Moving Body Moving Image 2026 on the Upper West Side, NYC: Free Films on the Immigrant Body Through Oct. 24

Moving Body Moving Image (MBMI) is a biennial that takes a different angle each time on the moving body on screen. It was founded by Gabri Christa, who still directs it. The 2026 edition, titled "The Moving Immigrant Body On Screen," gathers films about migration, displacement, identity, memory, heritage, belonging and the immigrant experience.

Part one was a full-day program on Sunday, October 18, from noon to 6:00 PM at Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium, free with no RSVP. Shorts I began at 12:30 with Navigation, Provenance: A Letter to my Daughter, Antítesis and Ina Ama. Shorts II followed at 2:00 with The Noise My Leaves Make, When the chair fell into the void, Las Madres, Pasa Pasa, and Expectations Sharpen the Blade with Which We Carve Joy. Shorts III started at 3:30 with Air de Temps, Family Portrait, Refugiar el Gesto / Sheltering Gestures and The Long Goodbye. At 4:30, Charlotte Brathwaite moderated a live discussion. The festival's own posts name The Long Goodbye as the work of Carrie Mae Weems, and Air de Temps as a film by Alessandra Seutin and Ben Williams that first premiered on Sadler's Wells Digital Stage.

Part two is an installation at Barnard College's Movement Lab, running through October 24. It is free, but RSVP is required. Four installation films play: X PAT BOND, In the Middle, ASSEMBLY LINE and HaMapah/The Map. Hours are 3:00 to 6:00 PM from October 19 to 23, and 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM on October 24.

The week opened on October 19 with a workshop led by Jingqiu Guan from noon to 2:00 PM and a reception with the installation filmmakers at 6:00 PM. Today, October 22, at 6:00 PM, Guan presents the live performance Room: A Corporeal Dialogue Across Time, followed by a talkback.

The festival's notes single out Ina Ama, shot in London and drawing on the Filipino dance Tinikling, and Las Madres, which follows six pairs of immigrant mothers and daughters in a small community near the Hudson River. Pasa Pasa, directed by Lisa Kusanagi, screened in the second block. Screendance, the hybrid of cinema and dance, is rarely offered for free in such a concentrated slate, and the installation runs through Saturday.