Tag Archives: bamcinematek

STANDARD DEVIATIONS: THIS IS NOT A FILM

Even house arrest and potential imprisonment cannot stop Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi from telling cinematic stories

THIS IS NOT A FILM (IN FILM NIST) (Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, 2011)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, March 25, 7:00
Series runs March 22-28
718-636-4100
canopycanopycanopy.com
www.bam.org

“You call this a film?” Jafar Panahi asks rhetorically about halfway through the revealing 2011 documentary This Is Not a Film, screening March 25 at 7:00 at BAM as part of “Triple Canopy Presents: Standard Deviations,” a weeklong festival, curated by Yasmina Price, consisting of works that challenge cinematic norms in visual and narrative storytelling. “Standard Deviations” opens March 22 with Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess and concludes March 28 with Ephraim Asili’s “Multisensory Alchemies: Daïchi Saïto + Konjur Collective,” featuring films accompanied by live music, followed by a Q&A. Other highlights are Stephanie Rothman’s The Student Nurses, William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, and Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento’s The Wandering Soap Opera.

After several arrests beginning in July 2009 for supporting the opposition party, highly influential and respected Iranian filmmaker Panahi (Crimson Gold, Offside) was convicted in December 2010 for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Although facing a six-year prison sentence and twenty-year ban on making or writing any kind of movie, Panahi is a born storyteller, so he can’t stop himself, no matter the risks. Under house arrest, Panahi has his friend, fellow director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Lady of the Roses), film him with a handheld DV camera over ten days as Panahi plans out his next movie, speaks with his lawyer, lets his pet iguana climb over him, and is asked to watch a neighbor’s dog, taking viewers “behind the scenes of Iranian filmmakers not making films.” Panahi even pulls out his iPhone to take additional video, photographing New Year’s fireworks that sound suspiciously like a military attack. Panahi is calm throughout, never panicking (although he clearly does not want to take care of the barking dog) and not complaining about his situation, which becomes especially poignant as he watches news reports on the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.

“But you can’t make a film now anyhow, can you?” Mirtahmasb — who will later be arrested and imprisoned as well — asks at one point. “So what I can’t make a film?” Panahi responds. “That means I ask you to take a film of me? Do you think it will turn into some major work of art?” This Is Not a Film, which was smuggled out of Iran in a USB drive hidden in a birthday cake so it could be shown at Cannes, is indeed a major work of art, an important document of government repression of free speech as well as a fascinating examination of one man’s intense dedication to his art and the creative process. Shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award, This Is Not a Film is a mesmerizing experience from a genius who has since gifted the world with Closed Curtain, Taxi, Three Faces, and No Bears, defying the government while constantly looking over his shoulder.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PATRICIO GUZMÁN, DREAMING OF UTOPIA: 50 YEARS OF REVOLUTIONARY HOPE AND MEMORY

Series explores the political documentaries of Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán

PATRICIO GUZMÁN, DREAMING OF UTOPIA: 50 YEARS OF REVOLUTIONARY HOPE AND MEMORY
Anthology Film Archives, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), IFC Center
September 7—15
www.cinematropical.com
www.patricioguzman.com

“A country without documentary cinema is like a family without a photo album,” Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán has said. In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état on September 11, 1973, when the military overthrew the government of democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende, Icarus Films and Cinema Tropical are presenting “Patricio Guzmán, Dreaming of Utopia: 50 Years of Revolutionary Hope and Memory,” consisting of nine works by the award-winning eighty-two-year-old Santiago-born, France-based director. Screening at Anthology Film Archives, BAM, and IFC Center, the festival opens September 7-10 at Anthology with 2004’s Salvador Allende, followed September 8-15 by the US premiere of a new restoration of 1972’s The First Year, which documents Allende’s initial twelve months as president, with the 6:45 show of the latter on September 8 followed by a Q&A with Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña and Lehigh University professor of art history Florencia San Martín and a reception.

BAM highlights Guzmán’s three-part The Battle of Chile September 8-14, with filmmakers Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís, and Bernardita Llanos participating in a conversation after the 5:15 screening of part three on September 9 at 5:15. And on September 13-14, IFC screens Guzmán’s Chile Trilogy, consisting of 2010’s Nostalgia for the Light, 2015’s The Pearl Button, and 2019’s The Cordillera of Dreams, along with his latest film, 2022’s My Imaginary Country, about recent social unrest and protests. “A piano sonata cannot be heard in a large room. Documentary works need a different framework, a space and an intelligent programming formula,” Guzmán told Uruguayan critic Jorge Ruffinelli for a 2001 book. That’s just what Icarus Films and Cinema Tropical have given us with “Dreaming of Utopia.”

