COMING SOON. Madhur Jaffrey as Manjula in Shakespeare Wallah. Lillie & Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. Caroline Wiess Law.

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1 DECEMBER 2017 FEBRUARY 2018 µ The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1001 Bissonnet Street Houston, Texas MFAH STAFF Gary Tinterow, Director Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge, Department of Photography and Special Projects Marian Luntz, Curator, Film and Video Tracy Stephenson, Coordinator and Assistant Programmer, Film and Video Ray Gomez, Assistant for Community Outreach and Administration Ralph Kaethner, Omar Al-Bochi, and Kirston Otis, Projectionists Anu Dwurampudi, Rice University Camfield Fellow COMING SOON Madhur Jaffrey as Manjula in Shakespeare Wallah RECORDED FILM INFORMATION LINE MFAH CALL CENTER Go to mfah.org/film for updated schedules and additional details. fb.com/mfahfilms twitter.com/mfahfilms Glassell Junior School Lillie & Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden Caroline Wiess Law Building Audrey Jones Beck Building MFAH Visitors Center A season of classic and contemporary Indian movies will be screened to complement the major exhibition Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India, on view at the Museum from March August 12, Highlights will include new restorations of films shot in India by the legendary Merchant Ivory Productions. WELCOME Good news: early December brings the return of audience favorite the British Arrows, a lively showcase of award-winning ads from the U.K. Anu Dwurampudi, a Rice University junior and our Camfield Fellow this year, writes about it at mfah.org/blogs. After Hurricane Harvey forced us to cancel a few screenings, we re pleased to meet appeals to reprise the majestic documentary Sacred, especially timely during December. Filmmakers continue to respond to the global refugee crisis. Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei s sweeping documentary, shot in more than 20 countries, brings us close to people fleeing unimaginable circumstances. Comments Ai: As an artist, I always believe in humanity and I see this crisis as my crisis. Also, stalwart auteur Aki Kaurismäki s observations on how refugees are received in Finland inspired his. The intrepid Agnès Varda (an Honorary Academy Award winner) and her young collaborator, JR, take a delightful photographic journey across France in. Plus, in a 16mm collaboration with Aurora Picture Show on February 3, we spotlight extraordinary animator Mary Ellen Bute ( ), a Houston native. It s a true milestone to mark the 25th edition of the Houston January 19 February 2 at the Museum, Rice Cinema, and Asia Society Texas Center. This year s selections include several edgy films and a focus on women protagonists. Professor Hamid Naficy, the foremost scholar of Iranian cinema in the U.S. and formerly on the Rice faculty, returns to Houston for the event. Consider gifting a Film Buffs membership to movie lovers in your life! Among the many benefits: 10 MFAH Films admissions, passes to sneak previews, invitations to special film events, and more. Sending warm wishes for an inspiring year ahead, Marian Luntz Curator, Film and Video SACRED HUMAN FLOW THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

2 MOVIES HOUSTONIANS LOVE Season 13 of the Museum s ongoing film series Movies Houstonians Love continues through the spring. On Saturday, December 2, Houston Chronicle fashion and beauty editor Joy Sewing introduces the film Mahogany. Diana Ross stars as an aspiring fashion designer who ends up becoming a supermodel romanced by Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Perkins. Coming this spring, Da Camera s artistic and general director Sarah Rothenberg has accepted our invitation to participate in Movies Houstonians Love, and is contemplating her film choice. Pianist Rothenberg has had a unique career as a performer, writer, institution builder, concert curator, and creator of multidisciplinary performances linking music to literature and visual art. She has been artistic director of Da Camera for more than 20 years and has served as general director since Visit mfah.org/film for updates.. MAHOGANY Directed by Berry Gordy (USA, 1975, 109 min.) Saturday, December 2, Presented by Joy Sewing, Houston Chronicle Fashion & Beauty Editor COMING: THIS SPRING Presented by Sarah Rothenberg, artistic and general director, Da Camera (Film and date to be announced) Center for Visual Music SEEING SOUND: MARY ELLEN BUTE RETROSPECTIVE I seek to bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music. Mary Ellen Bute, pioneer animator NOW PLAYING On the cover: SCREENINGS Screenings are held in the Brown Auditorium Theater, designed by noted Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Please enter the Caroline Wiess Law Building from Main Street (see map on back cover). Refreshments are not permitted in the theater. Audience members are kindly requested to silence all electronic devices once the film begins. Many films are unrated and may not be appropriate for younger viewers. Call with questions. PLAN YOUR VISIT Visit mfah.org for new parking options during the campus expansion. Pick up a coupon when you purchase your movie ticket at the auditorium box office to receive 10% off your purchase at the MFA Café! ADMISSION Except where otherwise indicated, general admission is $9. Museum members, students with ID, and seniors (65+) receive a $2 discount. No other discounts apply. Children 5 and under are admitted free. The MFAH Films box office accepts payment by cash, check, and credit card. Purchase tickets in advance at mfah.org/film, in the Museum lobbies, or at the auditorium box office. FILM BUFFS Film Buffs is the Museum s membership group for movie lovers. Call for information or visit mfah.org/filmbuffs for more information. Dues start at $85 and benefits include free passes to sneak preview screenings of new films, discounted admission to MFAH Films, and more! Museum members are eligible for a discount on the annual dues. SUPPORT Underwriting for the Film Department is provided by Tenaris and the Vaughn Foundation. Generous funding is provided by Franci Neely; Nina and Michael Zilkha; American Turkish Association-Houston; Lynn S. Wyatt; James V. Derrick; ILEX Foundation; and L Alliance Française de Houston. Official media partner: General admission to the MFAH is free on Thursdays, courtesy of Shell.

