Josh Siegel, film curator at MOMA in New York is one of the members of the first ever jury at Giornate degli Autori. He is happy to be here as he has a great admiration for Gaia Furrer, the director fo Giornate degli Autori , and all her team. We talked about this experience and also about his job as film curator.
The only possible approach to the role of a juror
Josh Siegel is adamant on having an open mind as the only possible approach to the task of judging a film. The open mind is not only referred to the various genre of films you can potentially watch, but also to the ideas and sensibility of your fellow jurors, that have different taste that could be challenging to you but maybe could shed a new light on your vision of a film.
Being a film curator is to have open mind as well
The joy of his job lies on the possibility of celebrating great directors on the recent or older past (like Chantal Ackerman, with a retrospective to open in two weeks time), as well as discovering new talents new directors he ‘ve never heard of before. Again, all is about being receptive.
MOMA has a privileged position in the diffusion of cinema
It is true, Josh Siegel explains, that MOMA has been the first museum that considered cinema as an art form as well as painting and sculpture, photography, design , architecture. This oriented films in a larger context, in the whole story of modernism and contemporary art . In addition to that, MOMA has an audience composed by scholars as well as regular film goers so our aim is to educate and entertain, that gives us a chance of wider possibilities of programming.