Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM

In conjunction with “Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty,” Urs Fischer selects a group of films to be screened in the New Museum theater.

5 p.m. Touki Bouki

7 p.m. Cosmonaut Polyakov (US PREMIERE)

Touki Bouki (1973) 95 min, Wolof language with English subtitles Dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, meet in Dakar. Alienated and disaffected by both Senegal and Africa, they work up schemes to raise money to go to Paris. On the course of their journey, they begin to discover the cruelty of life as their aspirations slowly begin to dissolve. Full of dreamlike surrealism and colorful symbolism, Touki Bouki is often considered the first avant-garde film to come out of Africa. Restored in 2008 by the World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory.

Cosmonaut Polyakov(2007) 110 min, Russian language with English subtitles Dir. Dana Ranga This highly acclaimed 2007 documentary directed by Dana Ranga (East Side Story, and Story). Cosmonaut Polyakov follows Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, who holds the record of the longest trip into space: one year and two months. For the first time he speaks publicly about the KGB, being in exile, and the struggle of space travel.

Caption: Still from Cosmonaut Polyakov (2007).