MoMI in June: Pride Month, World Cup, Culture Wars! screening series, films by Brian De Palma, more

Special guests include Sesame Street actor Sonia Manzano, author Isaac Butler, David Schachter and Roe Bressan with Buddies, screenwriter Douglas Wright with Quills, and more

New co-creation studio and education space MoMI LAB to open June 13

Astoria, New York, June 3, 2026 — This June, Museum of the Moving Image invites soccer fans to World Cup–related events, including a free family day and live watch parties in the Redstone Theater. The museum also celebrates Pride Month and Juneteenth; and launches the screening series De Palma: Summer of Suspense, featuring thirteen films directed by Brian De Palma, and Culture Wars!, programmed in conjunction with Isaac Butler’s new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars (Bloomsbury Publishing). In addition, the Museum will open MoMI LAB, its new co-creation lab and education space focused on emerging technologies, on June 13, along with the screening and event series Get Off the Internet.

MoMI’s Open Worlds: Science programming continues with Signal from the Soil: A Day of Mycelium, Sound & Story (June 20), featuring a performance by plant sonification artist and musician Skooby Laposky, hands-on mushroom listening, a culinary mushroom grow-bag workshop, composting tips, and more. Other Open Worlds programs include a screening of LGBTQIA+ short films from Firelight Media (June 7), and Family Day Football and World Cup Watch Party (June 19), and the kickoff of the outdoor music-listening series Summer Spin on June 27

Adjusted hours: on Friday, June 19, the Museum will be open noon to 6:00 p.m. for the Juneteenth holiday. In honor of the holiday, the Museum will present screenings of Nothing but a Man (35mm), starring Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (35mm).

MoMI celebrates Pride Month with screenings of films documenting and celebrating LGBTQ+ lives and queer cinema gems, including The Queen (35mm), the groundbreaking 1968 documentary about a competitive drag ball; a special screening of the 1985 film Buddies, the first American theatrical release to deal with the ongoing AIDS crisis head-on with star David Schachter and Roe Bressan in person (June 7); Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia (35mm), the first major American studio film that addressed the AIDS crisis; Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames; Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman, Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied, and Todd Haynes’s Poison (35mm), as part of the Culture Wars! series, which features films targeted by the conservative religious right in the late eighties and early nineties. The Museum’s ongoing underground series Disreputable Cinema features Dracula’s Daughter, the visually lush queer-coded 1936 classic.

Additional special guests this month include Sesame Street veteran actor and Bronx native Sonia Manzano (who played Maria) with a screening of Street Smart: Lessons from a TV Icon (June 20 & 21); author Isaac Butler with film critic Alissa Wilkinson at a screening of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (June 27); and screenwriter David Wright in conversation with Butler for the film Quills (June 28).

In the galleries, the Museum will present two immersive media art projects, presented in partnership with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency: Proof As If Proof Were Needed and Sense of Nowhere. Continuing on are the major exhibition Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body; Anime’s Ascendant Decade, highlighting anime series that won or were nominated for Crunchyroll Anime Awards; and the ongoing exhibitions Behind the Screen and The Jim Henson Exhibition. In the lobby are To Be Perceived, Against Evil, a collaborative work by Linda Dounia and Rhea Myers on the Schlosser Media Wall through August 2, presented in conjunction with the Tezos Foundation; and the arcade game Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Party.

The Museum continues its Accessibility programs: on the last Saturday of each month, Touch Object Experience invites visitors to engage with select objects, including a projector, 8mm camera, textiles, and face molds, to learn about the story of the moving image in a new way.

Unless noted, all programs take place at Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, NY 11106. Screenings are presented in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater and/or the Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room. Schedule and tickets are available at movingimage.org. View the June calendar here.

Schedule is subject to change. Additional programs will be added as they are confirmed.
 
