Segal Center Film Festival to Spotlight Theater Artist Robert Wilson

From May 28 to June 5, 2026, The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at CUNY’s Graduate Center will present the tenth edition of its Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) in partnership with Anthology Film Archives, New York’s arthouse cinema.

This year's festival contains an international program of new films plus "Robert Wilson On Screen," a retrospective of films by and about Robert Wilson, one of the 20th century’s most transformative theater artists, who passed away in 2025 at the age of 83.

The festival will take place in two locations; films in the international program will be screened May 28 to 20 at CUNY’s Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street) and all showings are free.

Films of the Robert Wilson retrospective will be screened May 29 to June 5 at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave. (at E. 2nd Street); tickets are $14-$8 and can be purchased here.

FTP spotligjhts new film and video works focusing on theater and performance, presenting screen-based works that explore the boundaries between stage and cinema, and inviting experimental and established artists from across the globe to share original films with New York audiences and industry professionals.

FTP is co-curated by Tomek Smolarski and Frank Hentschker. The Robert Wilson retrospective is presented in collaboration with Anthology Film Archives, The Robert Wilson Estate & Trust and The Watermill Center and is curated by Tomek Smolarski with Clifford Allen, Jed Rapfogel and Frank Hentschker.

About Robert Wilson On Screen 

Robert Wilson was a figure in experimental theater for over fifty years, responsible for such landmarks as “Einstein on the Beach” (1976), “The Civil Wars” (1984), and “The Black Rider” (1990), and productions of works by Shakespeare, Beckett, Ibsen, Ionesco, and Heiner Müller. He collaborated with Philip Glass, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, and William S. Burroughs, among many others, and in 1991 founded The Watermill Center on Long Island, a “laboratory for performance” that continues to develop work to this day. 

Screenings of this retrospective include Wilson’s own film and video works "Video 50 (1978), "Deafman Glance" (1981) and "Stations" (1982), which are filmed versions of his theater productions, plus a selection of documentary portraits: Mark Obenhaus’s definitive chronicle of “Einstein on the Beach," Howard Brookner’s revealing "Robert Wilsom and the Civil Wars" (1987), Giada Colagrande’s "Bob Wilson's Life & Death of Marina Abramovic" (2012), and Pauline de Grunne’s "Robert Wilson In Situ" (2017), among many others. For the full program and tickets to all events, visit here.

About International Films Of The Festival

The festival opens Thursday, May 28 at The Segal Theatre Center, 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street) with a special evening screening of "Monk in Pieces," followed by a Q&A with director Billy Shebar. The program continues Saturday, May 30 and Monday, June 2 with a selection of international works spanning documentary, performance film, and hybrid forms from seven countries. Take a look at the lineup below.

Monk in Pieces dir. Billy Shebar & David C. Roberts | USA, Germany, France, 2025 | 94 min
Premiered at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, this portrait follows composer and interdisciplinary artist Meredith Monk, now in her seventh decade of creativity, as she confronts her own legacy and the question of whether such singular work can survive without her. With interviews from Björk, David Byrne, and Philip Glass. Screening May 28 with Q&A featuring director Billy Shebar. 

In-I In Motion dir. Juliette Binoche | France, 2025 | 156 min
The directorial debut of Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche. In 2007, Binoche and British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan stepped outside their established careers to co-create In-I, an original performance they staged 100 times worldwide. Nearly two decades later, Binoche has assembled the footage into a two-part documentary: raw studio rehearsal footage revealing two masters pushing beyond their limits, followed by the complete live performance in its propulsive, moodily lit entirety. Screening May 30.

Unbound dir. John English & Tom Garner | Spain, 2024 | 91 min
Winner of the Jury Award at the Central Scotland Documentary Festival, this urgent documentary follows a group of abuse survivors from the ballet world who walk out of toxic companies and build a radical, inclusive company of their own, led by Chase Johnsey, a gender-fluid dance insurgent. A story of resistance, recovery, and the fight to reclaim the stage. Screening May 30.

Respoken dir. Sidney Ken & Thaiphirun Hul | Cambodia, 2024 | 26 min
Winner of Best Documentary at the Cambodia National Short Film Festival and Best Short Film at the Cambodia Asian Film Festival, this acclaimed short follows a visionary actor and his small troupe as they fight to revive Lakhon Niyeay, Cambodia’s traditional spoken theater, preparing for their first major show in six years against dwindling audiences and an uncertain future. Screening May 30.

Palestine Comedy Club dir. Alaa Aliabdallah & Charlotte Knowles | Palestine, UK, 2024 | 97 min
This documentary follows six Palestinian stand-up comedians as they write and tour a comedy show across the West Bank, Haifa, Nazareth, Jerusalem, and London — using dark humor to explore identity, occupation, and survival. Filming began before October 7, 2023; the tour continued through the war. Screening May 30.

Museum of the Night dir. Fermín Eloy Acosta | Argentina, 2025 | 88 min
In 1968, Argentine artist Leandro Katz attended a midnight performance by the Theatre of the Ridiculous in a New York pornographic cinema. This film-essay, weaving archives, testimonies, and spectres of the past, revisits that lost queer underground world surrounding Jack Smith and the Theatre of the Ridiculous, documented by avant-garde filmmakers including Jonas Mekas, as Katz, now very late in life in Buenos Aires, uncovers footage he believed lost forever. Screening May 30.

Ewa — The Last Lesson dir. Andrea Mura & Federico Savonitto | Italy/Poland, 2025 | 66 min
After sixty years of theatrical research, collaborating with Jerzy Grotowski and generations of European theater artists, Ewa Benesz prepares to leave Italy and return to Lublin, the city she fled during Polish martial law in the 1980s. As she gives her final workshops and writes her memoirs, the film asks: what survives when a life’s work in performance can no longer be transmitted in person? A deeply resonant portrait of theater as living memory. Screening June 2.

Obsessed with Light dir. Sabine Krayenbühl & Zeva Oelbaum | USA, 2025 | 90 min
A visual poem in honor of Loïc Fuller (1862–1928), the wildly original American dancer who pioneered modern performance by fusing fabric, movement, and light into a completely new kind of spectacle, and whose influence has since reached Taylor Swift, William Kentridge, Bill T. Jones, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. With voice performances by Cherry Jones and commentary by Robert Wilson. Closing the in-person program June 2.