https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org An international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video with a particular focus on American independent and avant-garde cinema and its precursors found in classic European, Soviet and Japanese film. en-us Sun, 03 May 2026 10:03:36 -0400 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61361 <p>sitrep (Blair Barnes, 2026, 20min)<br />Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski, 2013, 92min)<br /><br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61363 <p>Concealed and Denied (Jordan Lord, 2026, 35min)<br />The Glass Booth (Jenny Brady, 2026, 33min)<br /><br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61365 <p>ATASH, AISHA, TEYH: THREE FILMS BY PARINE JADDO<br />Co-presented by Arte East<br /><br />Atash (Thirst) (Parine Jaddo, 1995, 14min)<br />Aisha (Surviving) (Parine Jaddo, 1999, 32min)<br />Teyh (Astray) (Parine Jaddo, 2002, 21min)<br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61367 <p>My Friends in My Address Book (Kohei Ando, 1974, 3min, 16mm)<br />Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Lynne Sachs, 2025, 83min)<br /><br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61369 <p>Anomalies in a Landscape (Félix Caraballo, 2025, 8min, 16mm)<br />In the Manner of Smoke (Armand Yervant Tufenkian, 2025, 91min)<br /><br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61371 <p>WORLD ENTERPRISES (Anthony Banua-Simon, 2026, 14min)<br />Aanikoobijigan (Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, 2026, 80min)<br /><br /><strong>Followed by a Q&A.</strong><br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61373 <p>before everything has a name (An-li dīng, 2026, 17min)<br />Masayume (Nao Yoshigai, 2026, 110min)<br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61375 <p>THE LAND LIES HEAVY: THE CONTEMPORARY CHINESE AVANT-GARDE<br />Co-presented by Tone Glow<br /><br />Article 4 (Hsin-Yu Chen, 2026, 4min)<br />Branches From Concrete (Zhou Zhenyu, 2026, 14min)<br />Words Fly Back to the Black Earth (Xiao Zhang, 2026, 19min)<br />Redland Hooves (Kaiwen Ren, 2026, 27min)<br /><br />For full program details, visit: <a href="https://www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program">www.prismaticground.com/year-six/program</a><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 03 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61263 <p>This documentary follows the rise to widespread fame of Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, also known as Fatima Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Beltagy (1898-1975), who was born in the rural village of Tammay al-Zahayrah. She would soon become one of the most powerful voices in Egypt and across the Arab world, captivating audiences with her commanding vocals radiating across airwaves, and her mesmerizing stage presence in often sold-out live performances. Narrated by Omar Sharif, this 1996 documentary traces her influence and artistry through performance footage and interviews with friends, colleagues, and everyday Egyptians, reflecting on her life, career, and daring political stances. The profound influence Umm Kulthum’s music has had on Mohammad Omer Khalil’s life and work is reflected in the numerous collage paintings and prints he has created in tribute to the singer.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Tuesday, May 05 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61265 <p>Set on the cliffs of England’s south coast, THE CHALK GARDEN centers on a troubled household marked by emotional distance and concealed pasts. A headstrong, destructive 16-year-old girl and her exacting grandmother struggle to coexist, their relationship strained by mistrust and unspoken histories. The arrival of a mysterious governess begins to unsettle the household, as long-buried secrets gradually surface and fragile bonds are tentatively rebuilt, mirrored by the slow cultivation of the once-barren chalk garden. After seeing the film in 1965, dubbed in Italian, artist Mohammad Omer Khalil created one of his earliest etchings, depicting the chalk garden. The work, “Il Giardino Di Gesso” (1965) is on view alongside its plate in his solo exhibition “Common Ground” at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Study Center.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Tuesday, May 05 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186 <p>“Co-written by experimental filmmakers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, THE PLAGIARISTS is at once a hilarious send-up of low-budget American indie filmmaking and a probing inquiry into race, relationships, and the social uncanny. A young novelist (Lucy Kaminsky) and her cinematographer boyfriend (Eamon Monaghan) are waylaid by a snowstorm on their way to visit a friend in upstate New York and are taken in by the kindly yet enigmatic Clip (Michael “Clip” Payne of Parliament Funkadelic), who puts them up for the night. But an accidental discovery months later recasts in an unnerving light what had seemed like an agreeable evening, stoking resentments both latent and not-so-latent. Exhilaratingly intelligent and distinctively shot on a vintage TV-news camera, THE PLAGIARISTS is a work whose provocations are inseparable from its pleasures.” –NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS<br /><br />“THE PLAGIARISTS’s artists-on-a-rural-retreat premise recalls that of Schavoir’s THE JAG, while its serpentine, discursive form, which knowingly flirts with the possible character-centric indie it might have become even as it spins out in increasingly curious directions, is sprung from the same searching intelligence that Wilkins brings to bear on his more openly essayistic experimental films. […] This is a rigorous film concerned with questions of cultural appropriation, learned behavior, and the very texture of life in our content-saturated present (a feeling not exclusive to urban centers), but one with the good humor and wisdom to disguise itself as something far more familiar.” –Carson Lund, SLANT<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person:</strong><strong> Sun, May 10 at 4:15 (Q&A) and </strong><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 8:45 (intro).</strong><br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 06 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61168 <p>“Welles’s first feature is probably the most respected, analyzed, and parodied of all films. Although its archival and historical value are unchallenged, CITIZEN KANE, nevertheless, seems fresh on each new viewing. The film touches on so many aspects of American life – politics and sex, friendship and betrayal, youth and old age – that it has become a film for all moods and generations. In its expansive way, it creates a kaleidoscopic panorama of a man’s life. Loosely based on the life of the newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, CITIZEN KANE is the saga of the rise to power of a ‘poor little rich boy’ starved for affection, as Welles himself was after his parents’ early deaths. It is also a meditation on emotional greed, the ease of amassing wealth, and the difficulty of sustaining love.” –MoMA<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a> </p> Wednesday, May 06 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191 <p>Shot by D.A. Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock, Mailer’s third and most ambitious film of the 1960s concerns the exploits of highly popular, yet esoteric, film director Norman T. Kingsley. That MAIDSTONE was largely improvised was made unforgettably clear when Torn, near the end of shooting, unexpectedly attacked Mailer with a hammer, triggering an obviously un-staged tussle that yanked the film out of its already ambiguous semblance of fictional narrative. Torn has consistently maintained that his action arose from conversations with his director, while Mailer claimed otherwise. But in any case, the result was a truly extraordinary sequence that even Mailer himself ultimately admitted had benefited the film (though not before very nearly taking a bite out of Torn’s ear…).<br /><br />“This is a strange one: a nearly unwatchable train wreck of a movie you need eyes in the back of your head to safely watch, lest you get jumped by a psychologically crippled hipster who has snuck up behind you in the dark movie theater, hammer in hand. I haven’t had the pleasure because I’ve only seen it on YouTube. So here’s to new experiences at Anthology Film Archives. I’ve heard the endeavor bankrupted Norman Mailer, and honestly, that’s the realest definition of independent film I can think of. As a character in my own THE MISCONCEIVED says about MAIDSTONE: ‘You can’t make that movie anymore,’ which is slightly inaccurate since Mailer couldn’t make it in the first place.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 06 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61222 <p>In 1989, the fall of Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship in Paraguay brought an end to one of the world’s longest authoritarian regimes – and left behind a vast audiovisual archive once used to shape national identity and glorify power. Decades later, newly recovered footage from Paraguay and abroad – newsreels, television broadcasts, propaganda films, and declassified materials – reveals the hidden machinery of the regime. Moving across formats and histories, this striking debut feature by Juanjo Pereira becomes an excavation of memory and media, exposing how images were used to construct ideology, sustain international alliances, and normalize repression, while reflecting on a present still marked by the legacy of dictatorship.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 07 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61226 <p>Everyone knows Fritz, that weird man who lives down the street, has a thing for young guys. If he meets a teen he likes, he might invite them back to his place, with an offer of money or sex. No one ever questions what happens to those young men, why they’re never seen again, or where Fritz sources the fresh meat he sells to the local businesses. The story of Fritz Haarmann, Germany’s most notorious serial killer, is brought to life in this lurid 1973 period drama, a collaborative effort of members of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s coterie. Actor Kurt Raab is chilling and brilliant as Fritz, in a script he wrote for Fassbinder to direct. Fassbinder instead chose to produce and act in the film alongside company regulars Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, and El Hedi ben Salem. Uli Lommel, star of early Fassbinder titles like WHITY and BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE, was nominated for the Golden Bear for his feature directing debut, which brought him into Andy Warhol’s inner circle and kicked off a long career in low-budget horror cinema. While the film’s depictions of sex and violence are unquestionably disturbing, the film’s indictment of capitalism as a root cause of Haarmann’s bloodshed is even more so, placing Lommel’s film in direct communication with Fassbinder’s classic melodrama FOX AND HIS FRIENDS, shown last year at Narrow Rooms.<br /><br />“It is beautifully and enthusiastically performed and it doesn’t contain a single superfluous or redundant camera movement. Like Mr. Fassbinder’s own early films, TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES is cryptic, tough-talking and swaggering in the manner of someone who means to shock his elders. Like the early Warhol work, TENDERNESS seems to be sending up everyone and everything, but, unlike the Warhol movies, it takes filmmaking – the possibilities of the discipline – with complete seriousness.” –Vincent Canby, NEW YORK TIMES<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 07 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61230 <p>EL SIGNO VACÍO is a feature-length anthropological journey through the United States’s occupation of Puerto Rico. Mixing over a hundred years of found footage – tourism, agricultural, and propaganda films – with contemporary portraits of local artists and activists and Puerto Rican punk rock/noise music, the film reveals how carefully crafted American fictions of “democracy” and “debt” obscure a capitalist and military domination that is ongoing. Moving between old and new, Spanish and English, and between paradise and environmental destruction, EL SIGNO VACÍO becomes a “re-educational” film challenging the viewer to (re)think about modern colonization, its mechanisms and its responsibilities.<br /><br />“In 2014 while researching U.S. immigration practices, I discovered a border patrol in Aguadilla PR with my last name. The base was named for a man who was not Puerto Rican and never even visited the islands, yet the name ‘Ramey’ is everywhere in the northwest part of the country. I became a traveler in a place where everyone knew my name. I wanted to give back to the people who were helping me research and so I offered a 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing workshop at Beta-Local in San Juan. One workshop led to another, engaging me directly with the interests of the artists who had become my friends and interlocutors for the project. Their feedback helped me to create a more nuanced and far-reaching use of found material including working with images from reality TV and social media. Because the past is only past for people who have the luxury of forgetting, the film connects historic fiscal, agricultural, military, and tourist activity with the present-day invasion of ‘crypto-bros,’ opportunistic settlers, and cynical and corrupt politicians and policies. History is being made today as my friends and their families continue to insist on their dignity and the right to control their future and the future of Puerto Rico.” –Kathryn Ramey<br /><br />[<strong>In conjunction with the screenings of EL SIGNO VACÍO, we'll be presenting a series - guest-curated by Caroline Gil Rodríguez - entitled "Pouring Libations: Experimental Films from/on Puerto Rico; for more details click <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61234">here</a> and <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61236">here</a>.</strong>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Friday, May 08 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Friday, May 08 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61192 <p>Shot by D.A. Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock, Mailer’s third and most ambitious film of the 1960s concerns the exploits of highly popular, yet esoteric, film director Norman T. Kingsley. That MAIDSTONE was largely improvised was made unforgettably clear when Torn, near the end of shooting, unexpectedly attacked Mailer with a hammer, triggering an obviously un-staged tussle that yanked the film out of its already ambiguous semblance of fictional narrative. Torn has consistently maintained that his action arose from conversations with his director, while Mailer claimed otherwise. But in any case, the result was a truly extraordinary sequence that even Mailer himself ultimately admitted had benefited the film (though not before very nearly taking a bite out of Torn’s ear…).<br /><br />“This is a strange one: a nearly unwatchable train wreck of a movie you need eyes in the back of your head to safely watch, lest you get jumped by a psychologically crippled hipster who has snuck up behind you in the dark movie theater, hammer in hand. I haven’t had the pleasure because I’ve only seen it on YouTube. So here’s to new experiences at Anthology Film Archives. I’ve heard the endeavor bankrupted Norman Mailer, and honestly, that’s the realest definition of independent film I can think of. As a character in my own THE MISCONCEIVED says about MAIDSTONE: ‘You can’t make that movie anymore,’ which is slightly inaccurate since Mailer couldn’t make it in the first place.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 09 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61231 <p>EL SIGNO VACÍO is a feature-length anthropological journey through the United States’s occupation of Puerto Rico. Mixing over a hundred years of found footage – tourism, agricultural, and propaganda films – with contemporary portraits of local artists and activists and Puerto Rican punk rock/noise music, the film reveals how carefully crafted American fictions of “democracy” and “debt” obscure a capitalist and military domination that is ongoing. Moving between old and new, Spanish and English, and between paradise and environmental destruction, EL SIGNO VACÍO becomes a “re-educational” film challenging the viewer to (re)think about modern colonization, its mechanisms and its responsibilities.<br /><br />“In 2014 while researching U.S. immigration practices, I discovered a border patrol in Aguadilla PR with my last name. The base was named for a man who was not Puerto Rican and never even visited the islands, yet the name ‘Ramey’ is everywhere in the northwest part of the country. I became a traveler in a place where everyone knew my name. I wanted to give back to the people who were helping me research and so I offered a 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing workshop at Beta-Local in San Juan. One workshop led to another, engaging me directly with the interests of the artists who had become my friends and interlocutors for the project. Their feedback helped me to create a more nuanced and far-reaching use of found material including working with images from reality TV and social media. Because the past is only past for people who have the luxury of forgetting, the film connects historic fiscal, agricultural, military, and tourist activity with the present-day invasion of ‘crypto-bros,’ opportunistic settlers, and cynical and corrupt politicians and policies. History is being made today as my friends and their families continue to insist on their dignity and the right to control their future and the future of Puerto Rico.” –Kathryn Ramey<br /><br />[<strong>In conjunction with the screenings of EL SIGNO VACÍO, we'll be presenting a series - guest-curated by Caroline Gil Rodríguez - entitled "Pouring Libations: Experimental Films from/on Puerto Rico; for more details click <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61234">here</a> and <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61236">here</a>.</strong>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 09 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61175 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 09 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61234 <p>These two programs explore the myriad ways Puerto Rican history and culture have seeped into experimental film and media practices, combining works by Puerto Rican filmmakers with those influenced by the occupation, sounds, gestures and participation of Boricuas on the island and in its diaspora. The selection includes works that uncover the vestiges of clandestine, national liberation groups, visitor economy regimens, manifestations of frenzy, popular fabrications, the iconography of salsa, queer kinship and radical filmmaking with the hopes of jump-cutting into a liberatory future.<br /><br />Guest-programmed by Caroline Gil Rodríguez.<br /><br />[<strong>These programs are presented alongside our screenings of Kathryn Ramey's EL SIGNO VACÍO; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61230">click here for more details</a>.</strong>]<br /><br />PROGRAM 1: LAS ESTATUAS TAMBIÉN MUEREN – LA CLAVE<br />nibia pastrana santiago LOS PRESIDENTES PISAN, O CONMEMORANDO LO INVISIBLE, O QUIERO SER UNA ICONOCLASTA SEXY / THE PRESIDENTS STEP ON, OR COMMEMORATING THE INVISIBLE, OR I WANT TO BE A SEXY ICONOCLAST (2014, 10 min, digital)<br />José Rodríguez Soltero JEROVI (1965, 11.5 min, 16mm, silent)<br />Jack Smith JUNGLE ISLAND aka REEFERS OF TECHNICOLOR ISLAND (1967, 15 min, 16mm)<br />Tony Cruz Pabón LA LLAVE / LA CLAVE (2018, 11 min, digital)<br />DeeDee Halleck BRONX BAPTISM (1982, 30 min, 16mm-to-digital)<br />Charles Atlas FROM AN ISLAND SUMMER (1983-84, 13 min, 16mm-to-digital)<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 95 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 09 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61176 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 09 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61187 <p>“Co-written by experimental filmmakers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, THE PLAGIARISTS is at once a hilarious send-up of low-budget American indie filmmaking and a probing inquiry into race, relationships, and the social uncanny. A young novelist (Lucy Kaminsky) and her cinematographer boyfriend (Eamon Monaghan) are waylaid by a snowstorm on their way to visit a friend in upstate New York and are taken in by the kindly yet enigmatic Clip (Michael “Clip” Payne of Parliament Funkadelic), who puts them up for the night. But an accidental discovery months later recasts in an unnerving light what had seemed like an agreeable evening, stoking resentments both latent and not-so-latent. Exhilaratingly intelligent and distinctively shot on a vintage TV-news camera, THE PLAGIARISTS is a work whose provocations are inseparable from its pleasures.” –NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS<br /><br />“THE PLAGIARISTS’s artists-on-a-rural-retreat premise recalls that of Schavoir’s THE JAG, while its serpentine, discursive form, which knowingly flirts with the possible character-centric indie it might have become even as it spins out in increasingly curious directions, is sprung from the same searching intelligence that Wilkins brings to bear on his more openly essayistic experimental films. […] This is a rigorous film concerned with questions of cultural appropriation, learned behavior, and the very texture of life in our content-saturated present (a feeling not exclusive to urban centers), but one with the good humor and wisdom to disguise itself as something far more familiar.” –Carson Lund, SLANT<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person:</strong><strong> Sun, May 10 at 4:15 (Q&A) and </strong><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 8:45 (intro).