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CANCELLED - Green Snake

Watch the trailer New 4K restoration! In this psychedelic fantasia from the great Tsui Hark, two snake goddesses take on human form, and one falls in love with a man. But their love is threatened by a vengeful Buddhist monk with supernatural powers. Green Snake is based on the novel by Lilian Lee, itself a postmodern feminist spin on the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake.“ Tsui’s film is propelled by dazzling, colorful, and hallucinatory imagery, generous doses of humor and action, and an unforgettably seductive performance by Maggie Cheung in the title role. (Dir.: Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1993, 99 min. DCP, Mandarin with English subtitles), Image courtesy of Seasonal Film Corporation. Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Captioning. Assisted listening devices. Wheelchair accessible. Friday, June 27, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:45 PM.

Happy Together

Watch the trailer Part of our Wong Kar-wai / Leslie Cheung double feature! Be sure to stay for Days of Being Wild! This emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown is one of the most searing romances of the 1990s. Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung play a couple traveling through Argentina together. But the pair are locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Happy Together empathetically depicts the complex dynamics of a queer relationship on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, when the country’s LGBTQ+ community suddenly faced an uncertain future. Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that’s by turns devastating and deliriously romantic. Ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle delivers this film in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color. Happy Together is an intoxicating exploration of displacement and desire that swoons with the ache… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Sunday, June 29, 2025, 1:30 PM – 3:10 PM.

CANCELLED - All About Love

This comedy follows two bisexual women and former lovers in their forties, who reconnect after they both get pregnant from ill-advised one-night stands. Years after they originally parted ways, Macy (Sandra Ng) and Anita (Vivian Chow) meet by chance at a counseling session for expectant mothers, and their romance reignites. All About Love dares to take on important issues like motherhood, sexuality, and discrimination. Master director Ann Hui addresses these sensitive topics with wit and warmth. (Dir.: Ann Hui, 2010, 105 min. DCP, Cantonese with English subtitles), Image Courtesy of Angela Wong. Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Sunday, June 29, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.

Days of Being Wild

Watch the trailer Part of our Wong Kar-wai / Leslie Cheung double feature! Don’t miss Happy Together at 1:30! In this dreamlike drift through the Hong Kong of the 1960s, a band of wayward twentysomethings pulls together and pushes apart in a cycle of frustrated desire. A disaffected playboy (Leslie Cheung) searches for his birth mother. A lovelorn woman (Maggie Cheung) hopelessly yearns after him. Meanwhile, a policeman (Andy Lau) gets caught in the middle of their turbulent relationship. Wong Kar-wai’s breakthrough sophomore feature represents the first full flowering of his swooning signature style and kicks off a loosely connected, ongoing cycle that includes In the Mood for Love and 2046. This is Wong's first collaboration with both cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who lends the film its gorgeously gauzy, hallucinatory texture, and actor Tony Leung, who appears briefly in a tantalizing teaser for a never-realized sequel. Days of Being Wild is an exhilarating first expression of Wong’s trademark… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaajune25.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: ASL-interpreted program. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Sunday, June 29, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:15 PM.

Godzilla

Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear bombing and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. The film’s rampaging, radioactive beast—the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears—became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels. (Description adapted from Janus Films.) (Dir.: Ishiro Honda, Japan, 1954, 96 min. DCP, Japanese with English subtitles), Image courtesy of Janus Films. Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://nmaamatinees.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: ASL-interpreted program. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Wednesday, July 9, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:45 PM.

Asia After Dark | Eiko Ishibashi: GIFT

Register in advance to get the best experience. Join us for a special outdoor screening and performance featuring multi-instrumentalist composer and musician Eiko Ishibashi. GIFT is a collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Happy Hour), accompanied by a live soundtrack performed by Ishibashi. For each performance, Hamaguchi edits a new, silent version of his award-winning film Evil Does Not Exist, making each performance of GIFT a completely unique experience. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. GIFT Synopsis Located on a plateau rich in nature, Mizubiki Village in Nagano is not so far from Tokyo, and the number of immigrants is on the rise with very gradual development. Takumi and his daughter Hana, who have lived there for generations, lead a modest life, following the cycle of nature. An entertainment agency, which has fallen into financial difficulties due to the COVID-19 disaster, has obtained a government subsidy and plans to set up a glamping site near… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Freer Plaza. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Categories: After Five. Films. Performances. Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible. Friday, July 11, 2025, 5:30 PM – 9:30 PM.

Caught by the Tides

Watch the trailer One of the world’s greatest living directors, Jia Zhangke (A Touch of Sin, Ash is Purest White) has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous Caught by the Tides. Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences—Caught by the Tides is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the edges of a poignant love story. The film mostly adheres to the perspective of Qiaoqiao (Jia’s muse and spouse Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly unrecognizable country in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and the persistence of change: of people,… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://icymi.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Friday, July 18, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.

The Monk and the Gun

Followed by a Q&A with director Pawo Choyning Dorji and a reception for all attendees! Watch the trailer Set in 2006, in the run-up to Bhutan’s first democratic elections, the plot of this wry ensemble comedy is set in motion when an elderly Buddhist monk sends an assistant out to find two guns that he needs for mysterious reasons. Meanwhile, an American gun collector is on a mission to buy the same weapons, and a put-upon election official is struggling to drum up support for a mock election in advance of the real one. A “droll political satire” (Marya E. Gates, Rogerebert.com) of crossed paths and missed connections, The Monk and the Gun is a true delight. After the screening, join a conversation with director Pawo Choyning Dorji and enjoy free refreshments. (Dir.: Pawo Choyning Dorji, Bhutan/Taiwan/France/United States/Hong Kong, 2023, DCP, English and Dzongkha with English subtitles), Image Courtesy of Swank Motion Pictures. Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://icymi.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Sunday, July 20, 2025, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM.

All We Imagine as Light

Watch the trailer The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, while her husband from an arranged marriage is living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical nat… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://icymi.eventive.org/films. Categories: Films. After Five. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Friday, July 25, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.

Premiere Screening: Sima's Song

In person: Roya Sadat, director; Aziz Deldar, co-writer and actor; and Helima Ahmadi, actor. DC Area Premiere! Watch the trailer Afghanistan’s most courageous and acclaimed filmmaker, Roya Sadat (A Letter to the President), brings her latest film to the National Museum of Asian Art for its area premiere. Set in 1978 Afghanistan, Sima’s Song follows two best friends: Suraya, a rising communist women’s leader, and Sima, a romantic musician devoted to traditional art. As political tensions escalate into war, their deep bond is tested by ideology, faith, and survival. The film is a poignant testament to the courage and loyalty of women in times of upheaval. Sima’s Song is a deeply personal and political narrative of love, friendship, and revolution. Praised for its poetic structure and powerful performances, the film has screened at numerous international film festivals and earned critical acclaim for its authentic portrayal of Afghan women’s resilience. Forced into exile by the return of the Taliban in 2021,… Venue: Freer Gallery of Art. Event Location: Meyer Auditorium. Cost: Free. Register in advance (recommended). Get Tickets/Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/premiere-screening-simas-song-tickets-1417519481929?aff=oddtdtcreator. Categories: Films. Accessibility: Assisted listening devices. Captioning. Wheelchair accessible. Sunday, July 27, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.