Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere was one of the most remarkable American independent films of the year in 2012, winner of the Best Director award at Sundance. The film focuses on a woman whose husband is sentenced to eight years in a California prison. Ruby (played by Emayatzy Corinealdi), drops out of medical school to maintain her marriage. Driven by love, loyalty, and hope, Ruby learns to sustain the shame, separation, guilt, and grief that a prison wife must bear. Her new life challenges her to the very core of her identity. Ava DuVernay’s elegant and emotionally inspiring film portrays the universal dilemma of how a woman maintains herself as she commits to loving and supporting someone through hardship. After a special screening at Museum of the Moving Image, DuVernay spoke about the challenges behind making and distributing the film.

A magnificently mounted and beautifully performed film that both evokes and subverts the craftsmanship and artifice of Hollywood studio filmmaking, Far from Heaven is writer-director Todd Haynes's most critically acclaimed film to date. Both homage to and an update of Douglas Sirk's 1955 melodrama All that Heaven Allows. Haynes, Powell, and Friedberg discuss the film's astonishing craftsmanship, its political relevance for contemporary audiences, and the desire to make a film that would engage audiences intellectually and emotionally. This conversation between Haynes, Powell, Friedberg was presented in conjunction with the exhibition PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS: 30 stories of craftsmanship in film.

As co-founder of the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop), "the single largest teacher of young children in the world," and the originator of Sesame Street, Joan Ganz Cooney is a television pioneer whose work has had enormous influence in the world of education and entertainment. Cooney sat down with 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl at the Museum of the Moving Image to discuss her remarkable career, advancing children's learning in the digital age, working with Jim Henson, and the significance of Sesame Street's multicultural urban setting. Cooney and Stahl share their feelings about the barriers that they broke for women in the industry.

Agnieszka Holland, the great Polish director whose films include Europa Europa and The Secret Garden, discussed her masterful new film In Darkness at a special preview screening at the Museum. Inspired by real events, In Darkness tells the story of Leopold Socha, a Polish sewer worker and occasional grifter who kept a group of Jews hidden from the Nazis during the occupation of Lvov by hiding them deep in the sewage system. After a special screening co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute, New York and Museum of the Moving Image, Holland talked about how she overcame her initial reluctance to make a film about the Holocaust, and about the grueling physical production, and about the remarkable real people who inspired the movie.

The acclaimed independent featurePariah follows a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents and younger sister in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood as she quietly but firmly embraces her identity as a lesbian. A rousing success, this deeply felt human drama is the feature debut of writer/director Dee Rees. In a conversation with Chief Curator David Schwartz at the Museum of the Moving Image, producer Nekisa Cooper provides insight to how the film came to be funded by the Sundance Institute, her history with Rees and cinematographer Bradford Young, and the challenges producers face balancing art and commerce.

The Color Wheel, Alex Ross Perry's highly original second feature, beautifully filmed in black-and-white 16mm, follows the calamity and chaos when a young woman, JR, forces her reluctant and disapproving younger brother Colin on a road trip to help her move out of her professor-turned-lover's apartment. During this conversation with Chief Curator David Schwartz at Museum of the Moving Image, Perry, an inveterate cineaste, discusses his influences, and the film's unique style and its startling portrayal of incestuous sexual tension.The Color Wheel, which has developing a following on the festival circuit, was recently called "The future of cinema, I hope," by film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.

Martin Scorsese's film Hugo is a vivid, cinematically breathtaking adaptation of Brian Selznick's beloved graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the story of a young boy who lives in a Paris train station and develops an unlikely friendship with film pioneer Georges Méliès. Selznick discusses writing the book as a silent film's storyboard and the depth of research he pursued in creating the world of Méliès and classic French cinema. After a special screening at the Museum the Moving Image, Selznick and screenwriter John Logan sit down to talk about the process of adapting a book to a screenplay and working with Scorsese.

Distinctive character actor Dennis Farina (Get Shorty) gives a career performance in the affecting drama The Last Rites of Joe May. Invoking the spirit of 1970s films like Fat City, Joe Maggio's film follows the life of a 60-something hustler who is looking for a last shot at greatness. In a discussion at the Museum of the Moving Image, Farina and Maggio talk about the inspiration for the story, the challenges filmmakers face getting films made today, and the involvement of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company throughout the production process.

In Sean Durkin's impressive first feature, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen delivered a breakthrough debut performance as a woman who escapes from a polygamous cult and struggles to reconnect with her family after years of abuse and estrangement. Olsen and co-star John Hawkes join Chief Curator David Schwartz at the Museum of the Moving Image to discuss what drew them to Durkin's screenplay. This wide-ranging conversation explores the Jackson Frank song used in the film, scouting locations, and how Hawkes avoided caricature while creating his riveting performance as a cult leader.

Bennett Miller's acclaimed film Moneyball, based on a true story, stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, and features a remarkable ensemble cast including Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane has to outsmart the richer clubs. It's more than baseball, it's a revolution—one that challenges old school traditions and puts Beane in the crosshairs of those who say he's tearing out the heart and soul of the game. In this conversation, Miller, who also presented Capote at the Museum, discusses the arduous process of getting Moneyball produced and how it is different than most other sports films.