Our guide to the film series and special screenings that will take place this weekend and the week ahead. All of our film reviews are at nytimes.com/reviews/movies.
THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: THE COMPLETE WORK OF ED OWENS at the Maysles Documentary Center (February 28, 7:30 p.m.). Protected by avant-garde filmmaker Gregory J. Markopoulos, Edward Owens made films in Chicago as a teenager before moving to New York. This program of four short works – the longest, “Tomorrow’s Promise”, lasts approximately 45 minutes, while “Remembrance: A Portrait Study”, an abstract representation of the filmmaker’s mother and two friends, lasts six minutes – will followed by a discussion. . The conference will feature Melissa Lyde, whose film programs have focused on the voices of artists of color, and Ed Halter, who helped rediscover Owens’ films.
212-537-6843, maysles.org
ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL at Barnard College (until March 1). The theme of this annual film festival is the inspiration of women: women who direct, women who make films, women who make films. New York premieres include Sundance The Favorite of Critics “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” (Friday), an empathetic and often heartbreaking procedure by director Eliza Hittman, starring Sidney Flanigan as a Pennsylvania teenager who meets multiple barriers when searching for a abortion. Other titles have already played widely. These include the Oscar-nominated documentary “For Sama” (Saturday), director Waad al-Kateab’s chronicle of his war-ravaged life in Aleppo, Syria, presented as a message to his young daughter. The festival will also host “Little Women” (Saturday) by Greta Gerwig – herself a graduate of Barnard College.
athenafilmfestival.com
[[[[Discover the events that our other critics have chosen for the coming week.]
DUSAN MAKAVEJEV, THE UNBOUND CINEMA at the Anthology Film Archives (until March 8). This famous Serbian director, who died last year, made films that shocked the public with their sexual candor and detonated raspberries against elements of the authoritarian regime. “WR: Mysteries of the Organism” (Saturday and March 8), which was first broadcast in 1971 and was banned by the Yugoslav authorities, intertwines the theories of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich with vaguely structured ideas about love free as an antidote to the rigidity of life under communism. The first, more easily analyzed, “Love Affair, or the case of the missing switchboard operator” (Friday 4 and 7 March), relates a case between a switchboard operator (Eva Ras) and a Turkish sanitation inspector (Slobodan Aligrudic). By proceeding in a non-synchronous manner – the adventure apparently ended with a corpse – the film punctuates its narrative with documentary comments of experts in forensic medicine.
212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org
KELLY REICHARDT SELECTED: “FIRST COW” IN THE CONTEXT at BAM Rose Cinemas (February 28-March 4) and NORTHWEST PASSAGES: KELLY REICHARDT MOVIES at the Museum of the moving image (February 29-March 1). “First Cow”, the wonderful new feature from Kelly Reichardt, opens on March 6 and two theaters are preparing for its arrival. At BAM, Reichardt chose films that influenced his story of friendship and good sales of bargains in the Pacific Northwest in the 19th century. They include Agnes Varda’s essay film “The Gleaners and Me” (Friday and Monday) and the mysterious “Woman in the Dunes” by Hiroshi Teshigahara, which Reichardt will present on Sunday. In Astoria, the Museum of the Moving Image will screen Reichardt’s own films, starting with “River of Grass” on Saturday.
718-636-4100, bam.org
718-784-0077, movingimage.us
