Keeping Your Programming Ideas Memorable/Tweetable

After having kept a close eye on the New York repertory film world for a few years now, one lesson that I’ve learned is that sometimes all it takes is a really funny, audacious, or provocative title or concept to get people interested in your film program. While I’m sure I left out a few great ones, here’s a list of some of the most memorable program titles, concepts, and film pairings that I’ve seen over the last couple of years:

• The Caan Film Festival @ the Museum of the Moving Image
-- “For two glittering weekends at the end of May, the world turns its attention to the movie event of the year: The Caan Film Festival at Museum of the Moving Image. In celebration of the Bronx-born, Sunnyside-raised, and Meisner-instructed actor, the survey revisits twelve of James Caan’s greatest performances.” – from the MOMI website

• Simian Vérité @ the Anthology Film Archives
-- A mostly documentary series focusing on the subject of human-primate coexistence. The series features such classics as Frederick Wiseman’s Primate, Barbet Schroder’s Koko: A Talking Gorilla, and Nagisa Oshima’s Max Mon Amour. How Bedtime for Bonzo was overlooked, I do not know.

• Bad Reputation: Spotlight on Kristen Stewart @ BAMcinématek

• Double Feature: Despairing Times for a Mute Woman in a Vast Landscape @ Tenant 416
-- Featuring Few of Us (Šarūnas Bartas, 1996) and Hellé (Roger Vadim, 1972)

• Workers Film and Photo League Films + Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1933 @ Light Industry

• Bronxploitation @ Spectacle

• The Cat-vant Garde Film Show @ the Museum of the Moving Image
-- Organized in conjunction with the “How Cats Took Over the Internet” exhibition, this series highlighted the extraordinary number of experimental films that prominently feature cats. The show included works by filmmakers such as Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, Carolee Schneemann, Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, and Bill Brand.

• Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election @ the Anthology Film Archives

• Double Feature: Cloaked Hungarian Outlaw: 2 Films of György Szomjas @ Tenant 416