3 DECEMBER 1 British Arrows 2 Movies Houstonians Love Joy Sewing presents Mahogany British Arrows Sacred 17 Sacred Kid Flix Mix 1 11:00 a.m Kid Flix Mix 2 JANUARY Tehran Taboo Kid Flix Mix 1, 11:00 a.m. Kid Flix Mix 2,, Reel Fashion The Gospel According to André :00 p.m Breath Disappearance 20 Ava Tehran Taboo 9:00 p.m Frames 28 Negar FEBRUARY Seeing Sound: Mary Ellen Bute Retrospective Animated Live Action Bechdel Film Festival 16 6:00 p.m. Animated 8:00 p.m. Live Action 17 :00 p.m. Animated 6:00 p.m. Live Action :00 p.m. Live Action 23 Animated 2 :00 p.m. Documentary 25 Animated Animated Live Action

4 FILM INFORMATION The screening schedule is subject to change. Please follow MFAH Films on social media and subscribe to the weekly film e-newsletter to stay updated. All films are presented in their original languages with English subtitles, except where noted. Information line: Museum Call Center: Updates: mfah.org/film Like us on Facebook: fb.com/mfahfilms Follow us on Sign up for weekly s: mfah.org/enews NEW RELEASES BRITISH ARROWS (UK, 2017, approximately 90 min.) Friday, December 1, Sunday, December 10, Established in 1976, the British Arrows celebrates the U.K. s most innovative and daring advertising. The Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners are compiled into an annual U.S. tour, organized in collaboration with the Walker Art Center. This celebration of commercial creativity includes performances by children, animals, and A-listers, infused with a uniquely British sensibility. From high-tech extravaganzas to wacky comedy, this selection of award-winning ads is sure to entertain and provoke. Don t miss this popular program, returning to the Museum after a year s hiatus! HUMAN FLOW Directed by Ai Weiwei (Germany, 2017, 10 min.) Friday Saturday, December 8 9, Sunday, December 10, Friday, December 15, Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and activist, set out on an epic journey to share in the daily lives of people fleeing turmoil around the planet. The resulting documentary is grand in scale, yet deeply intimate in feel. Moving across 23 countries, Ai and an international crew chronicle the greatest human displacement since World War II. The film follows a chain of urgent human stories, giving witness to its subjects and their desperate search for safety, shelter, and perhaps, justice. Producer Andrew Cohen observed, Throughout his career, Ai has interpreted the absurdity, contradictions, and beauty of humanity. In he has a down-to-earth approach that brings us directly into the experience. We are with the refugees, on their journeys. Ai finds a way to offer dignity, hope, and humor through a harrowing odyssey. SACRED Directed by Thomas Lennon (USA, 2016, 86 min., in English, Burmese, Japanese, Amharic, Malagasy, Arabic, French, Pashtu, Marathi, Hebrew, Krio, Tagalog, Nepalese, Punjabi, Polish, Haitian Creole, and Spanish with English subtitles) Saturday, December 16, *Sunday, December 17, Sacred immerses the viewer in an exploration of spirituality across cultures and religions. This nomadic film explores faith as primary human experience and shows how people turn to ritual and prayer to navigate the milestones and crises of life. Lennon commissioned top independent filmmakers from more than 25 countries and a wide range of religious traditions, each team contributing a single scene. The sweeping, yet intimate, documentary unifies these scenes into a single work, told without narration, plunging viewers in the music and sounds of an inspirational and powerful journey. *Community partner: Rothko Chapel LOVING VINCENT Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman (UK/Poland, 2017, 9 min.) Thursday Friday, December 21 22, Saturday, December 23, One of the most visually acclaimed films of the year, is the world s first fully oilpainted feature film. It details the complicated life and controversial death of Vincent van Gogh. More than 6 years in the making with the help of 125 artists, this brilliant animated feature is composed of 65,000 painted frames. Drawn from meticulous research and inspired by van Gogh s paintings, subjects, and correspondence, the film s story begins a year after the artist s death, when the postmaster s son (Douglas Booth) is tasked with delivering Vincent s last letter. He ends up interviewing those who knew him in his troubled last days, trying to understand Vincent s character and what happened. Among the other voice actors are Saoirse Ronan, Chris O Dowd, and Aidan Turner. FACES PLACES Directed by Agnès Varda and JR (France, 2017, 90 min., in French with English subtitles) Monday Wednesday, January 1 3, Thursday, January, 2:00 & Friday Saturday, January 5 6, Sunday, January 7, Eighty-nine-year old Agnès Varda (who received an honorary Academy Award in November), one of the leading figures of the French New Wave, and acclaimed 33-year-old French photographer and muralist JR codirect this enchanting documentary/ road movie. Kindred spirits, Varda and JR share a