</strong><br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 10 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61232 <p>EL SIGNO VACÍO is a feature-length anthropological journey through the United States’s occupation of Puerto Rico. Mixing over a hundred years of found footage – tourism, agricultural, and propaganda films – with contemporary portraits of local artists and activists and Puerto Rican punk rock/noise music, the film reveals how carefully crafted American fictions of “democracy” and “debt” obscure a capitalist and military domination that is ongoing. Moving between old and new, Spanish and English, and between paradise and environmental destruction, EL SIGNO VACÍO becomes a “re-educational” film challenging the viewer to (re)think about modern colonization, its mechanisms and its responsibilities.<br /><br />“In 2014 while researching U.S. immigration practices, I discovered a border patrol in Aguadilla PR with my last name. The base was named for a man who was not Puerto Rican and never even visited the islands, yet the name ‘Ramey’ is everywhere in the northwest part of the country. I became a traveler in a place where everyone knew my name. I wanted to give back to the people who were helping me research and so I offered a 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing workshop at Beta-Local in San Juan. One workshop led to another, engaging me directly with the interests of the artists who had become my friends and interlocutors for the project. Their feedback helped me to create a more nuanced and far-reaching use of found material including working with images from reality TV and social media. Because the past is only past for people who have the luxury of forgetting, the film connects historic fiscal, agricultural, military, and tourist activity with the present-day invasion of ‘crypto-bros,’ opportunistic settlers, and cynical and corrupt politicians and policies. History is being made today as my friends and their families continue to insist on their dignity and the right to control their future and the future of Puerto Rico.” –Kathryn Ramey<br /><br />[<strong>In conjunction with the screenings of EL SIGNO VACÍO, we'll be presenting a series - guest-curated by Caroline Gil Rodríguez - entitled "Pouring Libations: Experimental Films from/on Puerto Rico; for more details click <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61234">here</a> and <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61236">here</a>.</strong>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 10 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61177 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 10 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61236 <p>POURING LIBATIONS: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS FROM/ON PUERTO RICO<br />These two programs explore the myriad ways Puerto Rican history and culture have seeped into experimental film and media practices, combining works by Puerto Rican filmmakers with those influenced by the occupation, sounds, gestures and participation of Boricuas on the island and in its diaspora. The selection includes works that uncover the vestiges of clandestine, national liberation groups, visitor economy regimens, manifestations of frenzy, popular fabrications, the iconography of salsa, queer kinship and radical filmmaking with the hopes of jump-cutting into a liberatory future.<br /><br />Guest-programmed by Caroline Gil Rodríguez.<br /><br />[<strong>These programs are presented alongside our screenings of Kathryn Ramey's EL SIGNO VACÍO; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61230">click here for more details</a>.</strong>]<br /><br />PROGRAM 2: MYTHOPOESIS – COWBOY AND INDIANS<br />Raphael Montañez Ortiz COWBOY AND “INDIAN” FILM (1958, 2 min, 16mm-to-digital)<br />Jaime Barrios FILM CLUB (1968, 26 min, 16mm)<br />Edén Bastida Kullick MONTE CARMELO (2018, 3 min, 16mm-to-digital)<br />Sofía Gallisá Muriente UN MONTÓN DE SILENCIOS / A BUNDLE OF SILENCES (2025, 24 min, digital)<br />Beatriz Santiago Muñoz ONEIROMANCER (2017, 26 min, digital)<br />Poli Marichal LOS ESPEJISMOS DE MANDRÁGORA LUNA / MANDRÁGORA LUNA’S PHANTOMS (1987, 13 min, Super-8mm-to-digital)<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 95 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 10 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61178 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Sunday, May 10 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61179 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Monday, May 11 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61266 <p>We continue our longstanding tradition of presenting “The Secret Life of…Anthology Film Archives”, a recurring opportunity to take a peek at the teeming hive of creativity hiding behind the scenes at Anthology, thanks to the film- and video-making efforts of AFA’s staff, friends, fellow-travelers, and devotees.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Monday, May 11 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61180 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Monday, May 11 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61181 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Tuesday, May 12 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61275 <p>Ron Mann<br />POETRY IN MOTION<br />1982, 90 min, 16mm-to-DCP. With Charles Bukowski, Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Kenward Elmslie, Helen Adam, Ted Berrigan, Ed Sanders, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Four Horsemen, Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Dewdney, John Giorno, Jayne Cortez, Ntozake Shange, Gary Snyder, Jim Carroll, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, Miguel Algarin, and Ted Milton.<br /><br />An intergenerational roll-call of twentieth century poets from Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann, this performance compilation provides a crucial perspective on Robert Creeley and many of his peers a decade or more after what could be considered the pinnacle of the various movements outlined in Donald Allen’s landmark 1960 anthology <em>The New American Poetry.</em> Mann and his many subjects resist the commemorative approach, focusing on the present as it then was. Creeley reads two pieces of new work from a notebook – “Self Portrait” and “Bresson’s Movies” – demonstrating that he remained truly a working poet. (Both poems appear, unchanged from the original, in the 1983 collection <em>Mirrors</em>.) POETRY IN MOTION also showcases a younger generation that both follows and furthers the practices of the Beat/Black Mountain/New York School era, most significantly with a luminous, stentorian performance by Anne Waldman, as well as equally significant appearances by Jim Carroll and Ted Berrigan.<br /><br /><strong>The screening on Tues, May 12 will be presented by poet Anne Waldman!