Aisles and Isles: films in the library

Programmed by Audrey Lam

Borges imagined paradise to be a kind of library, while Calvino proposed that each of our lives could be seen as a library where “everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered” (Six Memos for the Next Millennium). Glancing across seven decades of cinema and a variety of genres—from musical to Kung Fu flick, documentary to slapstick comedy—this special collection follows filmmakers deep into the stacks as they study these distinct realms of learning, transformation, and restless opportunity. 

Works by Sergei Parajanov, Jacques Rivette, Lo Wei, Frederick Wiseman, and others screen alongside programmer Audrey Lam’s contemporary Us and the Night (2024) in which two after-hours library workers embark on a series of imaginative adventures.