Nostalgia for the Light offers a breathtaking look at memory and the past, from above and below

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ) (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave.
Wednesday, September 13, 6:30
www.ifccenter.com
www.nostalgiaforthelight.com

Master documentarian Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light is a brilliant examination of memory and the past, one of the most intelligent and intellectual films you’re ever likely to see. But don’t let that scare you off — it is also a vastly entertaining, deeply emotional work that will blow you away with its stunning visuals and heartbreaking stories. Guzmán, who chronicled the assassination of Salvador Allende and the rise of Augusto Pinochet in the landmark three-part political documentary The Battle of Chile, this time visits the Atacama Desert in his native Chile, considered to be the driest place on Earth. Situated ten thousand feet above sea level, the desert is home to La Silla and Paranal Observatories, where astronomers come from all over the world to get unobstructed views of the stars and galaxies, unimpeded by pollution or electronic interference. However, it is also a place where women still desperately search for the remains of their loved ones murdered by Pinochet’s military regime and hidden away in mass graves. In addition, archaeologists have discovered mummies and other fossilized bones dating from pre-Columbian times there. Guzmán seamlessly weaves together these three journeys into the past — as astronomers such as Gaspar Galaz and Luis Hernandez note, by the time they see stars either with the naked eye or through the lens of their massive telescopes, the celestial bodies have been long dead — creating a fascinating narrative that is as thrilling as it is breathtaking.

Constructing a riveting tale of memory, Guzmán speaks with architect Miguel Lawner, who draws detailed maps of the Chacabuca desert concentration camp where he and so many other political prisoners were held; Valentina, a young astronomer whose grandparents had to give up her parents in order to save her when she was a baby; archaeologist Lautaro Nunez, who digs up mummies while trying to help the women find “los desaparecidos”; and Victoria and Violeta, who regularly comb the barren landscape in search of their relatives. “I wish the telescopes didn’t just look into the sky but could also see through the earth so that we could find them,” Violeta says at one point. Spectacularly photographed by Katell Dijan, Nostalgia for the Light is a modern masterpiece, an unparalleled cinematic experience that has to be seen to be believed. The screening will be introduced by San Francisco State University School of Cinema assistant professor Elizabeth Ramírez Soto, author of (Un)veiling Bodies: A Trajectory of Chilean Post-dictatorship Documentary.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

BAM AND TRIPLE CANOPY — ON RESENTMENT: HUNGER

Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham) are caught amid the Troubles in Steve McQueen’s Hunger

HUNGER (Steve McQueen, 2008)
BAMfilm, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, March 25, 4:00 & 9:30
Series runs March 20-28
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.ifcfilms.com

In 2004, we saw Steve McQueen’s fascinating video installation of three short works at Wellesley’s Davis Museum. As entertaining and intriguing as that show was, it never could have prepared us for Hunger, the British-born Turner Prize winner’s brutal and harrowing feature-length debut, let alone his follow-up, 12 Years a Slave. Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, Hunger is set amid the Troubles in Northern Island, as IRA members are locked up in the Maze prison. Seeking special category status, the prisoners are on a Blanket and No Wash protest, refusing to wear official garb or clean up after themselves. They wipe their feces all over their cell walls and let their maggot-infested garbage pile up in corners. Meanwhile, the guards, who live in their own kind of daily fear, never miss a chance to beat the prisoners mercilessly. McQueen (Shame, Widows) introduces the audience to the infamous prison through the eyes of one of the high-ranking guards, Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), and new prisoner Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan). Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt often lets his camera linger on a scene, with little or no dialogue, composing them as if individual works of art; one particularly gorgeous shot features Lohan having a cigarette outside the prison as snow falls. About halfway through, the film radically changes focus as Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham) visits H Block leader Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), leading to sixteen minutes of uninterrupted dialogue, the camera never moving, as the two men discuss Sands’s planned hunger strike. Written with Enda Walsh (Disco Pigs, The Walworth Farce), McQueen’s film is a visually stunning, emotionally powerful story that will leave you ragged.

Prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) stops for a smoke in powerful Hunger

Hunger is screening March 25 in the BAM / Triple Canopy series “On Resentment,” which asks such questions as “How can resentment be reclaimed by those who are used to fits of anger and bitterness being called unproductive, petty, selfish, even pathological?” and “Can — and must — resentment be useful?” The series continues through March 28 with such other films as Liang Zhao’s Petition, Lucretia Martel’s Zama, Lino Brocka’s Manila in the Claws of Light, Brett Story’s The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, and Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña’s Who Killed Vincent Chin?