lifelong passion for images and how they are created, displayed, and distributed. Together they travel around the villages of France in JR s photo truck meeting locals, learning their stories, and producing epic-size portraits of them. The photos are prominently displayed on houses, barns, storefronts, and trains, revealing the humanity in their subjects, and themselves. records the heartwarming encounters as well as the unlikely, tender friendships created along the way. Indiewire enthused, Magnificently moving, funny, and altogether wonderful! Agnés Varda and JR are a screen duo for the ages! THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN) Directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland/Germany, 2017, 98 min., in Finnish, English, Arabic, and Swedish with English subtitles) Friday Saturday, January 12 13, Sunday, January 1, This wry, melancholic comedy from Aki Kaurismäki (whose films the Museum has premiered for more than three decades) is a clear-eyed response to the current refugee crisis. Displaced Syrian Khaled (Sherwan Haji) lands in Helsinki as a stowaway; meanwhile, middle-aged salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves behind his wife and job and improbably buys a seafood restaurant. Despite being denied asylum, Khaled decides to remain in Finland, and the paths of the two men cross fortuitously. As deadpan as the best of the director s work, and with a deep well of empathy for its down-butnot-out characters (many of them played by members of Kaurismäki s ever-reliable stock company), is a bittersweet tale of human kindness. MY ART Directed by Laurie Simmons (USA, 2017, 86 min.) Friday, February 2, Sunday, February, New York artist Ellie Shine (played by the film s director, artist Laurie Simmons) looks to gain inspiration and tranquility as she housesits for a friend in upstate New York. Accompanied by her lovable handicapped terrier, Bing, Ellie comes of age middle age in her new surroundings. She turns the adjoining barn into her studio, staging elaborate re-creations of classic movie scenes, ranging from Some Like It Hot to A Clockwork Orange. Business unexpectedly evolves into possible pleasure when Ellie invites three locals to participate in her vignettes. Soon all three men become romantically interested in Ellie, but she remains determined to resist anything that will disrupt her creative process. BECHDEL FILM FESTIVAL Thursday, February 15, The Museum proudly hosts the opening night of the inaugural Bechdel Film Festival, organized by our colleagues at 1 Pews. The mission of this festival is to celebrate the accomplishments of women in film. Film selections are in progress. Visit mfah.org/film or 1pews.org for details. Festival ticket prices apply: General admission is $10. Museum members, students with ID, and seniors (65+), receive $2 discount. MOVIES HOUSTONIANS LOVE MAHOGANY Directed by Berry Gordy (USA, 1975, 109 min.) Saturday, December 2, Presented by Joy Sewing, Houston Chronicle Fashion & Beauty Editor An ambitious beauty and aspiring designer (Diana Ross) from the Chicago slums puts herself through fashion school with the hopes of becoming an international top designer. Along the way, she becomes a rich, deliciously decadent global supermodel thanks in part to a fashion photographer (Anthony Perkins) who reinvents her as his muse. But her activist boyfriend (Billy Dee Williams) wants her to sacrifice her dreams as he pursues a political future. Before she could even write her name as a child, Joy Sewing knew she would become a journalist. The Houston native covers fashion, beauty, and fitness, as well as other lifestyle topics and issues in the Houston Chronicle. Sewing has interviewed countless fashion designers, beauty experts, and celebrities, including Houston s own Beyoncé, Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch, the Kardashians, Sarah Jessica Parker, and many more. A former competitive figure skater and professional coach, Sewing is always on the hunt for the hottest fitness classes and studios in the city. Community partner: Magpies & Peacocks SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS KID FLIX MIX 1 (Various countries, , 62 min.) Thursday, December 28, 11:00 a.m. Saturday, January 6, 11:00 a.m. Free with Museum admission Selected from the 2017 New York International Children s Film Festival programs for younger audience members, Kid Flix 1 features Audience Award winners Tiger and Stone Soup, and the highest-rated shorts, including Crocodile, Mr. Night Has a Day Off, and Water Path for a Fish. Recommended ages 3 to 7. KID FLIX MIX 2 (Various countries, , 77 min.) Thursday, December 28, Saturday, January 6, Free with Museum admission Featuring the 2017 New York International Children s Film Festival Grand Prize winner Heads Together from Festival alumni and Academy Award nominees Job, Joris & Marieke, Kid Flix 2 also boasts the Grown-ups Award winner Riceballs, and Audience Award winner Welcome to my Life. Recommended ages 8 to adult.

