New Yorkers! Rally thy selves around political art. This weekend and
coming week offer a wide selection of fascinating proposals for your
movie viewing pleasure. Film geeks, proceed after the jump with care.

Museum of the Moving Image in Queens is hosting a
film series known as Black Light, subtly related to Black History
Month. This weekend’s top selection is a preview screening of Tsotsi, a
“breakout hit on the international film circuit,” following the story of
a thug from Johannesburg who cares for the child of a woman he has
murdered. Sure to be quite a ride, Friday February 10th at 7:30pm. Still
at MMI we have some classics: The Yakuza at 2pm on Saturday February
11th, The Brother from Another Planet on Sunday at 2pm, and several
other key hits. MMI often invites interesting speakers, and is well
worth checking out.

Next down the line, the African Film Festival is headed to Harlem this
coming Thursday February 16th. Director Nicolas Rossier of Baraka
Productions will make an appearance at the Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture at 515 Malcom X Boulevard and 135th St. for a screening
of his film Aristide and the Endless Revolution, a discussion of the
political crisis in Haiti and, of course, US foreign policy. The film
features Aristide himself, Roger Noriega, Maxine Waters, Danny Glover, and
Noam Chomsky. In a related story, if you missed Columbia’s preview
screening of Why We Fight, the new documentary by Eugene Jarecki, it’s
playing at the Angelika Thursday February 9th, and he’ll be there.

Film Forum, standard-bearer of the fight to bring back funny old
movies, has been reviving Boris Karloff all week with screenings of his
movies: two of his lesser-known films, Targets and The Haunted Strangler
are playing Thursday February 9th in the afternoon and evening.

While we’re nowhere near exhausting the supply of ridiculously themed
film events NYC has to offer, I’ll close with the well-known Independent
Film Center. Their Lars von Trier festival is now featuring his
newest film, Manderlay, which addresses the imposition of a Yankee woman
into the way of life of slaves following the end of the Civil War.
They’re still playing the fantastic archived footage of Ballets Russes
(Russian Ballets), and have now begun a series of Rainer Werner
Fassbinder screenings, beginning with Effi Briest.

-Natasha Chichilnisky-Heal