Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers
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The profound social change and political unrest in 1960s Japan detonated an artistic explosion that upended the culture. Amélie Ravalec’s film documents the avant-garde artists of this period: pioneers of experimental and erotic photography, underground street theater, Butoh dance, surreal illustrations, and radical graphic design (including that of Tadanori Yokoo, who is featured in our exhibition Cut + Paste). These innovators not only transformed traditional art forms but also generated revolutionary new ones. Immerse yourself in the political and aesthetic revolution that remains provocative to this day.
(Dir.: Amélie Ravalec, United Kingdom/Japan/France, 2025, 100 min. DCP, English and Japanese with English subtitles), Image courtesy of Circle Time Studio.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:45 PM.
CANCELLED - Green Snake
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New 4K restoration!
In this psychedelic fantasia from the great Tsui Hark, two snake goddesses take on human form, and one falls in love with a man. But their love is threatened by a vengeful Buddhist monk with supernatural powers. Green Snake is based on the novel by Lilian Lee, itself a postmodern feminist spin on the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake.“ Tsui’s film is propelled by dazzling, colorful, and hallucinatory imagery, generous doses of humor and action, and an unforgettably seductive performance by Maggie Cheung in the title role.
(Dir.: Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1993, 99 min. DCP, Mandarin with English subtitles), Image courtesy of Seasonal Film Corporation.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Captioning. Assisted listening devices. Wheelchair accessible.
Friday, June 27, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:45 PM.
Happy Together
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Part of our Wong Kar-wai / Leslie Cheung double feature! Be sure to stay for Days of Being Wild!
This emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown is one of the most searing romances of the 1990s. Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung play a couple traveling through Argentina together. But the pair are locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Happy Together empathetically depicts the complex dynamics of a queer relationship on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, when the country’s LGBTQ+ community suddenly faced an uncertain future.
Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that’s by turns devastating and deliriously romantic. Ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle delivers this film in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color. Happy Together is an intoxicating exploration of displacement and desire that swoons with the ache…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, June 29, 2025, 1:30 PM – 3:10 PM.
CANCELLED - All About Love
This comedy follows two bisexual women and former lovers in their forties, who reconnect after they both get pregnant from ill-advised one-night stands. Years after they originally parted ways, Macy (Sandra Ng) and Anita (Vivian Chow) meet by chance at a counseling session for expectant mothers, and their romance reignites. All About Love dares to take on important issues like motherhood, sexuality, and discrimination. Master director Ann Hui addresses these sensitive topics with wit and warmth.
(Dir.: Ann Hui, 2010, 105 min. DCP, Cantonese with English subtitles), Image Courtesy of Angela Wong.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, June 29, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Days of Being Wild
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Part of our Wong Kar-wai / Leslie Cheung double feature! Don’t miss Happy Together at 1:30!
In this dreamlike drift through the Hong Kong of the 1960s, a band of wayward twentysomethings pulls together and pushes apart in a cycle of frustrated desire. A disaffected playboy (Leslie Cheung) searches for his birth mother. A lovelorn woman (Maggie Cheung) hopelessly yearns after him. Meanwhile, a policeman (Andy Lau) gets caught in the middle of their turbulent relationship.
Wong Kar-wai’s breakthrough sophomore feature represents the first full flowering of his swooning signature style and kicks off a loosely connected, ongoing cycle that includes In the Mood for Love and 2046. This is Wong's first collaboration with both cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who lends the film its gorgeously gauzy, hallucinatory texture, and actor Tony Leung, who appears briefly in a tantalizing teaser for a never-realized sequel. Days of Being Wild is an exhilarating first expression of Wong’s trademark…
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: ASL-interpreted program. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, June 29, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:15 PM.
Godzilla
Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear bombing and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. The film’s rampaging, radioactive beast—the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears—became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels. (Description adapted from Janus Films.)
(Dir.: Ishiro Honda, Japan, 1954, 96 min. DCP, Japanese with English subtitles), Image courtesy of Janus Films.
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaamatinees.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: ASL-interpreted program. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible.
Wednesday, July 9, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:45 PM.