Delwende and Some African Films from the Collection
October 5–13

The weeklong run of S. Pierre Yameogo's Delwende is accompanied by a selection from MoMA’s collection of works about Africa by African filmmakers: Yamina Bachir-Chouikh's Rachida, Mehdi Charef's Daughter of Keltoum, Djibril Diop Mambéty's The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun, Férid Boughedir's Camera d'Afrique: Twenty Years of African Cinema, and Safi Faye's Mossane.

Canyon Cinema
October 6

The Department of Film presents a book signing and film screening to mark the recent publication of Scott MacDonald's Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor (University of California Press, 2008). MacDonald's lively, often first-person account uses interviews, poetry, experimental writing, drawings, and cartoons to capture a remarkable moment in American cultural history. In the 1960s, in the San Francisco Bay area, a small, backyard film exhibition and distribution collective emerged, eventually establishing itself as a major force in the development of independent cinema. The author signs copies of his book and introduces a selection of films by some of the founders and early driving forces of Canyon Cinema.

MoMA Presents: S. Pierre Yameogo's Delwende
October 8–13

The New York theatrical premiere of S. Pierre Yameogo's Delwende is accompanied by the exhibition Some African Films from the Collection—a selection of works about Africa by filmmakers from Africa. Yameogo's sixth feature challenges patriarchal traditions. A young woman is raped and married off, while her mother, accused of being a "soul eater"—a malignant force within the community—is expelled from the village. The daughter, feisty and determined, sets off to find her mother. Courtesy New Yorker Films.

Delwende. 2005. Burkina Faso/France/ Switzerland. Written and directed by S. Pierre Yameogo

MoMA Presents: Ken Jacobs's Return to the Scene of the Crime
October 16–22

Jacobs's return to a single scene from the 1905 short Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son—which he first disassembled in his 1969 masterpiece of the same name—could easily be titled "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Scene." An avant-gardist's comedy, Return roguishly riffs on thirteen distinct styles, revealing, distorting, interpreting, and even misinterpreting the hundreds of actions in a single scene—as painting, abstraction, allegory, and, ultimately, as ballet. It's a wry, roving, and joyous ode to movies.

Ken Jacobs: Filmmaker Extraordinaire
October 16–22

In this new century Ken Jacobs has wholeheartedly embraced digital techniques, and his recent works—only some of which are presented here—explore the grain and frames of early films through his mastery of a full range of digital pyrotechnics. The exhibition features some of the freshest short films around, along with a daylong screening of the filmmaker's no-budget magnum opus Star Spangled to Death, which, with its fierce political punch and Beat whimsy, is as relevant today as it was when it was commenced in 1956.

Razzle Dazzle, The Lost World. 2006–07. USA. Directed by Ken Jacobs

Hollywood on the Hudson: Filmmaking in New York, 1920–39
Through October 19

Hollywood on the Hudson traces the roots of the modern American film industry to New York City between the two world wars, when an industry built on centralized authority began to listen, for the first time, to a range of independent voices, each with their own ideas about what the movies could say and do. The Hollywood studio system was geared toward creating a standardized product and sought to appeal to all ages and classes, whereas New York cinema was technically innovative and culturally specific, and played to niche audiences, from art houses to ethnic enclaves. This exhibition surveys filmmaking in New York during the hegemony of Hollywood, from D. W. Griffith's return from the West Coast in 1919 to the World's Fair of 1939. Screenings include pioneering sound films shot at the Paramount Studios in Astoria, Queens, and starring Broadway luminaries; films featuring such stars as Louise Brooks, Marion Davies, the Marx Brothers, Gloria Swanson, and Rudolph Valentino; and noteworthy African American and Yiddish films.

Looking at Music
Through December 31

Music was at the forefront of interdisciplinary experimentation in the 1960s, when the mixing of mediums took off. Portable video cameras, electric guitars, and an aura of technical innovation all fostered radical experimentation. This screening series, presented in conjunction with a selection of early media and related drawings, prints, and photographs in the The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery, examines the radical role of music in the early development of media art, and includes documentary and experimental films, and music videos.

Still Moving
Ongoing

MoMA presents a regular series derived exclusively from its film collection, featuring works that have been acquired and preserved by the Museum over the last seven decades. In October, we mark the recent passing of experimental film artist Bruce Conner with a program of his films. In addition, we present films by four directors recently honored by MoMA in its A Work in Progress series: David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster), Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth), and James Mangold (Walk the Line).