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Tuesday, May 12 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61182 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Tuesday, May 12 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61188 <p>“Co-written by experimental filmmakers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, THE PLAGIARISTS is at once a hilarious send-up of low-budget American indie filmmaking and a probing inquiry into race, relationships, and the social uncanny. A young novelist (Lucy Kaminsky) and her cinematographer boyfriend (Eamon Monaghan) are waylaid by a snowstorm on their way to visit a friend in upstate New York and are taken in by the kindly yet enigmatic Clip (Michael “Clip” Payne of Parliament Funkadelic), who puts them up for the night. But an accidental discovery months later recasts in an unnerving light what had seemed like an agreeable evening, stoking resentments both latent and not-so-latent. Exhilaratingly intelligent and distinctively shot on a vintage TV-news camera, THE PLAGIARISTS is a work whose provocations are inseparable from its pleasures.” –NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS<br /><br />“THE PLAGIARISTS’s artists-on-a-rural-retreat premise recalls that of Schavoir’s THE JAG, while its serpentine, discursive form, which knowingly flirts with the possible character-centric indie it might have become even as it spins out in increasingly curious directions, is sprung from the same searching intelligence that Wilkins brings to bear on his more openly essayistic experimental films. […] This is a rigorous film concerned with questions of cultural appropriation, learned behavior, and the very texture of life in our content-saturated present (a feeling not exclusive to urban centers), but one with the good humor and wisdom to disguise itself as something far more familiar.” –Carson Lund, SLANT<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person:</strong><strong> Sun, May 10 at 4:15 (Q&A) and </strong><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 8:45 (intro).</strong><br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 13 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61278 <p>Bruce Jackson & Diane Christian<br />WILLY’S READING<br />1982, 16 min, 16mm<br />Filled with the levity and sweetness of new life, this family picture invites us into a sun-dappled afternoon of poetry and stories as Creeley shares anecdotes from his life interspersed with readings to his newborn son.<br /><br />Bruce Jackson & Diane Christian<br />CREELEY<br />1988, 59 min, 16mm<br />A ranging yet intimate portrait of Robert Creeley in his 50s, CREELEY mirrors the itinerancy of the poet’s own life, with interviews, conversations, and readings taking place over several years and in many locations, including Naropa, Harvard, and of course, Buffalo, where Creeley and his growing family began to settle in the 1980s. Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, longtime friends of the Creeleys, map the constellations of Creeley’s personal and working life, showing that the two were so entwined as to be indistinguishable.<br /><br />Grayson Goga & Grace Stalley<br />FOR WILL<br />2016, 13 min, digital<br />In this film – which functions as a profound complement to the earlier WILLY’S READING – we catch up with Will Creeley, now in his 30s with a son of his own, as he reflects on his father’s life and continuing influence, ten years after the poet’s death in 2005.<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 95 min.<br /><br /><strong>The screening on Wed, May 13 will be presented by Will Creeley and Grayson Goga!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 13 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61183 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 13 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61281 <p>Richard Moore’s series of USA: POETRY films – produced for and aired on public television – adopt a style poised between vérité and theatricality to achieve rich portraits of many of the most prominent figures of mid-sixties American poetry, from both sides of the era’s so-called poetry wars, with segments on Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton in the mix with features on Charles Olson and Ed Sanders. ROBERT CREELEY is filmed at the Creeley’s home in Placitas, New Mexico, around the time when Robert was working on the poems that would furnish the collection <em>Words</em>. Bobbie Louise Hawkins, who was then married to Creeley, appears prominently throughout the entry. In the spirit of Creeley’s lifelong dedication to the work of his friends and peers, a dual segment featuring Robert Duncan and John Wieners is included, to provide some context for what is meant by “company.”<br /><br />Richard O. Moore<br />USA: POETRY: ROBERT CREELEY (1966, 29 min, 16mm-to-DCP)<br />USA: POETRY: ROBERT DUNCAN & JOHN WIENERS (1966, 29 min, 16mm-to-DCP)<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 65 min.<br /><br /><strong>The screening on Wed, May 13 will be presented by poet Charles Bernstein!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Wednesday, May 13 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61184 <p>NYC THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! 35MM PRINT!<br /><br />Written by Robin Schavoir and James N. Kienitz Wilkins. Produced by Emily Davis and Joey Frank. With Jesse Wakeman, Jess Barbagallo, John Magary, and Callie Hernandez. Distributed by Monument Releasing. 35mm print supported by Mostly Works, Wave Farm, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.<br /><br />James N. Kienitz Wilkins has constructed one of the most truly singular, conceptually slippery, and genuinely exploratory bodies of work in contemporary cinema. His films take a dizzying array of forms – from theatrical reenactments (PUBLIC HEARING) and radical formal experiments (the imageless THE REPUBLIC and the Hollis Frampton-esque STILL FILM and THIS ACTION LIES) to sly takes on the essay film (COMMON CARRIER) and indie narrative (THE PLAGIARISTS) genres. But they’re linked by his preoccupation with language and writing (many of the films are founded on highly inventive, multi-faceted texts, either written by Wilkins or drawn from other sources), his extremely sophisticated interrogation of filmic, dramatic, and performative modes, and his sharp exploration of matters social and political. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Wilkins’s work, and the mode of address is always a heady, multi-layered mix of irony, sincerity, and conceptual play.<br /><br />His new film, THE MISCONCEIVED – his third collaboration with writer Robin Schavoir, and a thematic follow-up (not a sequel) to THE PLAGIARISTS (2019) – is, characteristically, both entirely in keeping with his earlier work and yet entirely unique. We’re delighted to host THE MISCONCEIVED’s NYC premiere run at Anthology – via a fresh-from-the-lab 35mm print! – and to show it alongside screenings of <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61186">THE PLAGIARISTS</a> and Norman Mailer’s <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61191">MAIDSTONE</a>, which is evoked in the new film.