 
SCREENING AND EVENT SERIES
 
Open Worlds 2026
Ongoing
This year-round initiative offers free access to the Museum’s ground floor to the public accompanied by a series of free community events that spark curiosity with explorations of the moving image across platforms—gaming, film, television, immersive experiences, and emerging technologies. Throughout the summer, MoMI offers free Saturday morning yoga with The Yoga Room, and in June: Vibrance: LGBTQIA+ short films from Firelight Media (June 7), the Open Worlds Science program Signal from the Soil: A Day of Mycelium, Sound & Story (June 20) and World Cup events mentioned below. Series info
Programmatic support for Open Worlds 2026 is provided by the NY City Council, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Bank of America, the William Fox Jr. Foundation, NYSCA, and the Office of the Queensborough President. Open Worlds: Science programs are made possible by the Simons Foundation.

By the People, For the People: Real American Lives
May 29–July 5
As our country celebrates 250 years, this screening series takes its own approach, choosing to highlight films that take on the perspective of the nation’s historically marginalized and less frequently represented on screen. From films about collective labor and the underclasses (Matewan, The Grapes of Wrath, Days of Heaven) to immigrant communities (The Exiles, Los Sures) and the disenfranchised (Nothing but a Man, Buddies), these films ask what the term “American cinema” means—and what it perhaps could mean in an ideal world. June titles: Nothing but a Man, The Queen, Days of Heaven, Chan Is Missing, Buddies, Modern Times, Born in Flames, The Crowd with live musical accompaniment by Makia Matsumura, Do the Right Thing, and Los Sures.
Press release | Series info
 
De Palma: Summer of Suspense
June 12–July 26
After cutting his teeth on experimental cinema and political protest films, Brian De Palma turned to the thriller, parlaying his fascination for the mechanics of Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema into a career-long inquiry into movie suspense. The result has been decades of bona fide classics that playfully risk absurdity—and controversy—by pushing horror, suspense, noir, and action movie grammar into realms of self-conscious artifice that might have made Hitch himself blush. From 1973’s gonzo Sisters to 1980’s erotic nightmare Dressed to Kill (both unofficial remakes of Psycho); from his florid eighties and nineties gangster epics Scarface, The Untouchables, and Carlito’s Way to his dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream hallucination Raising Cain, De Palma has not been paying homage as much as allowing us to enter his own extreme movie fantasy worlds—all of them created with impeccable craft that pushes genre conventions (and viewers) to the breaking point. June titles: Body Double and Carlito’s Way—both 35mm. Series info
 
World Cup @ MoMI
June 12–July 17
This summer, Museum of the Moving Image becomes a gathering place for the World Cup, bringing audiences together for watch parties, family programming, hands-on animation activities, and special screenings. Visitors are invited to experience the tournament through cinema, storytelling, play, and shared celebration. Every Friday, visitors wearing soccer jerseys can receive 10% off general admission and 10% off café purchases; on June 19, Football Family Day, for free family games and a live watch party of the USA vs. Australia game in the Redstone Theater; and other programs to be announced. Series info

Get Off the Internet
June 13–July 18
Coinciding with the June 13 opening of MoMI LAB, the Museum’s new public co-creation and education space for exploring emerging technologies, the screening and event series Get Off the Internet explores the central paradox of our time: the growing desire to disconnect, the impossibility of ever truly logging off, and the privilege embedded in the ability to step away. These selected titles examine the technological systems that shape attention, perception, and behavior, inviting audiences to question, debate, and explore new forms of presence. The program includes works by Lucas Rizzotto, Adam Curtis, Harun Farocki, and Lynn Hershman Leeson.
 
