Film Screening at Queens Museum Will Show Lost Places of Hunters Point South

This Sunday, April 10th, from 4 PM to 8 PM, the Queens Museum will be holding its Spring Exhibitions Opening, featuring screenings of short films made in or about Queens.  This coincides with the opening of Queens International 2016, the latest edition of the museum’s biennial presentation of works by artists living and/or working in the borough. In addition, there will be special events to mark the opening of other new exhibitions, including a historical retrospective of Queens’ pioneering punk rockers, The Ramones.

“Reclaimed Ground” Short Film by Nate Dorr and Nathan Kensinger

The film screening program, “A Frame Apart,” showcases six short films with Queens-related themes. Collectively, they have a total running time of just under one hour and will be shown continuously throughout the four-hour event in the Queens Museum Theater. Unlike the Queens International 2016 artworks, which will be on display until the end of July, this Sunday will be one of the only two chances to catch the short film program.  The films will be screened again in July at the exhibition’s closing in a more formal setting.

“Reclaimed Ground” Short Film by Nate Dorr and Nathan Kensinger

These short films include “Reclaimed Ground,” by Nate Dorr and Nathan Kensinger, a 10-minute piece about Hunters Point South that “captures the final season of its unique post-industrial landscape.” As Untapped Cities has covered previously, Kensinger is the co-curator “Chance Ecologies,” an art project examining the “last wild days of Hunters Point South” before the site, vacant for decades, is redeveloped as a new mixed-income residential development.

Other films in the program include “Discovery of the Shape” by Carmelle Safdie, a “staged dance party in which the artist’s friends perform various roles in a nightclub scene” and “Act Zero” by Thomas Rivera Montes, a narrative short film about teenagers living in contemporary Jamaica, Queens.

In addition to Queens International 2016 and “A Frame Apart,” there will be other special events Sunday connected with the opening of four other new exhibitions.  These include Hey Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk, which will be celebrated with performances of Ramones-inspired sets by punk bands Show Me the Body and the Kominas, starting at 6:45 PM.

The Queens Museum is located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and a shuttle will be provided between the museum and the Mets-Willets Point stop on the 7 train.  Food and drink will be available.  For more information, check out the Queens Museum website.

Next, read about Chance Ecologies exhibition about Hunters Point South this past winter, our visit to the abandoned wild landscapes of Hunters Point South last summer, and combined overflow: artists take on NYC’s two big Superfund sites.