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There are plenty of places to catch an outdoor movie in New York this summer, but few come with a backdrop of Picassos, Mirós and actual MoMA architecture.
The Museum of Modern Art is turning its Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden into an open-air cinema for a series of Wednesday-night screenings this summer, bringing genre classics, restorations and documentaries to one of Midtown’s prettiest hidden-in-plain-sight spaces. And the series kicks off tonight, August 5, with a movie that contains a very compelling argument for Denzel Washington as the ultimate romantic lead.
RECOMMENDED: One of NYC's most gorgeous gardens is hosting free neighborhood movie nights all summer long
First up is Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, the director’s swoony, complicated 1991 romance starring Washington and Sarita Choudhury. The screening begins at 8pm and includes an extra treat: Nair and Choudhury will both be there to introduce the film.
Set largely in Mississippi, the movie follows Mina, played by Choudhury, whose Ugandan Indian family settled in the American South after being expelled from Uganda in 1972. Her parents still dream of returning home, but Mina has adapted to life in Mississippi—and things get considerably more complicated when she falls for Demetrius, an African American carpet cleaner played by Washington.
What follows is a love story tangled up in questions of race, prejudice, displacement, family expectations and belonging. (It also happens to feature a 30-something Washington at peak movie-star charisma.)
If you can’t make tonight’s screening, you’ll have another excuse to spend an evening in the Sculpture Garden later this month: on Wednesday, August 19, MoMA will show Our Latin Thing, directed by Leon Gast, followed by Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre, the Finnish filmmaker’s 2011 French-language drama about an aging shoeshiner who encounters a young undocumented immigrant hiding from the police in the French port city, on September 2.
Yes, you could spend another summer Wednesday watching a movie from your couch. Or you could watch one under the stars, surrounded by some of modern art’s greatest hits. We know which one we’re picking.