Doors 6:00p
Program 6:30p
Tickets $20

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

Across his six-decade career, Frederick Wiseman returned to New York more than any other place, making nine films that observe the city through its institutions, neighborhoods, and civic life. From the strained public systems of Hospital (1969) and Welfare (1975), to the changing neighborhood of In Jackson Heights (2015) and a public library redefining its purpose in Ex Libris (2017), these films collectively register nearly fifty years of a city continually remaking itself.

Opening Wiseman’s New York, this conversation asks what drew Wiseman back to the city again and again, and what his singular approach to observation allowed him to capture as it changed around him. How do transformations in public life, political power, gentrification, technology, and the city’s institutions become visible across this body of work? And what can we learn from the extraordinary range of New Yorkers who populate these films, from high schoolers to doctors, librarians, civil servants, artists, and activists?

Join Genevieve Yue, Arlin Golden, Shawn Glinis & John Wilson for a lively opening conversation on Wiseman’s New York, the city he documented across half a century, and what his films can still teach us about how to observe and understand it.

Bios

Genevieve Yue is an associate professor of culture and media at The New School. She is an independent programmer and the author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (2020) and Trains, which will be available in fall 2026.

Arlin Golden is a documentary filmworker in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is co-director of Video Project, an impact-oriented non-profit distributor of documentary films, as well as director and programmer of Drunken Film Fest Oakland, an annual free event bringing world-class films into the democratized social spaces of local bars. He also co-hosted Wiseman Podcast, a film by film series engaging with the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman. His first short documentary as director, Back Yard, screened in 2020-21 at such fests as Ann Arbor, Sheffield DocFest, and the inaugural Prismatic Ground, and his follow-up Balloon Boy garnered worldwide distribution and was named a Vimeo Staff Pick.

Shawn Glinis is a film writer from Detroit and co-host of the definitive and comprehensive Wiseman Podcast, an in-depth film-by-film exploration of Wiseman’s documentaries.

John Wilson, whose work across short films, his popular ‘How To’ series, and debut feature The History of Concrete, documents the built environment, and the quirks and peccadillos of urban spaces with a singular flair.