NYC Happenings: The Japanese New Wave Comes To MoMA, PKD Sci-Fi To Brooklyn

Here are two fine cinematic events to warm up your winter nights, New York. The first is set to last just about all of winter too, so pending any blizzards and such, make sure to fit MoMA into your schedule with their series Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1960-1986. Starting this Friday, December 6, and running all the way to February 10, this is an all-out, in-depth 70+ film look at the boundary breaking filmmakers of the era including works by Matsumoto Toshio (Pandemonium), Oshima Nagisa (Death By Hanging), Kuroki Kazuo (Silence Has No Wings), Teshigahara Hiroshi (Pitfall) and Hasegawa Kazuhiko (The Youth Killer). This series runs side by side with the gallery exhibition Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde. Also included in the program will be rare experimental works from the likes of film scholar Donald Richie, Obayashi Nobuhiko and the Nihon University Cinema Club. Cinephiles and Japanophiles alike (and I assuming there is a lot of crossover here) will not want to miss this.

Alternatively if you'd like to spend this weekend at Indie Screen in Brooklyn, then they're hosting the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival, because yes, that is a thing -- a very cool thing. Opening on Friday, December 7th, with a feature adaptation of what is perhaps Dick's most personal novel Radio Free Albemuth. A plethora of Sci-fi shorts (yes, some of them are PKD adaptations) are sprinkled throughout the weekend. Also scheduled is the only NYC screening of the Cuban Zombie comedy Juan Of The Dead. How's that for variety?

Already gaining some positive notice from Variety and other outlets, the Radio Free Albemuth screening will be followed by a Q&A with writer/director John Alan Simon and co-producer Elizabeth Karr.

Get the full deets on both events at the links below, and check out the trailer for Radio Free Albemuth.