BAM AND TRIPLE CANOPY — ON RESENTMENT: LA HAINE

Hubert (Hubert Koundé), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), and Vinz (Vincent Cassel) experience a wild and dangerous day in La haine

CURATOR’S CHOICE SCREENING: LA HAINE (HATE) (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Wednesday, March 20, 7:30
Series runs March 20-28
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.canopycanopycanopy.com

BAM and Triple Canopy, the New York–based online magazine, have teamed up to present the provocative film series “On Resentment,” which kicks off March 20 at 7:30 with Mathieu Kassovitz’s incendiary 1995 stunner, La haine, inspired by the real-life stories of Makome M’Bowole and Malik Oussekine, two young men who were killed by police in 1993 and 1986, respectively. Kassovitz’s second feature film (following Métisse), La haine, which means “hate,” is set in the immediate aftermath of Paris riots as three friends —the Jewish Vinz (Vincent Cassel), the Afro-French Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and the Arab Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) — spend about twenty hours wandering the mean streets of their banlieue (suburban projects) and Paris, causing minor mayhem as they encounter skinheads, stop off for some wine at an art opening, try to get into a hot club, and, over and over, become embroiled with the police.

The disaffected youths are fed up with a system that continues to treat them as outsiders, assuming they are criminals. Hubert wants to get out of the banlieue through hard work, but he keeps running into obstacles that are out of his control; at one point, when something goes wrong, he closes his eyes as if he can wish it away. Saïd is an immature schemer who thinks he can slide out of any untoward situation, especially with the help of his much more grounded older brother. But Vinz is a significant problem; one of their friends, Abdel (Abdel Ahmed Ghili), was arrested at the riots and has been severely injured while in police custody. Vinz has sworn to kill a policeman if Abdel dies, something that becomes more possible when he picks up a gun an officer dropped. “I’m fuckin’ sick of the goddam system!” Vinz proclaims, filled with resentment. The three young men pass by a few signs that say “The World Is Yours,” a reference to Scarface, but that seems far out of reach for them.

Vinz (Vincent Cassel) sees trouble coming in Mathieu Kassovitz’s explosive La haine

Photographed in gritty black-and-white by Pierre Aïm and edited with a caged fury by Kassovitz and Scott Stevenson, La haine is electrifying cinema, a powder keg of a film ready to explode at any second. The time is shown onscreen before each scene, going from 10:38 to 06:00, like a ticking time bomb. The film has a documentary-like quality, complete with actual news footage of riots and violence. Kassovitz shows up as a skinhead, while his father, director and writer Peter Kassovitz, is a patron at the art gallery. The soundtrack features songs by French hip-hoppers Assassin; Cassel’s brother, Mathias Crochon, is a member of the group. And look for French star Vincent Lindon’s riotous cameo as a very drunk man.

Several times Vinz appears to be looking straight into the camera, pointing his gun accusingly at the audience; his complete disdain for all types of authority is reckless and dangerous but also understandable, and Kassovitz is extending that rage beyond the screen. In fact, during the November 2005 riots in France, people looked to Kassovitz for a response, and the writer-actor-director eventually got into a blog battle with Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who would later become prime minister. Kassovitz wrote, “As much as I would like to distance myself from politics, it is difficult to remain distant in the face of the depravations of politicians. And when these depravations draw the hate of all youth, I have to restrain myself from encouraging the rioters.” Sarkozy replied, “You seem to be acquainted with the suburbs well enough to know, deep inside you, that the situation has been tense there for many years and that the unrest is deep-rooted. Your film La haine, shot in 1995, already showed this unease that right-wing and left-wing governments had to deal with, with varying results. To claim this crisis is down to the Minister of the Interior’s sayings and doings is yet another way of missing the point. I attributed this to an untimely and quick-tempered reaction.”

