Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Series

FACES: MOVING-IMAGE PORTRAITURE

November 20 – December 1

November 20-December 1, 2026

Exploring the tradition of portraiture in the cinema, this series surveys the variety of approaches filmmakers have taken to depicting the human face – and by extension, the mysterious relationship between the face and the depths of thought, emotion, and personality that human physiognomy variously suggests, reveals, or conceals.

More often than not, when films are referred to as “portraits” what is meant are fictional or non-fictional narrative accounts of a particular character or subject: films that recount a subject’s history, that tell their story, that delve into their psychology or document their interactions with their environment. This series instead focuses on films that function more literally as portraits in the art-historical sense – that follow in the tradition of the painted, drawn, sculpted, or photographed portrait, but that introduce the elements of motion and time, as well as montage.

Including everything from Andy Warhol’s SCREEN TESTS (perhaps the most famous and ambitious collection of filmic portraits) and Gregory Markopoulos’s majestic GALAXIE, to Yoko Ono’s FILM NO. 5 (SMILE) and FLUXFILM NO. 16 (the first version of BOTTOMS), to the work of other artists who have demonstrated a sustained engagement with the form (like Gérard Courant, Friedl vom Gröller, and Joan Logue), the series also features short portrait films by an enormous variety of filmmakers, including Stan Brakhage, Narcisa Hirsch, Tehching Hsieh, Kurt Kren, Maria Lassnig, Gunvor Nelson, Edward Owens, Ernst Schmidt Jr., and many others. All these artists have been captivated by the mysteries and the paradoxes of the human face, and preoccupied with the cinema’s capacity (or the limits thereof) to convey its complex beauty and to ponder its status as both portal and screen.

Special thanks to Norman Ballard (Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation); Robert Beavers; Elle Burchill & Andrea Monti (Microscope Gallery); Gérard Courant; Marieli Fröhlich; Matthew Gray (Warhol Museum); Tehching Hsieh; Brett Kashmere & Zachary Epcar (Canyon Cinema); Cathleen Kayser; Joan Logue; Karl McCool (Electronic Arts Intermix); Matt McKinzie & Julia Petrocelli (Film-Makers’ Coop); Connor Monahan (Yoko Ono Studio); Conrad Ventur; Friedl vom Gröller; and Gerald Weber (sixpack).

During the series, we will also be displaying a selection of Joan Logue’s moving-image installations in the lobby!

Upcoming Screenings

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