Lebanon/2021—directed by Mounia Akl | 106 minutes

In the not-so-distant future, the five members of the free-spirited Badri family have escaped the smog and social unrest of big-city life in Beirut life by settling down in a far more tranquil, idyllic mountain home. Surrounded by lush rolling hills, the family is getting used to relative peace and quiet until the youngest child spots strangers in the valley, and learns that a new, “green” landfill will be constructed just beyond their fence.

Before long, household tension rises along with the landfill, and the family’s conundrum reveals long-simmering differences within the family. Deftly written and performed, with more than a touch of sardonic wit, director Mounia Akl’s prizewinning debut feature captures the joys and frustrations of a close-knit family with an intimacy that feels startlingly natural, and sets them against a superbly drawn backdrop of environmental and social change.

“A stellar family drama, clear-eyed and above all sincere. This is a film worth savoring.” -Andrew Crump, The Playlist 

Official Selection, Venice, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, and Arab American National Museum Film Festivals; Audience Award, London Film Festival. In Arabic with English subtitles.

UK/2021—directed by Mark Cousins | 167 minutes

“What sets it soaring is the discerning guide at its helm, one whose curatorial exultation and rigor are also calming and reassuring - a welcome voice in cacophonous times.”  -Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter 

A decade after The Story of Film: An Odyssey, his brilliant documentary about the state of moviemaking in the 20th century, filmmaker and author Mark Cousins returns with an epic portrait of cinematic innovation from around the globe. Here, Cousins turns his sharp, meticulously honed gaze on world cinema from 2010 to 2021, using sequences from a vast range of works — including Frozen, Joker, and Cemetery of Splendour — as launchpads to explore recurring themes and motifs, from the evolution of film language to technology’s role in moviemaking today to shifting identities in 21st-century world cinema.

With insights on everything from Deadpool and It Follows to Black Panther and Lover’s Rock, Cousins seeks out creators and communities often under-represented in traditional film histories, including Asian and Middle Eastern works, as well as boundary-pushing documentaries and films that see gender in new ways. As the pandemic begins to ebb, Cousins ponders what comes next in the streaming age: how have we changed as cinephiles, and how moviegoing will transform in the digital era to our collective joy and wonder.

“Monumental and amazingly ambitious. An unashamed celebration of cinema as an art form.”  -Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 

To celebrate our return to the DIA, Kenneth Myers, the DIA’s Byron and Dorothy Gerson Curator of American Art, will give us an update on Covid-era acquisitions by artists such as Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove.

Ken’s talk will start at 6:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public. 

This event, from the Associates of the American Wing auxiliary, is sponsored by the Ida and Conrad H. Smith Fund.

To celebrate our return to the DIA, Kenneth Myers, the DIA’s Byron and Dorothy Gerson Curator of American Art, will give us an update on Covid-era acquisitions, including the major work pictured above. Ken’s talk will start at 6:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

For participating AAW members, cocktails will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Great Hall, with dinner in Rivera Court following the lecture at 7:30 p.m.

Please RSVP for the dinner by Thursday, September 15, 2022.

This event, from the Associates of the American Wing auxiliary, is sponsored by the Ida and Conrad H. Smith Fund.

The Friends of African and African American Art will present its 2022 Margaret Herz Demant Award for African Art to Professor Benedict O. Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). 

Please join us on Sunday, September 25th, for an award ceremony honoring Professor Oramah for his contributions to promoting and collecting African art, both in Africa and internationally. Professor Oramah oversees Afreximbank's Art Program, which acts as a patron for the preservation, collection, and showcasing of African art in the Bank's corporate offices and promotes the visibility and commercial viability of Africa's contemporary artists through planned art-related activities. To date, Afreximbank has built a pipeline of finance focused on creative and cultural industry projects—classical and contemporary art, fashion, music, and art training--to the tune of $500 million.  

Professor Oramah's talk will focus on how Afreximbank's programs are bolstering the creative industries in Africa through strategic investment. He believes that with suitable investments, the arts have the potential to contribute to the structural transformation of the continent, thereby creating jobs and increasing exports and other development outcomes. He will also explore how the current programs can benefit the promotion and exhibition of works by African artists in the Diaspora. 

