Maysles Documentary Center

November is on 🔥🔥🔥 up in Harlem!

1. Tonight! REWIND & PLAY (Alain Gomis, 2022, 65 min.) + Q&A with and

2. Just added! Back by popular demand! UNION (Stephen Maing & Brett Story, 2024, 102 min.) + Q&A with

3. Free! SANSÓN AND ME (Rodrigo Reyes, 2022, 90 min.) + Q&A with and our friends at Columbia’s

4. TOKYO UBER BLUES 東京自転車節 (Taku Aayagi, 2021, 93 min.) + Q&A WITH , co-founder of the Drivers Coop. We’ll be talking gig work and transit organizing!

5. REIMAGINING SAFETY (Matthew Solomon, 2023, 83 min.) + Q&A with and , co-founder of BLM greater NY. We’ll be talking abolition and safety!

6. LYD (Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland, 2024, 79 min.) + Q&Q with .friedland, and . Recently banned by Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sports for “inciting violence,” LYD is stunning cinematic exercise in political imagination for Palestinian freedom.

7. STREET HEROINES (Alexandra Henry, 2021, 71 min.) + Q&A with , , and . Our second to last installment of Made You Look: H2O (Hip-Hop Odyssey) of the year!

8. INCIDENT AT OGLALA (Michael Apted, 1992, 95 min) + Q&A TBA. Learn about the ongoing struggle to free American Indian Movement leader, Leonard Peltier, from life imprisonment.

More info + tix at maysles.org. $7-15 suggested donation, but no one is turned away for inability to pay!

What a wonderful weekend full of intergenerational filmmaking and comradary!

Thank you for sharing your thoughtful and caring filmmaking practice centered around older adults and their care partners, and thank you for all the works you do to support elders in our community ✨

We laughed! We munched! And we shot and projected some pretty amazing one-shot gesture films! 💕

Happy Halloween from everyone’s favorite Harlem micro-cinema!!

TONIGHT 10/25 at 7PM, don’t miss Bill Gunn’s “blood-soaked masterpiece,” G***A & HESS, considered by many “a sensual, scholarly, magic-realist exploration of Black history and Black desire” and “one of the most profound, surreal and horrifying love stories ever made.” Preceded by a recorded intro by the ever-brilliant .
Many thanks to 🖤

And then join us next Thursday 10/31 at 5:30PM for a family-friendly monster movie extravaganza with a screening the 1953 classic THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. Near the Arctic Circle researchers unwittingly thaw a prehistoric beast frozen for millions of years, who leaves a path of destruction straight through…..New York City!

Come dressed in your spookiest, scariest, Halloween attire and you’ll surely leave with a pocketful of treats 🦇

Window display by 🐈‍⬛

In its 16th year, the Black Panther Party Film Festival continues to shine a light on the BPP as an inspiration for social justice work today. That work continues for environmental and racial justice and the critical urgency to free political prisoners who are still behind bars. Nuff said!

1. Erin, the one and only Black Panther Princess!

2. King Downing, K’Sisay Sadiki, and Stephen Vittoria talking about LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY and the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners

3. King and legendary Panther Baby, Jamal Joseph

4. Panther/Palestinian solidarity!

5. Erin and Lupe!

6. Panther veteran, Claudia Williams, introducing this year’s festival. All power to the people!

7. Illinois chapter veteran, Blais Anderson, talking about surviving the shootout that killed Fred Hampton

We’re jamming at the Albies After Party!!!

We could not be more delighted to welcome Palestinian-American interdisciplinary artist, Muyassar Kurdi, to the cinema this weekend for three incredible programs 🌀

We begin tomorrow Friday 9/13 at 7PM with NEPTUNE FROST (Saul Williams & Anisia Uzeyman) and A SPACE EXODUS (Larissa Sansour) for an evening of Black and Palestinian-futurist cinema. On her selection of these works, Muyassar writes:

“I feel a deep connection between these films, and it is an honor to present them alongside each other. These revolutionary works empower me while reminding me of oneness and unity especially during the ongoing genocide in Falastin where we are witnessing the patriarchal capitalist machine crumble right before our eyes. Our struggles are interconnected.”

Saturday 9/14 at 4PM, we’ll return to the cinema for “A Poem for Remembering,” a hands-on workshop focusing on the relationship between body, voice, and image through exercises built on trust, deep listening, and slow, concentrated, ‘soul-generated’ theatrics. Through an indigenous lens and in the spirit of resistance. Bring a 35mm camera if you have one as our supply is limited!

And finally! Stick around for the 7PM screening of Muyassar’s 16mm dance trilogy: an exploration into space, embodied sound, and ritualistic movements. The films will be followed by a discussion between Muyassar Kurdi and .

A jam-packed two days not to be missed! All of $7 / $15 suggested donation.

Tix at link!

Polaroid film credit: .rana
🌀🌀🌀

Hot off the press!!! 🔹

Check out these stunning, limited-release ‘Lafargue Clinic Remixed’ zines, featuring original collages, radical healthcare history, program notes, archival images, community health resources, interview transcripts, and Marx/Freud/Fanon galore!

