SCREENING, SCREENING + DISCUSSION
The Viewing Booth
Friday, Jul 30, 2021 at 7:00 pm
Location: Redstone Theater
Part of First Look 20/21
With Ra’anan Alexandrowicz in person
Dir. Ra’anan Alexandrowicz. U.S./Israel. 2020, 73 mins. What are we actually seeing when we look at images? To what degree do we believe our eyes, and what extrasensorial factors define our doubts and investments in what is visible? Minimalist in approach yet far-reaching in its application and consequence, The Viewing Booth triangulates an on-screen director, an on-screen viewer, and the viewer in the audience, all reckoning with disputed images. In a lab-like editing suite, director Alexandrowicz invites a series of viewers to watch and comment upon videos portraying life in the occupied West Bank—some generated by Palestinian citizens, others by the Israeli government—before fixing on Maya, a young Jewish American woman whose responses prove compelling, thoughtful, varied, and disconcerting enough to warrant a repeat visit. Throughout, Alexandrowicz walks a razor-thin line of instigation and openness to his own process, allowing viewers to wrestle and identify with the issues that surface, echoing with a worldwide media crisis in which measures of truth have been utterly destabilized. New York premiere
Tickets: $15 ($11 seniors & students / $9 youth ages 3–17 / free for Museum members). Order online. After your purchase (limit 4 tickets per order), an electronic ticket will be sent via email to facilitate contactless check-in; seating will be assigned upon arrival on a first-come, first-seated basis. Learn more here.