Screening from Series Present Past 2025: A Celebration of Film Preservation
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Starts at $5
Sun, Dec 14, 2025
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Matador
US restoration premiere
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Down and Out in America
Examining the impact of Reaganomics, Down and Out in America surveys the hardships affecting three societal subdivisions stricken by economic depression in the mid-1980s: farmers, factory workers, and people navigating housing insecurity. Directed by accomplished actor and filmmaker Lee Grant, the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1986 and remains tragic in its relevance four decades later. The film was restored in 4K from the 16mm A/B original camera negative.
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Badnam Basti
The debut feature of director Prem Kapoor, this is considered the first Indian film to openly portray queer relationships. Based on the Hindi novel by Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena, the film focuses on truck driver and “dacoit” Sarnam Singh (Nitin Sethi), and his intimate bonds with dancer Bansuri (Nandita Thakur) and cleaner Shivraj (Amar Kakkad). Beyond its representation of bisexuality, Badnam Basti’s radical formal experimentation makes it exceptional even within the context of India’s New Wave movement. Long thought lost, a film print was discovered in 2019, and Badnam Basti has been restored to a new digital version by the Arsenal archive.
Note by Simran Bhalla, Curatorial Assistant of Curatorial, Academy Museum.
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