A Special Screening of Becky Johnston's 1979 Featurette Sleepless Nights With Maripol @ MoMA

New Cinema cofounder (and Hollywood screenwriter) Becky Johnston recently described her little-seen featurette Sleepless Nights as “an East Village reinvention of the Otto Preminger movie Laura” that plays “fast and loose with the noir detective genre.” The film was screened at MoMA along with a short discussion between Johnston and Maripol on the making of the film and it's lasting cultural almost 40 years later. photographs by Annabel Graham

[FILM] They Shoot Movies, Don't They?

“Patti Astor” Photo by and courtesy of Maripol from Blank City

Blank City tells the long-overdue tale of a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers who emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history. From the late 1970's through the mid 80's, when the city was still a wasteland of cheap rent and cheap drugs, these directors crafted daring works that would go on to profoundly influence the development of independent film as we know it today. Film is out now. www.blankcityfilm.com