Perhaps the most dominant art form of the last 100 years, film has an important place at LACMA. For many years, LACMA has presented programs ranging from screenings of new and classic films across genres to conversations on film and filmmaking. In addition, the museum presents exhibitions exploring the history and contemporary practice of filmmaking.
Image: Edward Ruscha, Hollywood, 1968, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Acquisition Fund, © Edward J. Ruscha IV, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Perhaps the most dominant art form of the last 100 years, film has an important place at LACMA. For many years, LACMA has presented programs ranging from screenings of new and classic films across genres to conversations on film and filmmaking. In addition, the museum presents exhibitions exploring the history and contemporary practice of filmmaking.
Image: Edward Ruscha, Hollywood, 1968, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Acquisition Fund, © Edward J. Ruscha IV, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
LACMA is now preparing for the construction of its new building for the permanent collection, which will include a new state-of-the-art theater with greater projection and sound capabilities. Throughout construction, FILM at LACMA programs will continue in collaboration with a variety of partners at venues throughout Los Angeles County.
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Related Events
Reserve your spot for virtual film programs and post-screening conversations between filmmakers as they discuss representations of Black joy and resilience in film, particularly against the historical backdrop of framing Black themes through lenses of tragedy and oppression. The series will shift the Black narrative in film from suffering to triumph and achievement as well as reframe Black representation in film during these socially fraught times.
Films are paired with pre-show shorts by emerging filmmakers curated by NewFilmmakers LA.
Presented on Slipstream in partnership with ASU Film Spark, the Sidney Poitier New American Film School, and NewFilmmakers LA.
All screenings are free. RSVP required.
Summer of Soul
Wednesday, November 10 | 5 pm
MR. SOUL!
Wednesday, November 10 | 5 pm
Homeroom
Wednesday, November 17 | 5 pm
Miss Juneteenth
Wednesday, November 17 | 5 pm
My Name Is Pauli Murray
Wednesday, November 24 | 5 pm
The Harder They Fall
Wednesday, December 1 | 5 pm
Passing
Wednesday, December 8 | 5 pm
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
Wednesday, December 15 | 5 pm
Respect
Wednesday, December 22 | 5 pm
Related Events
Reserve your spot for virtual film programs and post-screening conversations between filmmakers as they discuss the complexities of telling stories of migration and displacement through music. The Migrant Sounds film series, curated by music scholar Josh Kun, interim Dean of the USC Thornton School of Music and a professor in the USC Annenberg School, features recent films from across the world that put music at the center of migration stories. Films include A Magical Substance Flows Into Me, Half Moon, Mija, The Story Won’t Die, The Sweet France of Rachid Taha, and Wild Honey. These events will take place online on Slipstream.
These free screenings will take place online. RSVP required.
The Story Won’t Die | November 2, 2022 | 5 pm
David Henry Gerson, 2021, 83 min.
The Story Won’t Die is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since World War II. The film is produced by Sundance Award–winning producer Odessa Rae (Navalny).
Mija | November 9, 2022 | 5 pm
Isabel Castro, 2022, 88 min.
Disney Original Documentary’s Mija follows Doris Muñoz and Jacks Haupt, two daughters of immigrants from Mexico, navigating their careers in the music industry. A moving love letter to immigrants and their children, this intimate debut feature by Isabel Castro captures the emotional and complex stories of Doris and Jacks for whom “making it” isn’t just a dream, it’s a necessity.
Wild Honey | November 16, 2022 | 5 pm
Ava Porter and Farhad Akhmetov, 2019, 72 min.
A rapturous ethnographic look at traditional folk music, Wild Honey presents the ethnic communities of five regions across Russia: the Bashkirs of the Ural Mountains, the Cossacks of the Caucasus, the Molokans of the Southern Steppe, the Ashkenazim and Krymchaks of the Black Sea, and the Altaians of Central Siberia. While on the surface these groups appear to differ, varying in location, religion, and language, they are united through their connection to music — for all of them, song is an expression of everyday life, each note a trace of the ancestral past, each beat a conduit to the future.
A Magical Substance Flows Into Me | November 30, 2022 | 5 pm
Jumanna Manna, 2015, 68 min.
Over the course of the film, Jumana Manna—herself a Palestinian from Jerusalem—follows in Dr. Robert Lachmann’s footsteps and visits Kurdish, Moroccan and Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, members of urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians, as they exist today within the geographic space of historical Palestine. Manna engages them in conversation around their music, while lingering over that music’s history as well as its current, sometimes endangered state. She asks these individuals to perform, and they do.
The Sweet France of Rachid Taha | December 7, 2022 | 5 pm
Farid Haroud, 2020, 53 min.
The story of a journey of a young Maghrebian immigrant from the 70s destined for a life of labor but who became a major musical artist, recognized worldwide. His version of "Douce France," borrowed from Charles Trenet, unfolds over all those who have known him and all those he has inspired.
Half Moon | December 14, 2022 | 5 pm
Bahman Ghobadi, 2006, 107 min.
Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his 10 sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.