<br /><br />“THE MISCONCEIVED is a tragicomedy about millennials turning forty, which follows a struggling yet entitled white American male found throughout the annals of indie film who apprehends his likely cultural irrelevance during the Biden era. The film utilizes experimental 3D-rendered processes entirely within a video game engine, utilizing motion capture, facial recognition, voice performance, and a vast library of stock media. THE MISCONCEIVED takes full advantage of the new ability to shoot in virtual worlds and a marketplace of 3D architectural and character models to create an uncanny mirror to contemporary society (notably, not using generative AI). In many ways, the movie is an argument for and against its right to exist.” –James N. Kienitz Wilkins<br /><br />“Tyler, a single father in need of work, takes a job working on an upstate country dream-home renovation belonging to his ex-college friend, Tobin, who is now a successful sculptor. That Tyler himself used to be a filmmaker becomes the focus point of his fellow workers and ultimately the film itself, culminating in an art-adjacent gathering that could potentially explode any remnants of his sense of self. Rapid fire conversations between workers from different class and racial backgrounds propel the narrative forward, with many jabs and many laughs along the way, ultimately offering an irreverent essay on work, white privilege, and indie filmmaking in the 2020s. Taking place exclusively within work hours, the new feature film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a millennial social satire exploring a contemporary world where what you do is who you are – and determines your level of cultural relevance.” –Michelle Carey, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person!:</strong><br /><br /><strong>Fri, May 8 at 7:30</strong><br /><strong>Sat, May 9 at 6:30 & 9:30</strong><br /><strong>Sun, May 10 at 6:30</strong><br /><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 6:30</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 14 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61239 <p>George Méliès THE APPARITION, OR MR. JONES’ COMICAL EXPERIENCE WITH A GHOST / LE REVENANT (1903, 2.5 min, 35mm-to-16mm)<br />Alone in his room at an inn, a lustful old man is haunted by spirits.<br /><br />Deborah Stratman …THESE BLAZEING STARRS! (2011, 14 min, 16mm)<br />“Since comets have been recorded, they’ve augured catastrophe, messiahs, upheaval, and end times. A short film about these meteoric ice-cored fireballs and their historic ties to divination that combines imagery of 15th-18th Century European broadsides with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory footage.” –Deborah Stratman<br /><br />Guy Maddin NIGHT MAYOR (2009, 14 min, DCP)<br />This short Guy Maddin film tells the story of inventor Nihad Ademi, who harnesses the power of the aurora borealis in Winnipeg in 1939. Ademi uses this power to broadcast images of Canada to its own citizens from coast to coast, but in the process he angers the government.<br /><br />Rebecca Baron DETOUR DE FORCE (2014, 29 min, DCP)<br />DETOUR DE FORCE presents the world of thoughtographer Ted Serios, a charismatic Chicago bellhop who, in the mid-1960s, produced hundreds of Polaroid images from his mind. Constructed from 16mm documentation of Serios’s sessions and audio recordings of Serios speaking with Dr. Jule Eisenbud, the Denver psychiatrist who championed his abilities, the film is more ethnography than biography, portraying the social and scientific environments in which Serios thrived. The film foregrounds the state of image and sound recording technologies of the period as essential to the emergence of Serios’s psychic photography. It is also a document of the filmmaker’s encounters with the archival materials themselves. The film enjoys a rich sound environment by Ernst Karel, Kyle Bruckmann, and Guiseppe Ielasi.<br /><br />Plus: special surprises!<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 85 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 14 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61189 <p>“Co-written by experimental filmmakers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, THE PLAGIARISTS is at once a hilarious send-up of low-budget American indie filmmaking and a probing inquiry into race, relationships, and the social uncanny. A young novelist (Lucy Kaminsky) and her cinematographer boyfriend (Eamon Monaghan) are waylaid by a snowstorm on their way to visit a friend in upstate New York and are taken in by the kindly yet enigmatic Clip (Michael “Clip” Payne of Parliament Funkadelic), who puts them up for the night. But an accidental discovery months later recasts in an unnerving light what had seemed like an agreeable evening, stoking resentments both latent and not-so-latent. Exhilaratingly intelligent and distinctively shot on a vintage TV-news camera, THE PLAGIARISTS is a work whose provocations are inseparable from its pleasures.” –NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS<br /><br />“THE PLAGIARISTS’s artists-on-a-rural-retreat premise recalls that of Schavoir’s THE JAG, while its serpentine, discursive form, which knowingly flirts with the possible character-centric indie it might have become even as it spins out in increasingly curious directions, is sprung from the same searching intelligence that Wilkins brings to bear on his more openly essayistic experimental films. […] This is a rigorous film concerned with questions of cultural appropriation, learned behavior, and the very texture of life in our content-saturated present (a feeling not exclusive to urban centers), but one with the good humor and wisdom to disguise itself as something far more familiar.” –Carson Lund, SLANT<br /><br /><strong>The following screenings will be presented by the filmmakers in person:</strong><strong> Sun, May 10 at 4:15 (Q&A) and </strong><strong>Thurs, May 14 at 8:45 (intro).</strong><br /><br />[<em><strong>These screenings are presented in conjunction with Anthology's week-long premiere run of Kienitz Wilkins's new feature film THE MISCONCEIVED; <a href="../../../film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61174">click here for more details</a>.</strong></em>]<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 14 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61241 <p>George Kuchar<br />CATTLE MUTILATIONS<br />1983, 25 min, 16mm<br />Against the background of a grisly mystery, four people face a growing sense of panic and uncleanliness. Part documentary, part “cartoon,” part B movie, the film asks questions to which there don’t seem to be any clear-cut answers.<br /><br />Craig Baldwin<br />TRIBULATION 99: ALIEN ANOMALIES UNDER AMERICA<br />1991, 48 min, 16mm<br />A crucial, and comically confounding diatribe that is one of the great works of 1990s cinema. A film that truly necessitates repeat viewing.