NEW YORK, NY.- Modern Mondays, is a weekly program that brings contemporary, innovative film and movingimage works to the public and provides a forum for viewers to engage in dialogue and debate with contemporary filmmakers and artists. Modern Mondays presents new-and newly rediscovered-film and media works with the director in attendance, stimulating discourse, dialogue, and interaction in a social setting.

Screening Schedule
An Evening with Péter Forgács
Monday, May 4, 7:00 p.m.
Budapest-based avant-garde media artist and film director Péter Forgács (Hungarian, b. 1950), the recipient of the 2007 Erasmus Award for exceptional contribution to European culture, is widely acclaimed for his award-winning work using home movies. At this event, Forgács’s will discuss his most recent film, Hunky Blues: The American Dream, which examines the fate of Hungarian men and women who arrived in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. The film captures the difficult moments of arrival, integration, and assimilation, which eventually fed into the happiness of the later generations the fulfillment of the American dream. Hunky Blues was created specially for Extremely Hungary, a yearlong festival showcasing contemporary Hungarian visual, performing, and literary arts at leading cultural institutions in New York City and Washington, DC, throughout 2009. Visit www.extremelyhungary.org for details.

In 1983 Forgács established the Private Photo and Film Foundation Archive (PPFA), a unique collection of amateur film footage that he uses as the basis for his experimental documentaries. He has received wide recognition for his Private Hungary series of films, which began in 1989 and continues to the present. Based on home movies dating as far back as the 1930s, these films explore the history and legacy of the Hungarian people.

Produced by FilmPartners and Extremely Hungary with the support of TV2.

Program approx. 120 min., T2

An Evening with Aernout Mik
Monday, May 11, 7:00 p.m.
On the occasion of the MoMA exhibition Aernout Mik, the first U.S. museum survey of the artist’s work, Modern Mondays presents a virtual tour of the eight works spread throughout the Museum. Mik designs, sculpts, and builds constructions that both contain his moving images and engage the body of the spectator, creating a kinesthetic relationship between viewer and viewed. These moving-image installations uniquely meld filmmaking, sculpture, and architecture into an experience that is at once compelling, unsettling, and original. Following a presentation by Laurence Kardish, organizer of the exhibition, Mik will participate in a conversation with MoMA Director Glenn Lowry.
Program approx. 90 min., T2

An Evening with Gulnara Kasmalieva and Murtabek Djumaliev
Monday, May 18, 7:00 p.m
Based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and trained in both film and visual art, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Murtabek Djumaliev produce video installations that encapsulate everyday life in Central Asia. Shot along the ancient Silk Road connecting China and Kyrgyzstan with Western markets, the artists’ videos portray the resourcefulness that defines this mountainous, poverty-stricken region. In conjunction with Asia Art Week, this program includes their Algorithm of Survival and Hope (2005), along with other recent work. Their work has been exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago (2007), the Venice and Singapore biennials, and Winkleman Gallery, New York.
Program approx. 90 min., T2