Release Date: January  10, 2017

2017 Winter Films at National Gallery of Art Include Nine Ciné-Concerts, Five Virginia Dwan Favorites, a Rare 35mm French Version of The Crucible, Hand-Tinted Italian Silents, a Washington Premiere, Archival Jazz Shorts, and Appearances by Eleven Filmmakers, Artists, and Musicians

Film still from I Called Him Morgan (Kasper Collin, 2016, 91 minutes), Washington premiere at the National Gallery of Art on Saturday, February 4, 2:30, as part of the series Alternate Takes: Jazz and Film. Image courtesy of Submarine

Washington, DC—The 2017 National Gallery of Art winter film program includes film series, ciné-concerts, special appearances by artists, filmmakers, and musicians, and a Washington premiere. The season opens with Virginia Dwan Selects, presenting five of Dwan's favorite feature films from the 1950s and 1960s. The series is a companion to the exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971, on view through January 29 in the recently renovated East Building. Other highlights include the series Jean Desmet's Dream Factory, 1906–1916, a selection of six programs with live piano accompaniment by Andrew Simpson. Alternate Takes: Jazz and Film, programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Stuart Davis: In Full Swing, includes narratives, documentaries, and rare archival short films that celebrate the great American musical form, and the series El Pueblo: Searching for Contemporary Latin America addresses the multidimensional meanings of the term el pueblo—"of the people"—and evokes diverse geographies both regional and specific. Films are listed below.

The Gallery will present the Washington premiere of Tony Conrad—Completely in the Present, followed by a live string concert of Conrad's music and a ciné-concert with the New York–based Secret Quartet and Kiko Rodriquez and Tania Rodriguez Glenn, two Mexican American vocalists, accompanying Pancho Villa's Revenge (c. 1935) from the Library of Congress collection.

Filmmakers and artists scheduled to appear include Lisanne Skyler, Tyler Hubby, Enid Baxter Ryce, Alexander Toradze, Zeva Oelbaum, Sabine Krayenbühl, Elif Rongen, Federico Windhausen, and Guy Borlée.

The National Gallery of Art film program provides many opportunities throughout the year to view classic and contemporary cinema from around the world. Through screenings, scholarly notes, filmmaker discussions, and unique introductions by critics and academics, the program encourages viewers to learn more about the history of the cinema and the role of media in society. Innovative retrospectives, restored works of historical value, silent films with live musical accompaniment, new documentaries, and experimental media by noted video artists are offered on weekends during the entire year. Unless otherwise noted, films are screened in the East Building's 500-seat auditorium with stadium-style seating. The East Building is located at Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Works are presented in original formats. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. Doors open 30 minutes before each screening; programs are subject to change. For more information, visit nga.gov/film or call (202) 842-6799.

SCHEDULE OF FILMS

Virginia Dwan Selects
January 16–29

La Strada
January 16 at 2:30

Orpheus
January 22 at 4:00

Woman in the Dunes
January 29 at 4:00

Ciné-Concerts and Special Appearances

Tony Conrad—Completely in the Present 
Introduced by Tyler Hubby
January 28 at 2:00

Ciné-Concert: Pancho Villa's Revenge
The Secret Quartet with vocalists Kiko Rodriquez and Tania Rodriguez Glenn, in performance
February 19 at 4:30

The Cranes Are Flying
Introduced by Peter Rollberg
March 11 at 2:30

Fort Ord: A Sense of Place preceded by A Land for War
Enid Baxter Ryce and students in person
March 18 at 2:00

Dmitri Shostakovich: Sonata for Viola
Introduced by Alexander Toradze
March 19 at 4:00

Gertrude Bell: Letters from Baghdad
Introduced by Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl
March 25 at 3:00

Jean Desmet's Dream Factory, 1906–1916
January 14–21
Belgian-born film impresario Jean Desmet (1875–1956)—carnival showman turned successful theatrical exhibitor and distributor—spurred the growth of a new urban film culture in Europe before and during World War I. Desmet's collection of 35mm prints and related materials (including posters, handbills, correspondence, and other ephemera) is now a vast visual-historical archive preserved at the EYE Film Museum in Amsterdam. In 2011 the Desmet collection was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register—one of the few film collections in the world to receive this designation. In association with EYE Film Institute, the Gallery presents six programs chosen from Desmet's holdings, each event recreating an evening's entertainment akin to what Desmet himself might have chosen with a mixture of genres, studios, and countries of origin. Films have been transferred to DCP format and subtitled in English. Special thanks to Marleen Labjit and Elif Rongen of the EYE Film Institute.

