From Drag Queens to Coup D’États, MoMA Celebrates 40 Years of Documentaries at Film Forum

 
Those outside of the New York sphere may not know the scrappy institution known as Film Forum—a small three-screen theater on a lonely section of Houston Street dedicated to running on the best and most important of what cinema has to offer. Despite—or perhaps even in part because of—its “only in New York” awkward layout, Film Forum has become an essential part of the Manhattan arts scene, a place where half-forgotten classics, bold new works, and sentimental favorites have awaited film lovers every night for the past 40 years. To celebrate, Film Forum’s uptown sister, the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art, has brought in the downtown theater’s director since 1972, Karen Cooper, to draw up a program of over 30 shorts and full-length documentary features that trace the past four decades in the the field of non-fictional movie making. From “Asylum”, to “The Battle of Chile, Part 2: The Coup d’État”, to “Paris is Burning”, and “Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh”, the program covers almost every corner of human life, from workaday home life through war, artists, drag queens, and almost everything in between. Beginning today, “Karen Cooper Carte Blanche: 40 Years of Documentary Premieres at Film Forum” is a fitting testament to the best cinema showcase in a city where anything is possible.

When in New York, visit both Film Forum and MoMA for the town’s most finely curated film selections and for guidebooks to entire cities and countries visited through the prism of movie making, pick up a copy of one of our “Film + Travel” series.
 
“Karen Cooper Carte Blanche: 40 Years of Documentary Premieres at Film Forum”
Now through February 20, 2010
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
Manhattan, New York, USA
(212) 767-1050‎
www.moma.org
 
Film Forum
209 West Houston Street
(212) 627-2035‎
www.filmforum.org
Manhattan, New York, USA
 
Above, clockwise from upper left: “Crumb”, 1994, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics, “The Battle of Chile, Part 2: The Coup d’État”, 1977, courtesy of Icarus Films, “Paris is Burning” 1990, courtesy of Miramax, “Let’s Get Lost”, 1988, courtesy of Little Bear Productions.