Current Series
MADE IN HARLEM:
CINEMA BLUES
February – June, 2025
A monthly series at the Maysles Documentary Center dedicated to the convergence of jazz and film.
16th Annual BLACK PANTHER PARTY FILM FESTIVAL
“Remembering Our Political Prisoners”
Presented by the NY Black Panther Party Commemoration Committee. All Power to The People!
September 26th, 27th, & 28th; October 4th & 5th, 2024.
CONGO IN HARLEM 16
Annual series of films and events at Maysles Documentary Center focused on the history, politics, and culture of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
October 13 - 19, 2024
SEEDS OF LIBERATION
Join us for Seeds of Liberation’s monthly film night, where we gather to educate, challenge, and inspire.
WORKSHOPS + MASTERCLASSES
Free and low-cost public workshops and masterclasses with filmmakers, whose work explores and expands documentary conventions
MADE YOU LOOK: H20 (HIP-HOP ODYSSEY)
A collaborative screening series reflecting Hip Education Center's ongoing commitment to celebrating and preserving Hip-Hop culture through innovative programming and partnerships.
(MORE TO COME)
HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024
May 23 – May 26, 2024
31st NEW YORK AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL: CONVERGENCE OF TIME
May 8 - May 30, 2024
MADE IN HARLEM:
THE LAFARGUE CLINIC REMIXED
2024
CONGO IN HARLEM 2023
October 13-15 and October 19-22
15th ANNUAL BLACK PANTHER PARTY FILM FESTIVAL
Sept 29 - Oct 7, 2023
Presented by the NY Black Panther Party Commemoration Committee. The theme of the 15th Annual Black Panther Party Film Festival is: Women in the Struggle
HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
May 25 - 27, 2023
The 2023 Harlem International Film Festival (HIFF) Celebrates 100+ Years of Harlem Renaissance and Resilience
MADE IN HARLEM
A non-fiction film series for, by and about Harlem, and including Harlem-made films, filmmakers, speakers and subjects.
PRISMATIC GROUND
Prismatic Ground is a New York City film festival centered on experimental documentary and avant-garde film, co-presented by Screen Slate.
NEW YORK AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL
African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) celebrates the 30th anniversary of the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) from May 10 to June 1, 2023. Launched in 1993 and one of the first of its kind in the United States, the festival reflects on the myriad ways African and diaspora storytellers have used the moving image as a mold to tell their stories in their own nuanced and idiosyncratic ways. Under the banner Freeforms, the festival presents over 50 films from more than 25 countries that invite audiences to explore the infinite realms of African and diaspora storytelling and embrace its visionary, probing, and fearless spirit.
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FILM FESTIVAL
Presented by the NY Black Panther Party Commemoration Committee. Every September and October.
UNDER THE INFLUENCE
An ongoing film series that brings in prominent people from across disciplines to present the nonfiction films that have influenced them.
Past Series
STUDIO SCREEN
Studio Screen is an annual Studio Museum partnership with Maysles Cinema. This collaborative film series highlights how film and contemporary art practices intersect and address the on- and off screen legacies of under-represented cultural producers.
SIDEWALK CINEMA
A film screening on Fridays at sunset, in front of Maysles Documentary Center. Sidewalk Cinema is an opportunity for the community to gather for a socially-distant and masked viewing of a film.
MADE IN HARLEM: HOME TO HARLEM
"Home to Harlem" presents Harlem through an archival lens as both an actual home for Black citizens and families… and as a location in the popular imagination of African Americans, by exploring the various intersections of documentary, amateur films, home movies, musical shorts, nontheatrical materials, family archives and the preservation of cultural artifacts in Harlem. The series will also spotlight film exhibition in Harlem, innovated by Jessie Maple and LeRoy Patton’s 20 West: Home of Black Cinema.
FLAHERTY NYC: OPACITY SPIRALS
Programmed by Janaína Oliveira and Inney Prakash in collaboration with Flaherty NYC, featuring a reconfiguration of several films from the 2021 Flaherty Film Seminar with the addition of three films by the Otolith Group.
ÁR LORG SAOIRSE: A RADICAL IRISH CINEMA
Curated in collaboration with Ruaíri McCann.
CITY STUDIES
Curated by Alessandra Rizzo
ABOLITION NOW! 50 YEARS OF THE ATTICA PRISON UPRISING
Co-presented by Maysles Documentary Center and Third World Newsreel, in collaboration with Attica Is All of Us, The Freedom Archives, and the Documentary Forum at CCNY.
KRAANTI: VISIONS OF RESISTANCE
In conjunction with SAAID (South Asian Artists in Diaspora), a new collective of interdisciplinary artists formed in the wake of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic across South Asia, Maysles Documentary Center is excited to co-present KRAANTI—a program of 9 documentaries curated by Devika Girish and Bedatri Datta Choudhury.
CINEMAS, IN MEMORIAM
What we long for is not the magic of a big screen and sticky floors alone, but for a people’s cinema, able and willing to shift its design and function in alignment with the needs of its community. As ever, we ask ourselves: is there a way in which the resilience of cinema might be bound up with the liberation of humanity?
OURS TO HEAL
April 26th- May 9th
GIMME 50
December 12th - December 31st
SAVED FROM THE WATERS: FILMS BY SAFAA FATHY
September 16th - October 31st
THE PEOPLE’S REVOLT
September 1st-15th
AFTER CIVILIZATION
12 speculative documentaries frame conceptions of contemporary civilization. Streaming July 16th- August 15th
HAIL SATAN? & 3 FILMS FROM PENNY LANE
3 feature documentaries streaming for free from filmmaker Penny Lane & her newest release Hail Satan? available for purchase
LE JOLI MAYSLES
A celebration of the lovely month of May with repertory and new releases in conversation with Le Joli Mai
THEAMERICAN EXPERIMENT
Winter 2019 - Winter 2020
Many contemporary experimental films have emerged out of a documentary paradigm, retaining elements of nonfiction storytelling while incorporating ever-expanding methods to document and reimagine the outside world and the self. This is the rich terrain The American Experiment will explore. Programmed by Emily Apter, Edo Choi, Jessica Green and Annie Horner.
FRANCOPHONE SHORTS IN HARLEM
December 6-7th, 2019
NICE FILM FESTIVAL
November 18th & 21st, 2019
SOCIAL JUSTICE SHOWCASE
November 2019
Bringing together filmmakers, community organizers, activists, experts, and NYC residents to discuss and educate on the social justice issues that impact the quality of life for NYC residents, this year the showcases theme will be focused on Prison Reform.
DOUBLE EXPOSURE: TAKE TWO
June 1st - 2nd 2019
DREAM OF A CITY and MANFRED KIRCHHEIMER’S NEW YORK
May 24th - 30th 2019
SMILE, IT’S YOUR CLOSE UP: NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARIES
A nonfiction film series co-programmed by Jessica Green and Edo Choi of the Maysles Documentary Center and the Museum of the City of New York, zooms in on key moments, individuals, and communities to pose the question, “what makes New York New York?” Each program includes an introduction or conversation with filmmakers or other notable guests
MAYSLES CINEMA WEDNESDAYS AT NOWADAYS
Documentaries, Mockumentaries, and Non-Fiction/Fiction Hybrid films at Nowadays, on the border of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. Every Wednesday at sundown, June-August.
