MoMA announces Doc Fortnight 2022

The 21st Edition of MoMA’s Annual Festival to Open with Jenny Perlin’s Bunker on February 23 and Close with James Benning’s The United States of America on March 9

NEW YORK, NY, February 10, 2022—The Museum of Modern Art announces the lineup for Doc Fortnight 2022, the 21st edition of its annual showcase of daring new nonfiction cinema from around the world. Doc Fortnight 2022 will be presented as a hybrid festival from February 23 to March 10, 2022, with all 19 feature and 10 short films screening in the Museum’s Titus Theaters and a selection available on MoMA’s Virtual Cinema streaming platform. Doc Fortnight’s 2022 slate highlights thought-provoking perspectives on some of today’s most urgent issues, including ecology and our relationship to the natural and built environment; understandings of illness, wellness, and care; and the future of politics and the public sphere. Many of the selected films, drawn from the best of festival programs over the last year, will be shown for the first time in North America. Doc Fortnight 2022 is organized by Sophie Cavoulacos, Associate Curator, Department of Film, with Chandra Knotts, Filmmaker Liaison.

Opening the festival on February 23 is the New York premiere of Jenny Perlin’s Bunker, which follows men living in decommissioned military bunkers and nuclear missile silos across the United States. Made over several years, Perlin’s film offers a timely reflection on ideas of survival and shelter among those preparing for the disintegration of society from a hundred feet underground. Closing this year’s festival is the North American premiere of James Benning’s The United States of America. Reprising the 1975 short film of the same name he made in collaboration with Bette Gordon, Benning crafts a meditative portrait of contemporary America. In his signature style, vignettes representing each US state hint at the political history and social bonds that leave their mark on the landscape.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black and by Steven Tisch, with major contributions from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Karen and Gary Winnick, and The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston.