Two New Film Fests To Kick Off In Astoria This Weekend

ASTORIA, QUEENS -- New Yorkers in the mood for some cinematic art are in luck - Two special film festivals honoring moviemaking pioneers are slated to premier in Astoria this weekend.

Museum of the Moving Image will kick off both series on Friday, according to its website. One will feature the best work of famed French director Agnès Varda, while the other highlights an African American drama film coined by pioneer Black artists Ishmael Reed and Bill Gunn.

"Personal Problems," a soap opera-esque flick about the struggles of a working class African American couple living in New York City in the 1980s, is slated to show at the museum May 25-27. It will premier at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and screen again at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The film, written by Reed and directed by Gunn, is part of the museum's ongoing "Changing the Picture" series, which launched this year to celebrates film and TV artists of color. Gunn has written and directed underground classic "Ganja & Hess" and penned the screenplay for Hal Ashby's "The Landlord."

Also premiering at the museum Friday evening is Part Two of CineVardaUtopia: The Films of Agnès Varda. The festival, which runs through June 10, is the second installation of an ongoing series to honor Varda by showing some of the Oscar-nominated French director's best works.

Varda, 89, became the oldest person nominated for the Academy Award this year when her latest film, "Faces Places," made it into the running for Best Documentary Feature. The Belgian-born filmmaker is also the subject of Museum of the Moving Image's new book, "CineVardaUtopia."

"Agnès Varda’s every film, long or short, fiction or non-, takes us by surprise," co-editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert wrote in the book's introduction. "She makes films of emotional resonance and personal exploration, often about society’s outcast and marginalized, imbued with an aesthetic rigor."

Here's the lineup of movies and showtimes for Varda's series:

• May 25: Vagabond at 7 p.m.
• May 26: Murs Murs at 2 p.m. and Documenteur/Uncle Yaco at 3:45 p.m.
• May 27: Lions Love (..and Lies) at 2 p.m., Murs Murs at 4:30 p.m. and Documenteur/The Black Panthers at 6:30 p.m.
• June 8: Daguerréotypes at 7 p.m.
• June 9: Daguerréotypes at 2 p.m., Jane B. For Agnès V. at 4 p.m. and Kung-Fu Master! at 6:30 p.m.
• June 10: Jane B. For Agnès V. at 2 p.m. and Kung-Fu Master! at 4 p.m.

(Lead photo via Shutterstock)