The BAM/Triple Canopy series is a nine-day program of films that focus on the concept of resentment as it applies to politics, identity, and representation, asking such questions as “How can resentment be reclaimed by those who are used to fits of anger and bitterness being called unproductive, petty, selfish, even pathological?” and “Can — and must — resentment be useful?” The Curator’s Choice screening of La haine will be followed by a discussion with artist and writer Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, series programmer Ashley Clark, and Triple Canopy editor Emily Wang, who cowrote the TC article “A Note on Resentment” with Shen Goodman, which states, “We’re proposing to hold on to resentment not so much as a means of plotting the downfall of our enemies — though why not, it is the resentment issue — but as a starting point for thinking and making and belonging. . . . Who, if anyone, has a right to be resentful? How can resentment be useful? (Must resentment be useful?)” And of course, the film is relevant yet again in light of the Yellow Vest protests held earlier this year in Paris and the many people of color shot by police or who die in custody under questionable, controversial circumstances here in America. The series continues through March 28 with such other films as Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, Lindsay Anderson’s If . . . , and John Akomfrah’s Handsworth Songs.

PROGRAMMERS’ NOTEBOOK: ON LOVE — ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL

Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) unexpectedly fall in love in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF) (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, February 19, 8:45
Series runs through February 21
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

The BAM series “Programmers’ Notebook: On Love” is not your traditional look at romance, passion, and family bonds, with such films as A.I. Artificial Intelligence, about a mother and a robot; Senna, about a race-car driver and his sport; and My Neighbor Totoro, about a young girl and the cutest animated creature ever. It also includes one of the strangest love stories, and one that is surprisingly politically relevant after all these years, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s masterful Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. On a rainy day, sixty-year-old West German cleaning woman Emmi (Brigitte Mira), a short, stout, quiet lady, enters a Munich bar to get out of the rain. There she encounters ruggedly handsome Moroccan guest worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), whose friends encourage him to dance with Emmi. What begins as a joke evolves into an unusual love affair that confuses just about everyone, from Ali’s and Emmi’s friends and coworkers to local shopkeepers and her family and landlord — and even to Ali and Emmi themselves. “It will never work out. It’s unnatural,” an Arab woman (Katharina Herberg) at the bar says. Emmi’s bitter son-in-law, Eugen, played by Fassbinder, refers to migrants as “swine.” Her daughter, Krista, played by Irm Hermann, one of Fassbinder’s former lovers, calls her an “old whore.” When their relationship takes a turn for the worse, Emmi solemnly tells Ali, “When we’re together, we must be nice to each other. Otherwise, life’s not worth living.”

Rainer Werner Fassbinder plays a lazy bigot in his masterful Douglas Sirk homage, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Forty-five years after its release, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul still packs a heavy punch. Partly an homage to German-born Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows taken to a Brechtian extreme (and expanded from a brief story told by a hotel chambermaid in Fassbinder’s The American Soldier), the film deals with racism, bigotry, xenophobia, exploitation, alienation, shame, fearmongering, and immigration in prescient ways, especially here in America under the current administration. Shot in just two weeks, the film is photographed in saturated blues, reds, greens, and yellows by cinematographer Jürgen Jürges, with limited camera movement. Fassbinder’s composition is extraordinary, with long shots that highlight the protagonists’ loneliness and exclusion. Early on, a woman in Emmi’s apartment building watches her go upstairs with Ali, the woman seen from behind, her out-of-focus hair dominating the right side of the frame, the eventual couple visible through a caged screen, as if prisoners. Later, in a restaurant, Emmi and Ali are seen through a doorway sitting in the far back of an otherwise empty restaurant, as if outcasts from society.

Life and love are not easy for Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) unexpectedly fall in love in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Life and love are not easy for Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in Fassbinder’s romantic melodrama Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Mira and ben Salem, Fassbinder’s partner at the time, play the unexpected lovers with an intense level of uncomfortability that keeps the viewer on edge; Barbara Valentin is fabulously creepy as the bar owner and Ali’s former lover, the deep, dark circles around her eyes clashing with her long blonde hair, as if she’s a walking zombie. The film was deeply personal to Fassbinder (The Marriage of Maria Braun, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), who encountered racism during his time with ben Salem, had many immigrant relatives, and had a complex relationship with his mother and business manager, Lisolette Eder (aka Lilo Pempeit), who appears as Mrs. Münchmeyer in Ali. At one point, Ali, who speaks in broken German, and Emmi are seen in a narrow space through the door to her kitchen. He reaches out and holds her as she sobs. “Why cry?” he asks. “Because I’m so happy and so full of fear, too,” she says. “Not fear. Fear not good. Fear eat soul,” he explains. “Fear eats the soul? That’s nice,” she responds with a big smile. If only love were always that simple.

