Between Film Festivals and Galleries: Suneil Sanzgiri and Sophie Cavoulacos

What shapes moving image work that plays in both cinema and visual arts spaces? Join filmmaker Suneil Sanzgiri (2022 Creative Capital Awardee) and Sophie Cavoulacos, Associate Curator, Department of Film at MoMA, as they discuss the making and programming of experimental work for both these contexts. What are the artistic and curatorial opportunities provided by each context, and how can artists and curators position work to engage with both realms? They will share development, production, and audience engagement considerations particular to cinema presentation vs. gallery installation and reflect on case studies.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Suneil Sanzgiri is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher. His award-winning work has been screened and exhibited extensively at festivals and arts venues around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, 18th Istanbul Biennial, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Doclisboa, Viennale, lo Schermo dell’Arte, de Appel, Jameel Arts Center, Whitechapel Gallery, MASS MoCA, e-Flux, Hessel Museum, Criterion Collection, and many more. His first institutional solo exhibition, “Here the Earth Grows Gold,” opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Fall 2023. Other solo exhibitions include “An Impossible Address” at Mercer Union in Toronto, Canada (2025), and at EMPAC (Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center) in Troy, NY (2025). His work has been written about in BOMB Magazine, MOUSSE, e-Flux, Art in America, Filmmaker Magazine, Film Comment, Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, C Magazine, Film Quarterly, SEEN Journal, Dissent, November Magazine, and more.

Sophie Cavoulacos joined The Museum of Modern Art in 2012 and currently is an Associate Curator in the Department of Film, organizing moving image projects across the museum. She has been a programmer for MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and New Directors/New Films festivals and leads the artist cinema series Modern Mondays. Gallery projects include Nour Mobarak: Dafne Phono (2024), Alexandre Estrela: Flat Bells (2023), and the expanded cinema installation Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver’s Cinematic Illumination (2020-21), all in MoMA’s Kravis Studio; and Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 (2017-8). Recent film series also include Currents: Re-Viewing Cineprobe, 1968–2002 (2019), and monographic surveys and special projects around the work of Narimane Mari, Ken Okiishi, Moyra Davey, and Pierre Clémenti. She is also active in the museum’s collection development and displays. She is currently working on the moving image commission Na Mira: NO SMOKING, opening November 2026.