Endless gratitude to the many contributors who made this publication possible!

Compiled by:
Edited by: , , and
Design and original collages by:
Cover design by: Chrissy Griesmer
Original contribution by: Kevin Duong
Published by:

Stop by Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem to grab one before their gone | $12 suggested donation 🔹

Despite last night’s tornado warnings and flash floods, we packed a SOLD OUT house for ’s INFILTRATORS. 10 years after the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, our guests and drew connections between the movement of Black Lives and the need for ongoing solidarity with Palestine. Afterwards, we gathered for for some nourishing felafel and watermelon juice, iykyk 🍉

thank you to our wonderful partners at and for filling our space with such warmth and generosity of spirit! last night’s proceeds will be donated directly to Gazan families raising money for food and emergency supplies.

Happy 100 years of Harlem icon (and legendary ♌️), James Baldwin, whose sharp critique of American racial capitalism and exquisite novels of queer/interracial love shine brighter each and every day. If you’re new to Baldwin’s work, we highly recommend picking up an essay (“Notes of a Native Son”), novel (“Another Country”) or play (“Blues for Mister Charlie”) — he did it all!

Next thurs 8/15 at 7PM we’re screening Barry Jenkins’s 2018 adaptation of IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, FREE in partnership with ImageNation and Harlem Week 50, and we will continue putting on Baldwin centennial programming through the fall/winter. Keep an eye out!

Due to rainy forecasts and wet grass we have moved tonight’s screening of GUELWAAR indoors!!

The film will screen for FREE TONIGHT (7/31) at 7PM at Maysles Documentary Center. Apologies for the inconvenience. We hope to bring more film and music programming to St. Nicholas again soon ☀️

TOMORROW join us for a FREE screening of Ousmane Sembène’s GUELWAAR (1992) in St Nicholas Park (135th / St. Nicholas Ave) in collaboration with and 🌟

The evening will begin with a DJ set at 7PM and the film will begin at 8:30PM (sundown). Bring a blanket and picnic for a night of music and cinema under the stars!

A few more snapshots from a beautiful day!

Pictured: Raheem Jones 🧡 Martha Diaz 💛 Nia Whitmal 🧡Milton Allimadi 💛

We were very fortunate to spend the second half of the day learning from these ever-brilliant historians, archivists, community organizers, and artists.

Topics ranged from: hip-hip preservation, the Community Control Movement, the impact of African migrants on Harlem’s cultural imagination, countering racist/colonial narratives of Africa in mainstream journalism, and the history behind the public art piece (Sankofa Installation) where we gathered.

Endless gratitude to: and for your time, words, and generous spirit ✨

We could not have asked for a more magical day in Marcus Garvey Park yesterday! Thank you to and for the knowledge/skill-sharing around analog-to-digital conversion and personal archiving techniques. How wonderful it was to digitize home movies in such a beautiful spot and in the company of our Harlem neighbors 🌱💛

Thank you to Lupe Family and Kim Parker for shedding light on Pat Murphy Robinson’s luminous legacy and facilitating discussion around family abolition, radical therapy, energy work, and working class struggle — a night of knowing/not knowing, confusion/clarity, levity/heaviness, laughter/reflection!

Our line-up of esteemed speakers for this Sunday 7/28 in Marcus Garvey Park 🙌 Meet us at the Sankofa Installation at 1:30PM to share in our collective knowledge and memory of Harlem film culture and visual heritage preservation. Completely free for all to attend & participate.

Come by starting at 10AM for archiving tips, real-time VHS digitization, music, zines, snacks, and collaging 🌱

Thanks to our partners: and

More info at maysles.org!

A good portion of the concert footage for BLUES UNDER MY SKIN was shot at The Baby Grand Club. Founded by Vivian Brown a former Cotton Club dancer it was located at 319 West 125th Street between St.Nicholas Avenue and 8th Avenue. The Baby Grand was known for its Art Deco piano replicate that stood as an awning. According to “The Baby Grand had some of the hottest talent in Harlem performing at the salon, singer Big Maybelle, Nipsey Russell, The Wanderers, Etta James, The Dell-Tones, Charlie Mingus, Jimmy Smith, Eddie Fisher, Kenny Clarke, Willie Bryant (the unofficial mayor of Harlem), Charlie Parker, Horace Silver and many more.”

Check out this piece of Harlem history tonight for the final screening of BLUES UNDER THE SKIN, 7 PM.
📸: Harlem World Magazine, Film Stills courtesy

The Maysles Documentary Center mourns the death of noted director and friend Manfred “Manny” Kirchheimer(1931-2024). Manny’s films STATIONS OF THE ELEVATED (1981) CANNERS (2015) and FREE TIME (2019) embodied the soul of New York City and documentary form.

Manny is picture here in May 2019 at MDC during a retrospective of his work, in honor of the theatrical release of DREAM OF A CITY (2018) alongside Edo Choi ( )