Museum of the Moving Image to Host 60th Anniversary Screening of THE SEARCHERS

In recognition of the 60th anniversary of John Ford's 1956 film The Searchers, Museum of the Moving Image will screen the iconic western along with a special preview screening of Thomas Bidegain's Cesar-nominated Les Cowboys, an acclaimed new film that was strongly inspired by The Searchers. The films will play back-to-back on June 18 and 19 at the Museum.

John Ford's philosophical portrait of obsession, racism, and heroic solitude, The Searchers features John Wayne at his darkest as Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran on a RELENTLESS years-long attempt to track down his abducted niece and the Comanche chief who kidnapped her. Often lauded as the greatest western of all time, The Searchers inspired a generation of screenwriters and directors, most famously Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. French Cesar-award winning screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, who authored Jacques Audiard's films Dheepan, Rust and Bone, and A Prophet, is only the latest to play homage to Ford's film in his impressive directorial debut.

Les Cowboys, which debuted at Cannes 2015 before premiering in the main slate of the New York Film Festival, is a decades-long saga spanning pre- to post-9/11, set amidst a sub-culture of western enthusiasts in contemporary France. When a teenage girl, Kelly, vanishes amidst the chaos of a cowboy fair, her father Alain's initial fear quickly turns to anger and disbelief as it becomes increasingly clear that his daughter has willingly abandoned her life and converted to Islam. Convinced that she was coerced, Alain devotes what is left of his broken existence to finding her, eventually bestowing the responsibility of the search onto his son.

In his timely interpretation of The Searchers, Bidegain transports the classic iconography of the western genre to contemporary landscapes, traversing the hillsides of France to the deserts of Pakistan. Following these special preview screenings at the Museum, Cohen Media Group will release Les Cowboys theatrically on June 24 at Lincoln Plaza and the Sunshine Cinema in New York and the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

The schedule for the Museum's screenings are listed below and online. Tickets for each screening are $12 ($9 seniors and students / free for Museum members at the Film Lover and MoMI Kids Premium levels and above). Advance tickets are available online at movingimage.us.

SCHEDULE
The Searchers
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 12:30 P.M. & SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2:30 P.M.
Dir. John Ford. 1956, 119 mins. 35mm. With John Wayne, Natalie Wood, Jeff Hunter, Vera Miles.

Les Cowboys
SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 3:00 P.M. & SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 5:15 P.M.
Dir. Thomas Bidegain. 2015, 104 mins. DCP courtesy Cohen Media. With François Damien, Finnegan Oldfield.