North By Current

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Sharon Vanorny/courtesy MMoCA

A Rooftop Cinema screening at MMoCA.

A past Rooftop Cinema screening (of "Desolation Center").

Enjoy a quartet of independent documentary films on the MMoCA rooftop on upcoming Thursdays. Rooftop Cinema kicks off Aug. 4 with The American Sector, exploring what artifacts from the Cold War can tell us about politics today. It's followed on Aug. 11 by Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché, in which director/screenwriter Celeste Bell (daughter of the X-Ray Spex frontwoman) pieces together her mother's past; on Aug. 25 by The Village Detective: A Song Cycle, which builds a story around reels of film from 1969 found in the ocean by Icelandic fishing nets in 2016; and on Sept. 1 by North By Current, a personal documentary from filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax about truths discovered on returning to his hometown following the death of his niece. Ticket sales begin at 7:30 p.m. in the lobby.

press release: Bring a friend, bring a blanket or camp chairs, and prepare yourself for an evening of independent films and videos under the stars. Rooftop Cinema returns to the Museum’s Rooftop Sculpture Garden each Thursday this August for its seventeenth season. Films begin at sundown, approximately 8 PM.

About North by Current

Angelo Madsen Minax | USA | 2021 | 86 minutes

North by Current is a visual rumination on the understated relationships between mothers and children, truths and myths, losses and gains. After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies, and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen, his sister, and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. North by Current was featured on the prestigious PBS documentary series P.O.V., and won the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Milwaukee Film Festival.

“This kind of personal film has often been attempted (even before Tarnation made waves), but rarely with this insight…Out of the fractured family documentary, what emerges finally is a drama of self-realization. –Nicolas Rapold, New York Times

Ticket Information

• Rooftop Cinema is $7 per screening, or free for MMoCA members and anyone age 18 and younger.
• Ticket sales begin at 7:30 PM in the Museum Lobby.
• Screenings relocate to the lecture hall if rain is predicted.