Search Museum of the Moving Image

Curators’ Choice: The Best of 2013

Jan 3 — Jan 5, 2014

Organized by Chief Curator David Schwartz and Assistant Film Curator Aliza Ma

The six films selected for the annual series Curators’ Choice are inventive and invigorating works that offer fresh cinematic visions. Master directors Wong Kar-wai (The Grandmaster) and Jia Zhangke (A Touch of Sin) reinvent the wuxia genre with their own distinctive styles. The emerging Argentine director Matías Piñeiro (Viola) and the versatile avant-garde filmmaker Jem Cohen (Museum Hours) create exquisite urban tales that embrace and deconstruct the nature of narrative filmmaking, playfully exploring the ways that theater and art interact with real life. And Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess) and Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Pavel (Leviathan) fully immerse us in two very different subcultures—the early days of computer chess programming, and the rugged world of deep-sea fishing—to create unique and evocative cinematic experiences.

Past Films in Series

still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters
still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters
still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters
Twin brothers sit at a restaurant—one with a red tie, one with a black tie—with a woman between them, all looking at camera.
In a kitchen, an older chef reaches across a plate in front of a younger chef, whom he is instructing.
A young man in glasses sits before a chess board and an old fashioned desktop computer in a black and white image
Close-up of a hairy underwater amoeba in black and white
Close-up of a hairy underwater amoeba in black and white
A nun stands in an empty medical facility looking at salamander cages
a mountain wth a blue shawled figure in the foreground
A red light flare streaks across a green woods against a blue sky
Images from animated films, on the left a white haired female character looks around at a fantastical green world; on the right, two sad stick figures in white stand against a blank black background
Horses stand in a windswept field, the sea in the distance
A man crouches on the ground with a gun, surrounded by men in uniform
A faded photograph of an owl looking at camera, surrounded by leaves
A fantasy spiral effect of an outdoor scene of two men in a green forest
A young boy holds a butterfly on his arm
Visual representations of HAL 9000 computer from 2001, and the voice from the movie Her.
A blonde mother hugging her ponytailed daughter and both smiling