Ciné-concert: Up in the Air!
Introduced by Elif Rongen; Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 14 at 1:30

Ciné-concert: Ladies First
Introduced by Elif Rongen; Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 14 at 3:30

Ciné-concert: The Colorful World of Cinema
Introduced by Elif Rongen; Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 15 at 4:00

Ciné-concert: When the Earth Trembled
Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 15 at 5:30

Ciné-concert: Perils of the Pictures
Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 21 at 1:30

Ciné-concert: Cinema Fashionista
Andrew Simpson, pianist
January 21 at 3:30

Alternate Takes: Jazz and Film
February 3–March 4
Presented in association with the exhibition Stuart Davis: In Full Swing, on view through March 5 in the West Building, this film series considers a range of jazz interpretations for the screen, including archival rarities, classic narratives, documentaries, and TV programs.

Duke Ellington: Black and Tan Fantasy, Love You Madly, Symphony in Black, and At the White House
February 3 at 12:30

Anatomy of a Murder
February 3 at 2:30

Alternate Takes—Big Ben: Ben Webster in Europe preceded by Jammin' the Blues and Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho
February 4 at 1:00

I Called Him Morgan
Washington Premiere
February 4 at 2:30

Elevator to the Gallows
February 11 at 1:00

The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith
February 17 at 12:30

Souffle au Coeur (Murmur of the Heart)
February 17 at 2:30

Kansas City
February 24 at 12:30

Shadows
March 3 at 12:30

Jazz on a Summer's Day
March 4 at 1:00

The Connection
March 4 at 3:00

El Pueblo: Searching for Contemporary Latin America
February 18–25
The films in El Pueblo address the multidimensional meanings of the term el pueblo, "of the people," and evoke diverse geographies both regional and specific. "These programs are designed to tease out an intricate set of interrelationships—aesthetic, sociological, ideological, and so on—among works from circumscribed zones of cultural activity both familiar and unknown to contemporary audiences"— Federico Windhausen. The programs have been selected from film scholar Windhausen's El Pueblo series organized for the 2016 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

From Passage to Chronicle
February 18 at 1:00

Theater of Conflict
February 18 at 2:30

Labor Is Absence
February 19 at 2:00

The City Machine
Introduced by Federico Windhausen
February 25 at 1:00

Against Ethnography
Introduced by Federico Windhausen
February 25 at 2:30

Reseeing Iran: Twenty-First Annual Iranian Film Festival
February 4–26
The annual festival of Iranian cinema—a selection of new films plus a tribute this year to the late director Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016)—is copresented in Washington by the Freer Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, and AFI Silver Theatre. The program, organized by Tom Vick of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Carter Long of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Marian Luntz of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is cosponsored by the ILEX Foundation. For the full program, go to asia.si.edu/films.

Radio Dreams
February 4 at 4:30

The Salesman
February 5 at 4:00

Me (aka I)
February 11 at 4:00

Drought and Lie
February 12 at 4:00

Lantouri
February 18 at 4:30

Taste of Cherry
February 25 at 4:30

76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Kiarostami preceded by Take Me Home
February 26 at 4:00

Il Cinema Ritrovato: From Vault to Screen
March 5–12
One of Europe's oldest and most distinguished film archives, Cineteca di Bologna presents each summer Il Cinema Ritrovato, a major festival of restored and rarely seen cinema screened in context with other works devoted to the history of art and film. Many films appear on a huge open-air screen each night in Bologna's Piazza Maggiore, and within the city's historic movie theaters. The program is presented through the cooperation of Cineteca di Bologna and Guy Borlée and with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, Washington.

The Crucible (Les Sorcières de Salem)
March 5 at 4:00

Assunta Spina preceded by Rapsodia Satanica and Inaugurazione di Campanile di San Marco
Introduced by Guy Borlée
March 12 at 4:00

Press Contact:
Laurie Tylec, (202) 842-6355 or [email protected]