<br /><br />“Unrelentingly lurid and equally hilarious, TRIBULATION 99 might be an X-ray of a rabid slacker’s seething brain. This 48-minute ‘pseudo-pseudo-documentary’ is a skewed history of US intervention in Latin America AND a hysterical satire of conspiracy theory. With a sci-fi plot suggesting that current unrest can be blamed on space aliens who live under atomic test sites, the film illustrates its argument with images culled from newsreels, horror flicks, and everything in between.” –OTHER CINEMA<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 75 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Thursday, May 14 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61243 <p>Peggy Ahwesh THE THIRD BODY (2007, 8.5 min, video)<br />“The tropes of the garden, the originary moment of self knowledge, and gendered awareness of the body (what is traditionally called sin) is mimicked in the early experiments with virtual reality. The metaphors used in our cutting edge future are restagings of our cultural memory of the garden. Wonderment regarding the self in space, boundaries of the body at the edge of consciousness and the inside and outside skin of perceptual knowledge.” –Peggy Ahwesh<br /><br />Mark L. Lester<br />FIRESTARTER<br />1984, 114 min, 35mm<br />A “wild talent” was Fort’s term for someone possessed with psychic abilities, and in the case of Cindy Lee that extra-special power is pyrokinesis.<br /><br />“Heavily inspired by the stories of real-life government experiments and any number of rampant conspiracy theories, FIRESTARTER follows the impact of a test study in a drug called LOT-6 on two college students, Andy McGee (David Keith) and Vicky (Heather Locklear), who end up marrying and having a child, Charlie (Drew Barrymore). As it turns out, the experimental drug has given all three of them extraordinary abilities, with the parents able to read minds and Charlie able to set anything aflame. […] Originally intended by Universal as a project for John Carpenter before the box office failure of THE THING (with Carpenter instead hopping to Columbia to do another King film, CHRISTINE), FIRESTARTER was handed over to director Mark L. Lester, a seasoned exploitation veteran with films like TRUCK STOP WOMEN, BOBBIE JO AND THE OUTLAW, ROLLER BOOGIE, and the incredible CLASS OF 1984 under his belt. […] He’s an unexpected but interesting choice here, using very wide compositions courtesy of cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini (TEOREMA, SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS) and a terrific, pounding score by Tangerine Dream to give the film a slick, glossy atmosphere.” –Nathanial Thompson, MONDO DIGITAL<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 125 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Friday, May 15 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61284 <p>Colin Still<br />BLACK MOUNTAIN BLUES: A FILM ON ROBERT CREELEY<br />2025, 94 min, digital<br />Filmed primarily throughout 2002, Colin Still’s BLACK MOUNTAIN BLUES allows Robert Creeley to reflect on his life and work with a great deal of patience and unobtrusive guidance. Rarely, if ever, screened, the film provides an invaluable view of Creeley in what would be the last years of his life (he died on March 30, 2005). Equally significant is the commentary from Charles Bernstein and Susan Howe, two of Creeley’s closest colleagues in later life, as well as from poet, musician, artist, and teacher Bobbie Louise Hawkins (1930-2018), who was married to Creeley for nearly 20 years and contributed visual art to many of his 1970s publications with Black Sparrow Press. The wonderfully eccentric and sadly unheralded Vincent Ferini appears throughout as well. A lifelong denizen of Gloucester, Massachusetts, Ferini figures prominently throughout Charles Olson’s <em>Maximus Poems</em> as he was an early reader and champion of the poet. It was Ferini who first put Olson in touch with Robert Creeley, leading to a correspondence and relationship that would go on to shape midcentury American writing.<br /><br /><strong>Colin Still will be here in person for both screenings!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Friday, May 15 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61276 <p>Ron Mann<br />POETRY IN MOTION<br />1982, 90 min, 16mm-to-DCP. With Charles Bukowski, Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Kenward Elmslie, Helen Adam, Ted Berrigan, Ed Sanders, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Four Horsemen, Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Dewdney, John Giorno, Jayne Cortez, Ntozake Shange, Gary Snyder, Jim Carroll, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, Miguel Algarin, and Ted Milton.<br /><br />An intergenerational roll-call of twentieth century poets from Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann, this performance compilation provides a crucial perspective on Robert Creeley and many of his peers a decade or more after what could be considered the pinnacle of the various movements outlined in Donald Allen’s landmark 1960 anthology <em>The New American Poetry.</em> Mann and his many subjects resist the commemorative approach, focusing on the present as it then was. Creeley reads two pieces of new work from a notebook – “Self Portrait” and “Bresson’s Movies” – demonstrating that he remained truly a working poet. (Both poems appear, unchanged from the original, in the 1983 collection <em>Mirrors</em>.) POETRY IN MOTION also showcases a younger generation that both follows and furthers the practices of the Beat/Black Mountain/New York School era, most significantly with a luminous, stentorian performance by Anne Waldman, as well as equally significant appearances by Jim Carroll and Ted Berrigan.<br /><br /><strong>The screening on Tues, May 12 will be presented by poet Anne Waldman!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 16 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61246 <p>Jules White THE GHOST TALKS (1949, 16.5 min, 35mm. With The Three Stooges.)<br />Our blunderhead heroes The Three Stooges risk it all when they take a moving job at a haunted house.<br /><br />Jesse McLean MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS (2010, 20 min, video)<br />“MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS examines the mythologies found in fan culture, from longing to obsession to psychic connections. The need for such connections (whether real or imaginary) as well as the need for an emotional release that only fantasy can deliver are explored.” –Jesse McClean<br /><br />THE AMAZING WORLD OF KRESKIN (1972, 36 min, 16mm)<br />“16mm print of the Canadian show. This reel has two episodes combined (about 36 minutes total), with one main title sequence and one end credit sequence. One segment features the mentalist sending audience members on a shopping trip (escorted by Canadian police), and divining what they bought.” –Bacprod, Ebay seller, member since Oct 13, 1998<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 80 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 16 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61287 <p>Robert Creeley and Stan Brakhage first met in the mid-sixties in an encounter Creeley described as “love at first sight,” and the two remained friends and allies until Brakhage’s death in 2003. “It is <em>light</em> and the <em>eye</em> which experiences it that seem to me the two insistent terms of activity as a film-maker,” Creeley writes in “Mehr Licht,” his 1968 essay on the filmmaker. “I know that he has also deep concern with ‘what things mean’ and with basic human relationships—but light, in all its modality, as ‘seeing sees it,’ is much more to my own mind his insistent preoccupation.” In turn, Brakhage described Creeley as a poet of “dimensions,” declaring at a 1991 panel discussion, “Robert Creeley, of all the many, many poets I’ve known and known closely, is the only one that really clearly understands film as a possible art.” The selections herein represent the single collaboration between the two, as well as two works about which Creeley has either written or spoken.