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EVENT, SCREENING, SCREENING + Q&A

New Strains

Saturday, Mar 18 at 8:00 pm

Location: Redstone Theater

SHOWCASE SCREENING

With Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan in person 

Dirs. Artemis Shaw, Prashanth Kamalakanthan. U.S. 2023, 78 mins. With Artemis Shaw, Prashanth Kamalakanthan, Cynthia Talmadge, Olivier Sherman. Millennial cherubs Kallia (Shaw) and Ram (Kamalakanthan) have just arrived at the beautiful Upper Manhattan apartment her uncle has loaned them for their romantic New York getaway, but a strange new pandemic has other plans for them. Quickly spiraling into a mutual embrace of manic despair, the couple begins to resemble a pair of screwball comedy heroes marooned in a film by Luis Buñuel or Jean-Luc Godard. Scrappily shot on Hi8 video and chock-a-block with cinephilic references, Shaw and Kamalakanthan’s film is at once a depressingly accurate evocation of the city’s first few months of lockdown and an endearing display of cinematic ingenuity under extreme duress. Recipient of a Special Jury Award in the 2023 IFFR Tiger Competition. North American premiere 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.


About the Filmmakers:

Artemis Shaw is a filmmaker and educator from New York City inspired by dada, Greek tragedy, and growing up on the Internet. She is interested in tragicomedy and satire and works in collaboration. Shaw directed Aquaculture (2017); Real Talk (2020); co-directed New Strains (2023), which won a Special Jury Award at IFFR 2023; and produced the film Have a Nice Life (2021). Shaw has taught film and run education programs at Tribeca Film Institute, Ghetto Film School, Museum of the Moving Image, Thaden School, and currently at NYU. Prashanth Kamalakanthan is a filmmaker and professor born in India and raised in North Carolina. He has a background in music, documentary, and photography and currently teaches film theory and screenwriting at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and previously at Brown University. Kamalakanthan has made films for The New York Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, and other media outlets. His debut feature, Have a Nice Life (2021), was followed by New Strains (2023), co-directed with Artemis Shaw, which won a Special Jury Award at IFFR 2023.