Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Series

MABOU MINES CINEMA

March 13 – March 19

March 13-19, 2026

Mabou Mines is one of the most important, adventurous, and long-lasting of all avant-garde American theater troupes, a status that has been maintained from its founding in 1970 by JoAnne Akalaitis, Lee Breuer, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech, and David Warrilow, to its current incarnation under co-artistic directors Mallory Catlett, Karen Kandel, and Carl Hancock Rux. They are also, like their contemporaries the Wooster Group and Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, a downtown institution, having spent their formative years at La MaMa and the Public Theater (which was also the site of the initial incarnation of Anthology!) before finding a permanent home at PS 122 (now 122 Community Center), where they still reside.

This series explores the company’s little-seen forays into film, including the new wave-inspired, Breuer-directed MOI-MÊME, featuring a brief cameo by Jean-Luc Godard, which the group shot in Paris in 1968 before officially forming the company (but which was only recently resurrected and reimagined by Breuer’s son Mojo Lorwin); the RED HORSE (1974) and B. BEAVER ANIMATIONS (1979), two of the company’s first experiments with video; JoAnne Akalaitis’s feature film version of her Obie-winning play DEAD END KIDS (1986), which takes a darkly comic and philosophical approach to the prospect of nuclear Armageddon (and boasts a soundtrack by David Byrne and Philip Glass); and filmmaker Jill Godmilow’s epic, six-hour, fly-on-the-wall documentary LEAR ‘87 ARCHIVE (2001) (never-before-screened theatrically), which follows the rehearsal process for the company’s ground-breaking gender-reversed version of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR, directed by Breuer and starring Maleczech. In addition to the aforementioned artists, the films in this series feature Mabou mainstays Honora Fergusson, Ellen McElduff, Greg Mehrten, Maude Mitchell, Fred Neumann, Terry O’Reilly, Bill Raymond, and many other legends of downtown theater.

Programmed by Mojo Lorwin, who wrote the introduction and individual film descriptions.

Special thanks to Mallory Catlett, Sharon Fogarty, Karen Kandel, Carl Hancock Rux, and Joe Stackell (Mabou Mines); Liza Lorwin; Karen Cardarelli (Facets); and Sandra Schulberg (IndieCollect).

Upcoming Screenings

< Back to Series