Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

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713-639-7515
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Today

Special Presentation: Run Like the Devil

Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1001 Bissonnet St, , Houston

The MFAH hosts the Houston stop on the state-wide tour of this new documentary. Run Like the Devil chronicles the energetic and impassioned 2018 race for the U.S. Senate between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas). Filmmaker Steve Mims takes a nonpartisan look at the candidates and their tireless efforts to communicate with voters across the Lone Star State. Campaign-trail interviews with Cruz and O’Rourke—interwoven with stories from political insiders including Mark McKinnon and Evan Smith—create a vivid, timely, and exhausting account of a uniquely Texan campaign.

$7 – $9

Event Series Film Screening: Babylon

Film Screening: Babylon

Brown Auditorium Theater 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

The incendiary Babylon has been finally released in the U.S., playing to packed screenings and hailed as a true discovery. Raw and smoldering, it follows a dancehall DJ (Brinsley Forde, front man of the British reggae group Aswad) in South London as he pursues his musical ambitions, battling against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbors, and police. The blistering soundtrack features Aswad, Johnny Clarke, Dennis Bovell, and more.

$7 – $65
Event Series The Silence of Others (El silencio de otros)

The Silence of Others (El silencio de otros)

Brown Auditorium Theater 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

Filmed over six years, The Silence of Others reveals the epic struggle of victims from Spain’s dictatorship (1939-1975) under General Francisco Franco. A powerful and poetic cautionary tale about fascism, and the dangers of forgetting the past, the award-winning documentary offers a cinematic portrait of the first attempt in history to prosecute crimes of Franco whose perpetrators have enjoyed impunity for decades due to a 1977 amnesty law. Executive produced by Pedro Almodóvar, the film brings to light a painful past that Spain is reluctant to face, even today, decades after the dictator’s death.

$7 – $65

Opening Night Screening and Reception for Anand Patwardhan: Ways of Struggle

Glassell School of Art, Favrot Auditorium 5101 Montrose Blvd., Houston

A new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Glassell School of Art, Anand Patwardhan: Ways of Struggle, surveys four decades of filmmaking by one of today's most socially committed documentary filmmakers. Since the 1970s, Patwardhan has been making portraits of Indian movements for social justice.

Free

Reason (Vivek)

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

In this monumental documentary, veteran Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan explores how India’s political climate has moved dramatically away from the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Organized in chapters that move from the past to the present, Reason unflinchingly chronicles the rise of right-wing extremism and recent instances of violence, yet concludes with a message of cautious optimism.

Free

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

This remarkable documentary chronicles the late 20th century into the 21st, as experienced by a woman who might be the original news junkie. Marion Stokes (1929–2012) became known as a passionate activist, articulately espousing her leftist views on local television in Philadelphia.

Recorder pulls you into her secret life, revealing that she spent decades obsessively recording TV programs around the clock. From the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis to the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, Stokes captured revolutions, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials on 70,000 VHS tapes. A second marriage brought wealth, but she ultimately became a recluse who saw her life’s work to be protecting the truth by archiving everything on TV.

$7 – $65

Ghosts of Sugar Land

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

Ghosts of Sugar Land examines the radicalization of a young American Muslim. Through interviews with his friends, the documentary tells the story of “Mark,” who converted to Islam before college and became radicalized shortly thereafter. A number of years ago, through Facebook posts, “Mark” stated that he crossed over from Turkey to the “Islamic State.” His friends from Sugar Land, Texas—all masked to protect their identities—hypothesize about what may have happened that led their friend to join ISIS. Ghosts of Sugar Land won the Nonfiction Jury Award for Short Film at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Free

Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film: Growing Up Female

Brown Auditorium Theater 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

Controversial upon its release, the first feature-length film of the modern women’s movement looks at female socialization through a peek into the lives of six women, ages 4 to 35, and the forces that shape them: teachers, counselors, advertising, music, and marriage. The film was widely used by consciousness-raising groups to generate interest and help explain feminism to a skeptical society. Viewers now have a chance to see how much has changed and how much remains the same.

$7 – $65

Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film: Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists

Brown Auditorium Theater 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature, Seeing Red recounts the experiences of ordinary Americans who joined the Communist Party, and the high price many of them paid during the Red Scare in the 1950s. Compiled from more than 400 interviews with former and current Party members, the film delivers an engaging, funny, and human portrait of 50 years of activism. Iconic folk singer Pete Seeger and a dozen other members share personal stories that take on a special resonance today.

$7 – $65

MFAH Films Virtual Experience: John Lewis: Good Trouble

Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1001 Bissonnet St, , Houston

Chronicling Georgia’s U.S. Representative John Lewis’s 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights,
gun control, health-care reform, and immigration, this new documentary explores his Alabama childhood with his family and his fateful meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and also includes interviews with political leaders and Congressional colleagues.

$12

MFAH Films Virtual Experience: Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed

Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1001 Bissonnet St, , Houston

Celebrate the centennial of women’s suffrage with this compelling documentary chronicling the 1972 presidential campaign of Brooklyn-based Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005)—the first Black woman elected to Congress—who received support from many groups during her ambitious campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

$4.99

MFAH Films Virtual Experience: AI WEIWEI: YOURS TRULY

Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1001 Bissonnet St, , Houston

In 2014, Ai Weiwei, the renowned Chinese artist and activist, assisted by curator and filmmaker Cheryl Haines, transformed the former penitentiary
on Alcatraz Island into an astonishing exhibition of socially engaged art, focusing on the plight of the unjustly incarcerated. Visitors were invited to send postcards to prisoners in the exhibition. Several of the formerly imprisoned activists, including Chelsea Manning, speak about the impact of receiving those messages of hope.

$10

MFAH Virtual Films: Native Son

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1001 Bissonnet, Houston

Richard Wright’s widely praised 1940 novel exposed the injustices of Black urban life. Bigger Thomas,in prison for murder and sentenced to death, reflects back on the circumstances that led to his incarceration. This new restoration of the 1951 screen adaptation, in the film-noir genre, stars author Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas, and is being released in its original length for the first time. This new restoration of the 1951 film version is preceded by a special filmed introduction by film historians Eddie Muller (Film Noir Foundation) and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.

$10

MFAH Virtual Films: Nationtime – Gary

Museum of Fine Arts Houston 1001 Bissonnet St, , Houston

In March 1972, an estimated 10,000 Black politicians, activists, artists, and performers congregated at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Attendees included Amiri Baraka, Dick Gregory, Isaac Hayes, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, and Bobby Seale. William Greaves (1926–2014), the established documentarian of Black history, culture and politics, directed a camera crew and captured it all. Narrated by Sidney Poitier with poetry recited by Harry Belafonte, the film was thought at the time to be too radical for television broadcast and was drastically edited. Now restored to its original length, this essential documentary reveals a rousing, at times contentious, yet undeniably significant historical event.

$10

Against the Current

Veiga Grétarsdóttir is the first person in the world to attempt to kayak more than 1,200 miles around Iceland, counterclockwise and “against the current.” Veiga’s personal journey is no less remarkable: she was born as a boy 44 years ago in an Icelandic fishing village. Veigar had a wife and family but decided at the […]

Sun Children

This timely social drama from Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi considers the human rights of children. The story follows a clever 12-year-old and his resourceful friends who live on the streets of Tehran. When a criminal hires them to find treasure hidden under the maintenance tunnel of a school for homeless and immigrant youth, they must […]