MoMA Presents Documentary Fortnight 2012

The Museum of Modern Art has announced Documentary Fortnight 2012: MoMA's International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media, the 11th annual two-week showcase of recent documentary films examining the relationship between contemporary art and nonfiction practices, and reflecting on new areas of documentary filmmaking.

This year's festival includes an international selection of feature-length and short films, a majority of which are premieres and are presented by the filmmakers; a retrospective of Paper Tiger Television's 30 years of media activism; and a "Field Guide" to database documentary practices—an emergent form of interactive narrative and nonlinear nonfiction filmmaking that employs digital and Web-based media. This exhibition is organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art. The selection committee consists of Sally Berger; Chi-hui Yang, independent curator; and Sam Green, documentary filmmaker.

The festival opens on February 16 with Jim Hubbard's United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (2012), the first feature-length documentary to explore ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) from a historical perspective, and El lugar más pequeño (The Tiniest Place) (2011), Tatiana Huezo Sanchez's account of the village of Cinquera in El Salvador where the surviving residents restore the village and their lives after the brutal Civil War of 1980-1992. Both filmmakers will be in attendance to introduce and participate in a post-screening Q&A.

Paper Tiger Television: Thirty Years of Alternative Media showcases the work of nonprofit, all-volunteer video collective Paper Tiger Television (PTTV). One presentation of design for a radical new media created in partnership with The New School’s Vera List Center for Art and Politics and two screening events, taking place on February 24 and 25, explore PTTV’s use of alternative media to address contemporary topics, specifically through short documentaries, community screenings and grassroots advocacy, and the production and distribution of a cable-access television series.

On February 18, two “Guided Tours to the Interactive Documentary” will explore the way interactivity is redefining the digital documentary landscape, from immersive, user-driven, and customized experiences on personal screens, to works of multimedia journalism that push the boundaries of research-driven storytelling, to nonfiction media projects that straddle the world of art and gaming. Former New York Times senior multimedia producer Zach Wise provides a look at the state of interactive documentary and how the convergence of nonfiction, journalism, gaming, and art worlds is changing storytelling.

Ingrid Kopp, New Media Consultant, TFI New Media Fund at the Tribeca Film Institute, and Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, Rhizome, and Adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, discuss ten innovative projects and how they are altering the larger media/art landscape.

Two special off-site events take place at Light Industry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Director D.A. Pennebaker’s Elizabeth and Mary (1965)—a portrait of twin girls, one partially sighted, one blind—screens at Light Industry on February 21. The festival closes at Nitehawk Cinema on February 28 with the U.S. premiere of Marija’s Own (2011), Željka Suková’s film about a wild dinner party a granddaughter and her two cousins throws for her deceased grandmother, and Grandma Lo-Fi: The Basement Tapes of Sigríður Níelsdóttir (2011), about a 70 year-old Danish/Icelandic woman who creates lo-fi music using an electronic keyboard and kitchen utensils.

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