Short Circuit

With Manfred Kirchheimer in person

Dir. Manfred Kirchheimer. 1973, 45 mins. 16mm. In Kirchheimer’s most formally audacious and confessional work, shot in his home with his family, a documentary filmmaker ponders his increasingly alienated condition, and begins to interrogate the show of solidarity he extends to his newly arrived Blk neighbors. As he stares out the window of his apartment on 101st Street and Broadway, he drifts into a disassociated reverie, an adventure of blissfully heightened senses, and guilty liberal consciousness, through the streets of a rapidly changing Upper West Side. “I tried to look into my own paranoia… There’s something terrifying going on, which is the knocking and the empty hall. Where’s the knocking coming from? No, this is something inside you.” Screening with The Case Against Lincoln Center (1968, 12 mins. Digital projection.)

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.