As I’ve been using the Events Calendar to feature a number of free screenings happening around our fair Metropolis, when I received this press release about a film series set to launch in July at the MoMA, I knew that I had to share it here on The Chronicles. Read on about this new and mystifying summer film series at the amazing museum. Take your time since there is a LOT to absorb here.

The Press Release:
Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction*, presented at The Museum of Modern Art from July 17 through August 31, will screen of 70 science- fiction films from all over the world—22 countries including the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India, Cameroon, Mexico and beyond—that explore the question: what does it mean to be human? In a departure from other exhibitions of science-fiction cinema, Future Imperfect moves beyond space travel, visions of the distant future, alien invasions and monsters. Instead, all 70 films take place on Earth in the present (or near present), questioning our humanity in all its miraculous, uncanny, and perhaps unknowable aspects.

Since the dawn of cinema, filmmakers as diverse as Kathryn Bigelow, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Kinji Fukasaku, Jean-Luc Godard, Barry Jenkins, Georges Méliès, Michael Snow, Alexander Sokurov, and Steven Spielberg have explored ideas of memory and consciousness; thought, sensation, and desire; self and other; nature and nurture; time and space; and love and death. Their films, lying at the nexus of art, philosophy and science, occupy a twilight zone bounded only by the imagination, where “humanness” remains an enchanting enigma. Future Imperfect is organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

* Future *Imperfect* encompasses all genres, including *animation* (Richard Linklater’s *A Scanner Darkly*, Mamoru Oshii’s *Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence*, Nozim *To’laho’jayev’s* *There Will Come Soft Rains*, Suzan Pitt’s *Visitation*); *faux documentary* (Christopher Miles’ *Alternative 3*, Jan Svera?k’s* Oil Gobblers*); *documentary hybrid *(Werner Herzog’s *Fata Morgana* and *Lessons of Darkness*, Frances Bodomo’s *Afronauts*, Ben Rivers’ *Slow Action)*; *experimental* (Michael Snow’s **Corpus Callosum*, Chris Marker’s *La Jete?e*, Mike Kuchar’s *The Craven Sluck*), *comedy* (Buster Keaton’s *The Electric House*, Alexander Mackendrick’s T*he Man in the White Suit*, Richard Lester’s *The Bed Sitting Room*, Harold Ramis’ *Groundhog Day*), *horror* (David Cronenberg’s *Shivers and Videodrome*, George A. Romero’s *The Crazies*, Krsto Papic’s *The Rat Savior*, Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s *Les saignantes*, Georges Franju’s *Eyes without a Face*), and the *thriller* (William Dieterle’s *Six Hours to Live*, Alain Resnais’ *Je t’aime, je t’aime*, Joseph Sargent’s* Colossus: The Forbin Project*, Kathryn Bigelow’s* Strange Days*, Steven Spielberg’s *Minority Report*, Alex Garland’s *Ex Machina*, Hongmei Zhang’s *Death Ray* on *Coral Island,* Nacho Viagalondo’s *Los cronocrimines*, Alex Proyas’* Dark City*, and Alfonso Cuaro?n’s *Children of Men*).
Continue reading The MoMA To Screen 70 Science-Fiction Films This Summer →