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.

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Upcoming Events in Series

A variety of computer windows showing white cats looking at camera, hovering in front of a retro desktop computer

Science on Screen: Shorts on Attention
A black and white image of a dark-skinned man, the back of his head facing the camera, with nuns in white habits in the background out of focus

True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century
a black and white image of a young boy standing outside cupping an object in his hands, while another boy behind him clutches a wooden post

This Kid, There (Ce gamin, là)
A group of five people with bags over their heads and buttons for eyes in a room with white walls. One of the people stands with their arms outstretched and the others are sitting on the floor

Shorts Program: Captive Feast
A vast mountainous landscape, with people in the foreground standing amidst green trees and bushes.

The Potential History of Francesc Tosquelles, Catalonia and Fear

Past Films in Series

Eight human-sized figures seen from a distance standing against a vast blue sky horizon at twilight with some stars just coming out

Knit’s Island
A vast building nestled deep in a mountainous environment, seen from a distance

Magic Mountain
A man in a space helmet reclines, with reflections of lights on the glass viser

World on a Wire
A man wearing a VR headset and looking vacantly off screen

Johnny Mnemonic
A black and white image of a man in a fedora sits next to a woman putting her finger to her lips in a "be quiet" expression.

Alphaville
A CGI animated figure with its arms stretched out and wide gaping mouth looking at camera with angry expression

The Lawnmower Man
A hologram of a face floats in the middle of a blue digital box

< types furiously > I’m in!
A man and woman lie on a bed apart from each other, connected by fleshy umbilical-like cords in their stomachs

eXistenZ
two people with glowing body suits and helmets stand in a sparse virtual world

Tron
an animated image of a woman sitting in profile against a gloomy grey cityscape

Ghost in the Shell
A man and woman in sunglasses and wearing leather hold each other and look down.

The Matrix + Operator
Three women sit in a motorboat moving up a river in the sunlight

Hollow Tree
A family of four, including a man playing an android, dressed in a red shirt, stands in a backyard garden and smiles

After Yang
A man in hat and sunglasses and holding a film slate sits in a space shuttle smiling at camera

The Space Race
black and white image of a young black woman wearing a globe-like space helmet on her head

Sloan Science & Film Shorts: Afronauts and Into the Void
still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters

Inside Out
still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters

Inside Out
still from an animated film that shows a pink elephant-like creature next to two other cartoonish girl characters

Inside Out
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.

Dead Ringers  
In a kitchen, an older chef reaches across a plate in front of a younger chef, whom he is instructing.

Sloan Science & Film Shorts: The Chef and A Hole
A young man in glasses sits before a chess board and an old fashioned desktop computer in a black and white image

Computer Chess
Close-up of a hairy underwater amoeba in black and white

Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith
Close-up of a hairy underwater amoeba in black and white

Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith
A nun stands in an empty medical facility looking at salamander cages

A Common Sequence
a mountain wth a blue shawled figure in the foreground

Feet in Water, Head on Fire
A red light flare streaks across a green woods against a blue sky

Herbaria + Agrilogistics
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

The Congress + World of Tomorrow
Horses stand in a windswept field, the sea in the distance

Geographies of Solitude

Good Night Oppy

Earth II

Utama
A man crouches on the ground with a gun, surrounded by men in uniform

Soylent Green (introduced by Bill Nye)

Ascension

Holgut
A faded photograph of an owl looking at camera, surrounded by leaves

Twitch, Pop, Bloom: Science in Action—Program Two Opening Reception

Annihilation

Birds of America

First Reformed

Force Majeure

Science on Screen presents: Jenny Perlin’s Bunker
A fantasy spiral effect of an outdoor scene of two men in a green forest

Constant

Woman in the Dunes

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
A young boy holds a butterfly on his arm

Son of Monarchs
Visual representations of HAL 9000 computer from 2001, and the voice from the movie Her.

Talking Like a Robot: HAL 9000, Her, and a History of Voice Synthesis
A blonde mother hugging her ponytailed daughter and both smiling

My Zoe: Discussion with Julie Delpy

Radioactive with Rosamund Pike and Marjane Satrapi

Fantastic Voyage and Representing COVID-19

Dirty in the Kitchen: Yeast and Breadmaking with Avery Ruzicka and Nicholas Money

Spaceship Earth: Reimagining the Future with Matt Wolf and Andrew Bell

Woman in the Moon

Contact

Kestrel’s Eye

Light Year

Pica Pica

Tuning into the Sound of Silence

Circle to Sphere: Origins of the Laser Light Show

The Bit Player

Wild Lives: Ming of Harlem + Meshie, Child of a Chimpanzee

The Best Years of Our Lives: Engineering the Body

To Dust: Death and the Necrobiome

Rhinoceros: The Decline of Civilization

2001: A Space Odyssey with Keir Dullea and special guests

Spoor

Searching: What Happens When We Disappear into Our Screens?

Seconds: Starting Over in America

Of the Deep: Films by the Department of Tropical Research
An avant-garde black and white image of a face in profile with a circle of blue x-ray covering the lower left of the face

InVisible: Films by Barbara Hammer, Oxford University, and James Sibley Watson