PROGRAMMERS’ NOTEBOOK — ON LOVE: NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT

Nostalgia for the Light offers a breathtaking look at memory and the past, from above and below

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ) (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, February 18, 9:30
Series runs through February 21
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.nostalgiaforthelight.com

Constructing a riveting tale of memory, Guzmán speaks with architect Miguel Lawner, who draws detailed maps of the Chacabuca desert concentration camp where he and so many other political prisoners were held; Valentina, a young astronomer whose grandparents had to give up her parents in order to save her when she was a baby; archaeologist Lautaro Nunez, who digs up mummies while trying to help the women find “los desaparecidos”; and Victoria and Violeta, who regularly comb the barren landscape in search of their relatives. “I wish the telescopes didn’t just look into the sky but could also see through the earth so that we could find them,” Violeta says at one point. Spectacularly photographed by Katell Dijan, Nostalgia for the Light is a modern masterpiece, an unparalleled cinematic experience that has to be seen to be believed. The film is screening February 18 at 9:30 in BAM’s “Programmers’ Notebook: On Love,” a collection of works that take a different look at passion, romance, and family bonds; the series continues through February 21 with such other films as Dee Rees’s Pariah, starring Adepero Oduye, and Oduye’s To Be Free, followed by a discussion with Oduye; Asif Kapadia’s Senna; and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.

RACE, SEX & CINEMA — THE WORLD OF MARLON RIGGS: MOONLIGHT / AFFIRMATIONS

Chiron (Alex Hibbert) looks out at a hard future in Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-winning Moonlight

MOONLIGHT (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, February 9, 7:00
Series runs February 6-14
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
moonlight-movie.com

BAM is paying tribute to controversial and innovative Texas-born filmmaker Marlon Riggs in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death with “Race, Sex & Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs.” Riggs, who was gay and black, died in April 1994 at the age of thirty-seven from AIDS complications, leaving behind an important legacy of films, poetry, and essays. Many of his works had major impacts on the next generation of African American writers and directors, as evidenced by this program. On February 9, the series pairs Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, which was nominated for eight Oscars and won three (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney), with Riggs’s ten-minute 1990 short, Affirmations, about the dreams and desires of gay black men. In Moonlight, Jenkins tells the powerful and moving story of Chiron, a shy, troubled boy growing up in Liberty City, Florida, in three chapters as Chiron goes from a young boy (Little, played by Alex Hibbert) to a teenager (Chiron, played by Ashton Sanders) to a twenty-seven-year-old man (Black, played by Trevante Rhodes). The semiautobiographical film is based on playwright and actor McCraney’s In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue and Jenkins’s own experiences; both men are from Liberty City but did not know each other there. In the first section, Little is chased by bullies and runs into an abandoned building, where he is found by Juan (Ali), a drug dealer who brings him home to his girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe). They become a kind of surrogate family, as Little’s mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), is a crack addict who will do just about anything for her next score. Little also finds solace in his friendship with Kevin (Jaden Piner, later played by Jharrel Jerome and André Holland). In the second chapter, Chiron is taunted and bullied by Terrel (Patrick Decile) while trying to come to terms with his sexual orientation. In the third section, the passage of time reveals how much has changed, although the film turns overly melodramatic at the end.

Karen Everett’s I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs is part of Riggs tribute at BAM

Taking its inspiration from the source material, Moonlight is beautifully photographed by James Laxton, who has previously shot Medicine for Melancholy and Jenkins’s 2003 shorts, My Josephine and Little Brown Boy, and 2011 “Remigration” episode of Futurestates, bathing the film in lush blues. Jenkins’s subtly paced style is accompanied by a gorgeous classical-inspired score by Nicholas Britell (The Big Short). Moonlight is anchored by superb performances by Emmy nominee Ali (House of Cards, Hidden Figures) as the cool and caring Juan; Harris (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, 28 Days Later) as the drug-addicted Paula, who has lost control of her life; Monáe (Hidden Figures, The Electric Lady) as the sweet and understanding Teresa; and Sanders (The Retrieval) as the in-between Chiron, who feels overwhelmed by all the maelstrom swirling around him. Moonlight and Affirmations are screening at BAM February 9 at 7:00; “Race, Sex & Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs” runs February 6-14 and includes such other evenings as Riggs’s Tongues Untied and Anthem with Isaac Julien’s The Attendant; a fifteenth-anniversary screening of Rodney Evans’s Brother to Brother, followed by a Q&A with Evans; Su Friedrich’s Hide and Seek and Cheryl Dunye’s Janine; and Lynn Hershman Leeson’s The Complete Electronic Diaries, Peter Rose’s The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough, and Jeanne C. Finley’s I Saw Jesus in a Tortilla.