questions ahead of time for the panel of guests to respond to. This session focuses on Michaela Coel's episodic I May Destroy You. The show takes place in London where Arabella, a social-media-famous author thanks to her debut novel Chronicles of a Fed-Up Millennial, pieces together her hazy memories of a harrowing night out with friends. I just began the series and I don't want spoilers so I'm staying away from the internet to learn more about the show (the plot and production) but, what I do know, is that Coel, the show's writer, co-director & star, has managed to perfectly portray a sense of trauma and millennial-angst a mix of human, digital and social issues melding into one's perception and memory. It also has a great soundtrack.

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Art Institute Chicago Virtual Lecture: El Greco Ambition and Defiance
Art Institute Chicago/Online
August 13, 2020/5pmCT/Free, Space is limited, Details TBA day of lecture

Theotokópoulos aka El Greco aka The Greek aka The Hustler (okay, that last one is mine) was born in Crete in 1541. His career is one that seems to confuse art historians as he traversed a lot of boundaries. He worked tirelessly to gain patronage and excel at his craft, moving around Greece, Italy and Spain and through artistic traditions such as Byzantine iconography and Italian Renaissance. The Art Institute Chicago's exhibit El Greco: Ambition and Defiance is on display at the museum featuring over 57 works from around the world. As part of the exhibit Rebecca Long, Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture will discuss El Greco's unrelenting pursuit of fame and his unique, confounding style.

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MoMA Virtual Views: Film Vault Summer Camp with Curator Rajendra Roy & Director Todd Haynes
MoMA/Live Q&A + Online Screenings
August 13, 2020/8pm EDT/Free, Qs can be submitted in advance via online form


The MoMA Film Study Center is a resource for film scholars and researchers, hosting around 200 appointments a year for those in need of their vast archive. But, due to the pandemic, in-person interactions are hampered so, to counteract the state of things, MoMA is opening their film vault to the public online! Each Thursday in August a selection of materials will be available to screen online-- the access that Covid is bringing about never ceases to amaze me! On August 13th, MoMA Film Curator Rajendra Roy will be joined by auteur Todd Haynes to look into the ways in which restored and archival material can inspire filmmakers, a fact so evident in Haynes lush period pieces like Carol (2015) set in the pastel shadows of 1950s New York and Velvet Goldmine (1998) set in the illustrious shimmer of 70s glam.

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Guggenheim- Summer of Know: For Freedoms featuring Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas,  Michelle Woo & Claudia Peña
Guggenheim/Online Conversation
August 13, 2020/2pm ET/Free, RSVP for reminder 

For Freedoms was founded by artists/thinkers Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas, and Michelle Woo in 2016 and is a platform "for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action...As a nexus between art, politics, commerce, and education, the platform aims to inject the anti-partisan critical thinking that fine art requires into the political landscape through programming, exhibitions, and public artworks." Guggenheim's Summer of Know conversation series looks to process contemporary issues through the lens of art, For Freedoms are co-curators for the 2020 edition. These Guggenheim hosted conversations are designed to "spark cross-disciplinary dialogue and debate, these discussions feature contemporary artists, practitioners, and thought leaders who are at the forefront of the ideas, organizing, and actions most urgently impacting society and culture today." This is the inaugural event of the 2020 series and will be livestreamed via the Guggenheim's Youtube channel. 

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Flaherty x Boulder: Unwriting the Disaster curated by Devon Narine-Singh, Suneil Sanzgiri & Alia Ayman
Mimesis Documentary Festival, Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media & Flaherty/Online Screening + Q&As
Festival Screenings August 12-18, 2020/$10 per program, fest pass $25
Live Q+As August 14, 2020/6-6:40pm + 7-7:40pm MT
Live Q+As August 15, 2020/10-10:40am + 11-11:40amMT

A new initiative from the documentary media arts organization The Flaherty and the University of Colorado Boulder (home to the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media and also the Brakhage Center-- wth is up with Boulder?) called Flaherty x Boulder (F x B) will hold its premier event this week at the Mimesis Documentary Festival. Two film programs will feature line ups of films culled from the 66-year history of the Flaherty Film Seminar, expertly curated by Flaherty NYC Programmers-in-Residence Devon Narine-Singh, Suneil Sanzgiri, and Alia Ayman. The shorts blocks are titled Unwriting the Disaster and are themed around the question of how documentary approaches the crises of cultural turning points. In times of conflict or upheaval, nonfiction filmmakers could so easily be drawn to the flames but, as evident in these online programs, there are many ways to process, create, inhabit, rebirth and inscribe the seemingly catastrophic.

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com