5 SEEING SOUND: MARY ELLEN BUTE RETROSPECTIVE Presented by Center for Visual Music Directed by Mary Ellen Bute (USA, , 60 min.) Saturday, February 3, Introduced by scholar Kit Basquin A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Houstonian Mary Ellen Bute ( ) produced over a dozen short abstract animations from the 1930s to the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach and Shostakovich, and filled with elegant colorful forms, and sprightly dance-likerhythms, Bute s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. Bute herself wrote that she sought to bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music. film historian Ed Halter Bute s pioneering early abstract films (some of which were screened regularly at Radio City Music Hall, New York in the 1930s), included a series of Visual Music films which she called Seeing Sound, featuring 13 of her short films, including some rarely seen films in 16mm prints, such as 1935 s Rhythm in Light, a modern artist s interpretation of Grieg s Peer Gynt Suite; and 190 s Spook Sport, where ghosts, bats, and bells move to the music s rhythm in a graveyard. Visit mfah.org/film for the line-up. Presented by the Museum in association with the Aurora Picture Show and Center for Visual Music. 16mm prints from the Cecile Starr Collection at Center for Visual Music. Dr. Basquin has owned, curated, and directed galleries and museums. Prior to retiring from New York s Metropolitan Museum of Art, she worked as an administrator for 13 years with drawing and prints. She has recently written a biography about Texan filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute. OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS Friday, February 9, (Animated) Friday, February 9, (Live Action) Saturday, February 10, 1:00 p.m. (Animated, ) Sunday, February 11, 1:00 p.m. (Animated, ) Friday, February 16, 6:00 p.m. (Animated) Friday, February 16, 8:00 p.m. (Live Action) Saturday, February 17, :00 p.m.(animated) Saturday, February 17, 6:00 p.m. (Live Action) Sunday, February 18, 1:00 p.m. (Animated, ) Thursday, February 22, 1:00 p.m. (Live Action) Friday, February 23, (Animated) Saturday, February 2, :00 p.m. (Documentary) Sunday, February 25, (Animated) Saturday, March 3, (Live Action) Sunday, March, (Animated) For the 2018 Oscar season, the Museum presents all three programs of the Academy Award-nominated short films: animation, live action, and documentary. Shortly after the nominations are announced on Monday, February 5, visit mfah.org/film for details about the films in each category and choose your favorites before the winners are announced at the 90th presentation of the Oscars on Sunday, March. Center for Visual Music HOUSTON IRANIAN FILM FESTIVAL This year marks the 25th anniversary of this festival, established by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Rice Cinema. Screenings take place at both venues and at Asia Society Texas Center. Following last year s special screening of Asghar Farhadi s The Salesman, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this year s selections include Breath, Iran s 2018 Oscar submission. It is one of several narratives by and about young Iranian women, and, like Tehran Taboo, features the innovative use of animation. 2 Frames, the mesmerizing, experimental last film by the internationally celebrated Abbas Kiarostami ( ) will be shown at both the Museum and Rice Cinema. Film scholar Dr. Hamid Naficy, who was on the Rice faculty when this festival was founded, returns to Houston to give a lecture at Rice Cinema on January 31. Festival ticket prices apply! General admission is $10. Museum members, students with ID, and seniors (65+) receive $2 discount. Generous funding provided by the ILEX Foundation. BREATH (NAFAS) Directed by Narges Abyar (Iran, 2016, 118 min., Friday, January 19, Filmmaker and novelist Narges Abyar s bittersweet family drama Breath is Iran s Oscar submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category. The story takes place in Yazd in a tumultuous time spanning the Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. It features a riveting performance by Sareh Nour Mousavi as Bahar, a spirited little girl who lives with her father and grandmother after losing her mother. Bahar loves to read and has a vivid imagination, using her fantasy life and folklore to escape the surrounding turmoil. Breath earned multiple honors at the Fajr Film Festival and was critically praised for its innovative depiction of the war as experienced from a child s perspective. AVA Directed by Sadaf Foroughi (Iran, 2017, 102 min., Saturday, January 20, Coming of age in Iran, Ava (Mahour Jabbari) faces pressure to conform to the expectations of her parents, her school, and her teenaged friends. When