Many Houstonians are familiar with the museum's diverse year-round film offerings in the Brown Auditorium Theater, but did you know that the museum has organized film screenings since the 1940s? And did you know that film and video are a separate curatorial specialty at the MFAH, just as curators are dedicated to specific collection areas by medium, for example photography, or geography, for example, the Arts of Asia?

If so, then you might wonder how the film program is developed and orchestrated. What are its internal themes, what is the intellectual framework that guides the selections? Though the films screened in Brown Auditorium Theater sometimes respond thematically to the museum's major exhibitions, selections are guided by the goal of presenting film as a creative art form.

In this talk illustrated with film clips, Marian Luntz offers a lively overview of the museum's longstanding commitment to cinema. She traces the history of how the museum began presenting film as art, the development of the film programming over many decades, and how decisions are made about which films are selected for screening.

Luntz also discusses the museum's prestigious archive and circulating collection of films by the legendary photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank.

A reception and docent-led tours follow the talk.