Culture Wars!
June 26–July 12
In the late eighties and early nineties, American artists found themselves in the crosshairs of an ascendant conservative coalition whose agenda was to root out alleged deviance in both avant garde and popular art, particularly when the artists involved had received government funding. This affected a great number of important filmmakers, from major Hollywood figures like Martin Scorsese to fierce independent voices on the rise, like Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye, Marlon Riggs, and Gregg Araki. In the midst of the AIDS crisis—and the Reagan administration’s callous response to it—many of these films were queer-themed. This seven-film series is programmed in conjunction with Isaac Butler’s new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars (2026, Bloomsbury Publishing), which reexamines this vital—and sadly influential—historical moment, highlighting films that provoked the ire of these wannabe censors. Butler will appear in person, both in conversation and to introduce some of these landmark films—all of them “dangerous” and wildly entertaining. Titles: The Doom Generation, The Last Temptation of Christ with Isaac Butler and Alissa Wilkinson in person, The Watermelon Woman, Quills (35mm) with screenwriter Douglas Wright in person, Tongues Untied, Poison (35mm), and Natural Born Killers (35mm) (July 11). Series info
 
 
EXHIBITIONS
 
Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body
March 14, 2026–January 3, 2027
Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body traces how innovations like cinema and X‑ray imaging radically transformed the way we see—and understand—the human form. Bringing together more than a century of research films and contemporary artworks by 16 artists, the exhibition explores how looking beneath the skin has shaped ideas about science, power, care, and identity.
Organized by Sonia Shechet Epstein, Curator of Science and Technology. Lead support for Overexposed was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional generous support was provided by Romy Cohen, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Elaine Goldman, May & Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, and Doug Pugh. Press release | Exhibition info
 
Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Party
March 26–August 23
Free to play in the Museum lobby
Holy Wow Studio’s Typing Party takes the form of a social arcade game comprising nine competitive minigames, played on two keyboards mounted side by side in a custom cabinet. The two keyboards are central to the game’s character: slightly out of place within arcade conventions, yet immediately legible to most players; they turn a familiar act into something social, rhythmic, and unexpectedly challenging. Presented in collaboration with Wonderville. Exhibit info
 
Yuri Norstein: Three Tail Tales
Extended through June 28
This screening program is presented inside Tut’s Fever Movie Palace, an artwork and working theater by Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong; part of the core exhibition Behind the Screen. Three short films by renowned master of cut-out animation Yuri Norstein: The Fox and the Hare (1973, 12 mins.), The Heron and the Crane (1974, 10 mins.), and Hedgehog in the Fog (1975, 11 mins.). Organized by Emily Greenberg, Film and Public Programs Manager. Exhibition info

To Be Perceived, Against Evil
Collaborative work by Linda Dounia and Rhea Myers
May 14–August 2
On the Herbert S. Schlosser Media Wall and in the Museum lobby. Presented in partnership with the Tezos Foundation.
Organized by Regina Harsanyi, Associate Curator of Media Arts. Exhibition info
 
The Jim Henson Exhibition
Ongoing
Exhibition info
 
Behind the Screen
Ongoing
Exhibition info
 
See a listing of all current and fall exhibitions here.
 
 
HIGHLIGHTED SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
 
SCREENING
Kapodistrias
Friday, June 5, 7:00 p.m.
Dir. Yannis Smaragdis. 2025, 140 mins. Greece. DCP. Kapodistrias centers on the real-life figure of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greece's first Governor, after the country’s liberation from the Ottomans. Copresented by the Hellenic Film Society USA. Event link
 
SCREENING
Dracula’s Daughter
Friday, June 5, 7:30 p.m.
Dir. Lambert Hillyer. 1936, 71 mins. U.S. DCP. With Gloria Holden, Otto Kruger, Marguerite Churchill. Long considered an oddity in the Universal Horror canon, Dracula’s Daughter has since been recognized as a visually lush queer-coded classic. Part of Disreputable Cinema. Event link
 
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Let’s Talk About AI—A Community Summit
Sunday, June 7, 12:00–3:00 p.m.
Join Epicenter NYC at MoMI for an AI community summit featuring presentations, discussions, and live demos from civic innovators, community leaders, journalists, and technologists to inform, question, and explore how artificial intelligence can better serve our communities. Attendees will gain practical tools to understand AI, navigate emerging technologies, shape a more equitable digital future, and to consider its impact. Free with RSVP. Event info
 
SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
Buddies + conversation with David Schachter and Roe Bressan
Sunday, June 7, 2:30 p.m.
Dir. Arthur J. Bressan Jr. 1985, 81 mins. U.S. DCP. With Geoff Edholm, David Schachter. This stringently made yet profoundly moving low-budget independent production from the gay trailblazer Arthur J. Bressan Jr. follows the burgeoning friendship between hospitalized AIDS patient Robert and David, the volunteer “buddy” from a local gay help center assigned to look after him. Followed by a conversation with David Schachter and Roe Bressan. Part of By the People, For the People: Real American Tales. Event link
 
FREE SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
Vibrance: LGBTQIA+ short films from Firelight Media
Sunday, June 7, 3:00 p.m.
In this showcase of five short non-fiction films centered on LGBTQIA+ liberation, programmed in partnership with Firelight Media, love is the galvanizing force that activates each character’s journey. Part of Open Worlds 2026. Event link
 
FREE SCREENING
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Saturday, June 13, 12:30 p.m.
Dir. Adam Curtis. 2011, 180 mins. U.K. DCP. In this three-part documentary epic on the growing power imbalance between humans and the technologies we have created, the British great cine-essayist and 21st-century social philosopher Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares) constructs a narrative about the threat of artificial intelligence: a wide-ranging, discursive look at the way we live now—and how we may live in the future—that touches upon both dystopic and utopian possibilities of cybernetics. Free admission.
 
SCREENING
Singin’ in the Rain
Saturday, June 13, 3:00 p.m.
Dirs. Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly. 1952, 103 mins. DCP. With Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s satirical look at Hollywood at the cusp of the sound era is simply the most joyous experience one could ever have going to the movies. Part of Song & Dance. Event link
 
SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
The Crowd with live musical accompaniment by Makia Matsumura
Sunday, June 14, 3:00 p.m.
Dir. King Vidor. 1928, 98 mins. U.S. 35mm. With James Murray, Eleanor Boardman. King Vidor's thrilling 1928 proletariat melodrama, featuring some of the most remarkable camerawork committed to celluloid, presented with live piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura. Part of For the People, By the People: Real American Lives. Event link
 
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Family Day Football
Friday, June 19, 12:00–6:00 p.m.
Celebrate Juneteenth and the spirit of the World Cup with a day of family-friendly activities across the Museum. Visitors can participate in football-inspired games, interactive experiences, and immersive VR activities designed to bring together families, friends, and intergenerational audiences through play, movement, and storytelling. Games include Subsoccer, Subbuteo (table-top game), the video game FC26, and more! Free admission. Part of Open Worlds 2026 and World Cup 2026 @ MoMI. Event link
 
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Live World Cup Watch Party: United States vs. Australia
Friday, June 19, 3:00 p.m.
Experience the excitement of the World Cup on the Museum’s big screen during a special live watch party screening of the United States match against Australia. Presented in the Museum’s grand Redstone Theater, the event transforms the cinema into a communal, stadium-like viewing experience complete with pre-game energy and shared audience excitement. Part of Open Worlds 2026 and World Cup 2026 @ MoMI.
Drinks and snacks are available at Mon Amour Coffee & Wine in our lobby (specialty cup must be purchased to bring drinks into the theater). Free with RSVP. Event link
 
SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
Street Smart: Lessons from a TV Icon
With Sonia Manzano and Ernie Bustamante in person!
Saturday, June 20, 12:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 21, 12:30 p.m.
Dir. Ernie Bustamante. 2026, 85 mins. U.S. DCP. With Sonia Manzano, Stephen Schwartz, Sonia Sotomayor, Alison Bartlett, Carmen Osbahr-Vertiz, Ryan Dillon. Sonia Manzano became beloved by several generations as Sesame Street’s Maria, a role she played for 44 years. But while millions know Sonia as Maria, few know about her remarkable journey from her early years in the South Bronx to the original off-Broadway company of Godspell, to becoming the first Latina to play a regular role on television, and to her creation of the award-winning PBS show Alma’s Way. See the new documentary about Manzano and hear from her and director Ernie Bustamante in person. Part of Jim Henson's World. Event link
 