<br /><br />Stan Brakhage<br />TWO: CREELEY/MCCLURE<br />1965, 3 min, 16mm, silent<br />Brakhage’s portraits of two of his dearest compatriots in poetry (the other being Michael McClure), these films suggest a visual onomatopoeia, seemingly embodying the filmmaker’s conceptions of the individuals and their respective work in the forms and structures of the films.<br /><br />Stan Brakhage<br />THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE’S OWN EYES<br />1971, 32 min, 16mm, silent<br />Rather than excerpt or summarize (an impossible task!) from Creeley’s 1982 presentation on THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE’S OWN EYES in Pittsburgh, those interested are urged to listen to all <a href="https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Creeley/Creeley-Robert_Talk-Discussion_Before-And-After-Seeing-Stan-Brakhage_The-Act-Of-Seing-With-Ones-Own-Eyes_Pittsburgh-Filmakers-Bruce-Posner-et-al_April-9-1982.mp3">eighty-six minutes and fifty-four seconds</a> of the discussion on the invaluable Penn Sound, where there are hundreds of hours of recordings of poets, writers, and artists.<br /><br />Stan Brakhage<br />SHORT FILMS 1975 #1-10<br />1975, 36.5 min, 16mm, silent<br />“So this last film is certainly personal, and I love it. I take a lot of trips, I get stuck in drear motels, I dream of home. There are two lovely instances of language in this film which are really right on, like they say. Be it also said that Brakhage is very aware of the powers of language, and thank god he is not here tonight to hear me lay it on his valuable creations. So – enough of that. But – which is truly a great word, isn’t it? – you know, like, it never is the last word no matter what happens, death included.<br />But – don’t we care what others feel in this life, how they literally have a life? This film is so wisely, gracefully, real to that demand. I could never so actualize my feelings in those places where these images were collected, never substantiate those moments of true consternation, yearning, witness, love as he does here.<br />‘With your eyes alone / with your eyes / with your eyes…,’ Ginsberg wrote in his never to be forgotten masterpiece ‘Kaddish.’ Hear it. We are all related, we are all here. See this world we live in.” –Robert Creeley, 1978<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 85 min.<br /><br /><strong>The screening on Sat, May 16 will be presented by Raymond Foye!</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 16 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61248 <p>Tobe Hooper<br />POLTERGEIST<br />1982, 114 min, 35mm<br />“Before [POLTERGEIST], haunted house movies typically took place in creaky old manors. [Producer, co-writer, and rumored director Steven] Spielberg’s stroke of genius was setting the ghosts loose in contemporary suburbia, invading children’s playrooms cluttered with Rubik’s cubes, Star Wars action figures, and other instantly identifiable signifiers of modern life. POLTERGEIST was made around the same time Spielberg was shooting E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL – the two films were released a week apart that summer – and in many ways it can be seen as that humane masterpiece’s sicko B-side.” –Sean Burns, CROOKED MARQUEE<br /><br />“What came of the wreckage of POLTERGEIST, aside from the lesson (which Joe Dante apparently took to heart before making GREMLINS) that if you’re going to direct a Spielberg film, you’d do well to make your satirical tones blunt? Ultimately, we have a total anomaly: a PG-rated, resolutely un-family-friendly, mega-budget, overproduced, wildly commercial ghost story that basically does nothing more than lurch from one splashy, effects-driven spectacle to the next (if you came to the film at roughly the same age as Carol Anne, it was that rare and elusive film with only good scenes) and still manages to be its own best metaphor for Hollywood authorship. POLTERGEIST is the most sensation-dependent film of Spielberg’s career, and, in its demolition of the Spielberg mystique, may be the most subversive film of all Hooper’s work.” –Eric Henderson, SLANT<br /><br /><strong>May 16 ONLY</strong>:<br />Preceded by:<br />Segundo de Chomón THE RED SPECTRE / EL ESPECTRO ROJO (1907, 10 min, 35mm-to-16mm, silent)<br />“In his weird and wonderful burlesque film, Segundo de Chomón creates a feast of spectacular optical illusions. A ghostly skeleton hypnotizes young women and then plays bizarre tricks on them. Suddenly a rival illusionist appears, intent on freeing the skeleton’s captives.” –INTERNATIONALES FRAUEN FILM FEST<br /><br />eteam OUR NON-UNDERSTANDING OF EVERYTHING 12 2022, 11.5 min, digital<br />“This work explores how the structures of architecture, semiconductors, and circuits become forms of expression reflecting hierarchies, cognitive processes, and relationships to the natural environment.” –VIDEO DATA BANK<br /><br />Total running time: ca. 140 min.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 16 https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61268 <p><em><strong>FILMMAKER IN PERSON ON MAY 16!</strong></em><br /><br />Filmmaker Colin Still – who has made numerous films over the years about artists, musicians, and especially poets (his films on Robert Creeley and Allen Ginsberg will be shown at Anthology in May and June, in those writers’ respective centennial film series) – met Stan Brakhage in 1996, during the filming of his Ginsberg documentary, NO MORE TO SAY & NOTHING TO WEEP FOR. The two quickly formed an affinity, and Brakhage – who was already in the midst of treatment for the cancer that would take his life seven years later – agreed to sit for an in-depth series of interviews (which extended to Still’s later trips to Colorado). The interviews resulted in more than ten hours of footage, but while some of this material was made public in an abbreviated form in the late-1990s, it’s only last year that Still fully completed the film, which has yet to be seen in the U.S. In its final form, it’s a truly invaluable document of Brakhage. Clearly recognizing a sympathetic chronicler, and most likely already sensing his impending mortality, Brakhage speaks freely, thoughtfully, and, as always, with extraordinary clarity, about everything from his childhood, cultural coming-of-age, and two marriages, to his (ongoing) development as a filmmaker and his attitudes towards his own mortality. Along the way he tells memorable and unfamiliar stories about encounters with a variety of artists, poets, and filmmakers, speaking sometimes from his home, sometimes from the local café where – clearly a fixture – he produced many of his hand-painted films while observing the life of the town around him.<br /><br /><a href="https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/sessions/?siteToken=bsrxtagjxmgh2qy0b6p646xdcr"><strong>CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!</strong></a></p> Saturday, May 16