This event is open to the public; however, seating is limited, and advance registration is required. 

Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test as well as masks are required to attend events in the Lecture Hall. 

View the Invitation

2022 Gala Sponsors

Gold 

• Lisa and Bill Ford  
• Christine and John Giampetroni  
• Friends of the DIA 

Silver 

• Lindsey and Tom Buhl  
• Joanne Danto and Arnold Weingarden 
• Marvin and Betty Danto Family Foundation 
• Cynthia and Edsel Ford
• Carolynn and Aaron Frankel 
• Nicole and Matt Lester  
• Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation  
• Christine and David Provost 

Bronze 

• Lynn and Paul Alandt  
• Chevy Chase Trust  
• DTE Foundation  
• Fisher Dynamics
• Lawrence P. Fisher, II 
• Elena Ford and Mitchell Seldin
• Mrs. William Clay Ford
• Ford Motor Company Fund  
• Erica and Ralph Gerson
• Henry Ford Health, Denise Brooks-Williams and Jeffrey Williams  
• Honigman LLP   
• Linda Dresner Levy and Ed Levy, Jr.
• Don Manvel
• Mr. and Mrs. Peter C. Morse
• Stacy and Greg Renker  
• Tracy and Fritz Souder  
• Burton A. and Sandra D. Zipser Foundation 

Supporter

• Mrs. Anne Ford
• Barbara and David Veverka

2022 Gala Chairs

• Denise Brooks-Williams and Jeffrey Williams 
• Lindsey and Tom Buhl 
• Joanne Danto and Arnold Weingarden 
• Christine and John Giampetroni  

Conversation with Jill Shaw, Josien van Gogh, and Janne Heling

• September 30

Join organizing curator Jill Shaw, Head of The James Pearson Duffy Department of Modern and Contemporary Art and Rebecca A. Boylan and Thomas W. Sidlik Curator of European Art (1850–1970) at the Detroit Institute of Arts, in conversation with Josien van Gogh, great-grandniece of Vincent van Gogh, and her daughter Janne Heling, chair of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation

Creating Van Gogh in America

• October 1

Learn how this exhibition came together and get behind-the-scenes perspectives with organizing curator Jill Shaw, Head of The James Pearson Duffy Department of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Rebecca A. Boylan and Thomas W. Sidlik Curator of European Art (1850–1970) at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Opportunity for all DIA members to self-tour the exhibition, Van Gogh in America. Use your FREE member tickets during Member Preview Days, Member Mondays or throughout the run of the exhibition.

In the aftermath of World War II, Ypsilanti-based designer Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges) was quick to realize that over the four years during which Detroit’s Big Three had forsaken individual automobile production to focus on the war effort, Americans had developed a voracious appetite for new cars. Tucker’s answer was to independently create an innovative “car of the future,” featuring pioneering safety features and modern streamlined styling, including a center-mounted “cyclops” headlight that turned with the vehicle.

It’s easy to see why the Detroit-born Francis Ford Coppola was drawn to this story of one man’s vision and unwavering determination; many of Coppola’s own independent productions —not to mention his brilliant Godfather saga—can be seen as parallel portraits of American dreamers. (110 minutes) 

“Francis Coppola's heartfelt tribute to Preston Tucker turns out to be one of his most personal and successful movies.”  –Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader 

“An elegiac corollary to the fiery documentaries that captured Hong Kong's recent protest movement, Chan Tze Woon's Blue Island looks at the state of the region in the wake of the 2020 national security law, an era where many pro-democracy protesters have either fled into exile or are sitting in custody. Explicitly hybrid in its approach, the film not only blurs narrative and documentary, but also the years of 2019 to 2021 with a longer history of Hong Kong as a site of refuge. 

The film incorporates staged sequences in which the young protest leaders of today―many of whom are awaiting sentencing for speaking out―are daringly cast in the roles of student leaders from 1989 and earlier. Timely and resonant, Blue Island grapples honestly with the fact that Hong Kong as we once knew it is no more.” –Jesse Cumming, HotDocs Festival, Toronto.

In Yue Chinese (Cantonese), English and Mandarin with English subtitles. (97 minutes)

“Political bravery and aesthetic daring... Urgent, remarkable, genre-defying.” –Museum of Modern Art