Ava learns that her parents were once flagrant rule breakers themselves, she begins to rebel, pitting her parents against each other. Ava masterfully demonstrates how an authoritarian culture can force denial and detachment, particularly among young women during their formative, yet vulnerable, high school years. Ava marks the feature directorial debut of Sadaf Foroughi, an Iranian-born writer and producer now residing in Canada, who based the film on her own adolescent experiences. TEHRAN TABOO Directed by Ali Soozandeh (Iran, 2017, 90 min., Saturday, January 20, 9:00 p.m. This edgy animated film for adult audiences follows three strong-willed women and a young male musician who cross paths in Tehran while each pursues morally questionable activities. From a prostitute whose young son waits nearby during her transactions to a musician whose one-night stand has disturbing consequences, it is clear that for them, breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation. First-time director Ali Soozandeh, whose film was the first animated feature in the prestigious Critics Week at the Cannes International Film Festival, said everyone sees these taboos but no one talks about them. There is a huge silence at the center of the society that no one breaks. That was the big question I wanted to ask: why do we all play along? DISAPPEARANCE (NAPADID SHODAN) Directed by Ali Asgari (Iran/Qatar, 2017, 89 min., Friday, January 26, Set over the course of one long night, a teenaged couple Sara and Hamed visits a series of hospitals, terrified that their first romantic encounter may have dire consequences. However, none of the doctors will provide Sara with medical attention she needs without the presence of a parent. The couple s desperation increases as they must hide what is happening from their parents, resulting in an expanding web of lies that changes their lives forever. Praising the strong performances by the young lead actors, the Toronto International Film Festival observed that the film shows us the complex reality of Iran s strict cultural mores while casting a compassionate gaze upon the resilience of youth. 2 FRAMES Directed by Abbas Kiarostami (Iran/France, 2017, 11 min.) Saturday, January 27, Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami ( ) started 2 Frames, a contemplative photofilm essay, and after his death, his son Ahmad completed it. The film is comprised of short vignettes based on photographs Abbas took over 0 years. Upon its premiere at Cannes, Barbara Scharres wrote in rogerebert.com, These sequences are breathtaking in the beauty of the photography, and startling in the acuteness and vibrant curiosity of the vision. Each is a mini-drama evolving in its own time. Kiarostami s love of snowy landscapes, the sea, the forces of nature, and his fascination with the unsentimental drama of the animal world bring home the intelligence and patient vision of the artist behind the camera. The Houston has shown many of Kiarostami s films in its history, from the groundbreaking early feature Where Is the Friend s Home? through his international successes including Through the Olive Trees, Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, and Certified Copy. NEGAR Directed by Rambod Javan (Iran, 2017, 9 min., Sunday, January 28, Negar s (Negar Javaherian) father s death is ruled a suicide, but she does not agree with the decision. Handsome Peyman worked for her father and tries to help her reach peace of mind. But when Negar investigates on her own, she begins to have visions of what really happened to her father. Father and daughter have discussions and relive family moments, and he provides her with clues in real time that steer her toward the truth. Negar discovers her father was in business with a ruthless criminal and vows revenge, but her new insights cause her to cast suspicion on everyone around her. This absorbing drama is a mystery-thriller with a touch of the supernatural! REEL FASHION THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ Directed by Kate Novack (USA, 2017, 9 min.) Sunday, January 21, *:00 & *Introduced by Yvonne Cormier, a close friend of André Leon Talley who appears in the documentary From the segregated American South to the fashion capitals of the world, operatic fashion editor André Leon Talley s life and career are on full display, in a poignant portrait that includes appearances by Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Valentino, and Manolo Blahnik. Weaving together a wealth of archival footage from the most glamorous moments in fashion history with André s poignant reflections on his life and career, the documentary is a cinematic monument to one of the most unique figures of 20thcentury American culture. Community partner: Magpies & Peacocks