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Signal from the Soil: A Day of Mycelium, Sound & Story
Saturday, June 20, 1:00–5:00 p.m.
Plant sonification artist and musician Skooby Laposky joins MoMI for a performance that translates the subtle electrical activity of mushrooms into immersive sound, revealing a hidden sonic ecology within living systems. This performance includes live sounds of mycelial networks and is followed by a conversation with the artist and chemical engineer Jacob Belding, of Cornell University’s Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS), on the biomolecular foundations that fuel Laposky’s ability to amplify plant activity. Later, hands-on listening stations let you amplify plant sounds for yourself. Bronx urban farm Mi Oh My Farms also presents a mushroom grow-bag workshop for you to take home. RSVP recommended. Part of Open Worlds: Science, presented with support from the Simons Foundation. Event info
 
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Summer Spin
Saturday, June 27, 12:00–6:00 p.m.
MoMI kicks off its first Summer Spin Series with monthly DJ sets in the Kaufman Courtyard, transforming the Museum into a summer gathering space for music, conversation, and community. Taking place the last Saturday of each summer month from June through August, the series invites visitors to move between the Museum’s indoor exhibitions and outdoor courtyard while experiencing curated sounds inspired by each month’s theme. Free admission.
 
SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
The Last Temptation of Christ
Followed by a conversation between authors Isaac Butler (The Perfect Moment) and Alissa Wilkinson (We Tell Ourselves Stories) and a book signing of The Perfect Moment
Saturday, June 27, 12:30 p.m.
Dir. Martin Scorsese. 1989, 164 mins. U.S. 4K DCP. With Willem Dafoe, Barbara Hershey, Harvey Keitel, David Bowie. One of Scorsese’s supreme achievements, The Last Temptation of Christ brilliantly articulates the passion of its director’s ongoing cinematic project for depicting the complexities of faith and violence.  Followed by a conversation between authors Isaac Butler and Alissa Wilkinson and a book signing. Part of Culture Wars! Event link

SCREENING AND LIVE EVENT
Quills
Featuring a conversation between Isaac Butler and screenwriter Douglas Wright
Sunday, June 28, 1:00 p.m.
Dir. Philip Kaufman. 2000, 104 mins. U.K. 35mm. With Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine, Billie Whitelaw. A powerful and aptly cheeky tragicomedy about moral propriety, Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of a play by Douglas Wright, who also wrote the screenplay, stars Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade himself, imprisoned in an insane asylum in 19th-century France and banned from publishing his licentious tales of sex and violence. Part of Culture Wars! and Writers’ Room. Event link
 
ONGOING
Moving Image Studio
Every Sunday through June 28, 12:30–5:30 p.m.
Moving Image Studio is a drop-in media-making space where visitors can experiment and create media as well as arts and crafts, inspired by characters and subjects featured in the Museum’s galleries and screening programs. Facilitated by Museum educators, visitors can try green-screen, create stop-motion animation, build in virtual reality, and draw whimsical characters from films, video games, and TV shows. Free. Event info


About Museum of the Moving Image
MoMI celebrates the history, art, technology, and future of the moving image in all of its forms. Located in Astoria, New York, the Museum presents exhibitions; screenings; discussion programs featuring actors, directors, and creative leaders; and education programs. It houses the nation’s most comprehensive collection of moving image artifacts and screens over 500 films annually. Its exhibitions—including the core exhibition Behind the Screen and The Jim Henson Exhibition—are noted for their integration of material objects, interactive experiences, and audiovisual presentations. For more information about MoMI, visit movingimage.org.

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Image: The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese. 1989) / Courtesy of Universal