Maysles Documentary Center

Maysles Documentary Center Maysles Documentary Center (MDC) is a Harlem-based nonprofit organization committed to community, ed
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MDC was founded by legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles (1926–2015) in 2005. He and wife Gillian Walker chose Harlem to contribute to this community's rich cultural history and aid in the facilitation of what is taken for granted below 96th street: consistent access to documentary films and conversation with filmmakers, the act of filmmaking, and engaging with films to make a difference. A 2013 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, among many other honors, Albert, along with brother David, was an early creator of direct cinema and among the first to capture life as it unfolded before their camera, without scripts, sets, or narration. MDC's mission began with a summer education program for youth, whose parents were incarcerated, to encourage creative self-expression, holistic youth development and community building. Today, our low or no-cost education programs range from film literacy classes for children, filmmaking for high school students, intro and advanced filmmaking and editing for adults, and a cinema management job training program for Harlem residents. Maysles Cinema, at the MDC, is the only independent film house north of Lincoln Center devoted exclusively to documentary programming.

Last night got rowdy.Our second NYCHA: Promise or Peril screening brought Ming to Maysles, followed by a lively conversa...
10/02/2026

Last night got rowdy.

Our second NYCHA: Promise or Peril screening brought Ming to Maysles, followed by a lively conversation that moved from filmmaking and location scouting to public housing, home, representation, and who gets to tell the story of a place.

Public housing is policy, yes. But it is also memory, culture, argument, family, survival, and home.

Thanks to everyone who came through Harlem’s living room last night.

(Picture here film respondent Laura Coxson and writer/programmer/director Taylor Montague; Second Slide: Antoine Yates, still from Ming: 21 Stories In The Air)

Last night we launched NYCHA: Promise or Peril with A Home Is Worth Fighting For and For Those Who Lived There, bringing...
09/30/2026

Last night we launched NYCHA: Promise or Peril with A Home Is Worth Fighting For and For Those Who Lived There, bringing film, memory, and organizing into the same room.

Harlem came out to watch, talk, question, and strategize around the future of public housing and what it means to keep NYCHA rooted in the communities that built it.

The series continues with Ming, carrying the conversation forward through another intimate portrait of housing, survival, and life in New York City.

Film is only the beginning of the conversation.

FULL MANTIS x Ashanti Alston Book Party: Yesterday wasn’t just a screening. It was a happening.Books on the table, music...
09/28/2026

FULL MANTIS x Ashanti Alston Book Party: Yesterday wasn’t just a screening. It was a happening.

Books on the table, music in the room, films on the screen, politics in the air, people talking long after they were supposed to leave. The cinema became part schoolhouse, part living room, part archive, part gathering place.

That’s the energy we want at Maysles: not just presenting culture, but making the conditions for people to meet inside it.

Harlem’s living room was alive yesterday. 🔥

Special thanks to Hood School AK Press Jeremiah Hosea

THE SHOW IS ON. 🌧️🎬Despite the weather, today’s program “THE REVOLUTIONARY AS IMPROVISER” is moving forward.2 PM: Full ...
09/27/2026

THE SHOW IS ON. 🌧️🎬

Despite the weather, today’s program “THE REVOLUTIONARY AS IMPROVISER” is moving forward.

2 PM: Full Mantis
4:30 PM: Conversation with Ashanti Alston and Joy James

Please give yourself extra travel time, move carefully through the city, and come dry off with us in Harlem.

Sometimes you bend with the storm. Sometimes you hold your position. Today, we screen. ✊🏾

Christmas in September, but make it cinema. 🎁🥂The Albies Auction closes tomorrow night.Criterion. MoMA. Rare books. Film...
09/27/2026

Christmas in September, but make it cinema. 🎁🥂

The Albies Auction closes tomorrow night.

Criterion. MoMA. Rare books. Film experiences. A few things you absolutely do not need but may suddenly discover you cannot live without.

Going once…

✨ Final bidding closes Sept. 27 at 11:45 PM.

Repost from Rustic Canyon Pictures•The ALBIES Auction is LIVE! Bid now on incredible experiences, getaways, and Maysles ...
09/26/2026

Repost from Rustic Canyon Pictures
•
The ALBIES Auction is LIVE!

Bid now on incredible experiences, getaways, and Maysles Film Archive items, including Broadway tickets, a MoMA membership, Criterion, dining experiences, private listening sessions, and so much more.

Every bid supports the Maysles Documentary Center and its work championing documentary film, filmmakers, and community.

Bidding closes September 27 at 11:45 PM EDT.

Bid now at the link in bio.

The power of the people is greater than the man’s forecast. 🌩️✊🏾4 PM: Legacy: Spirit of the Black Panthers WILL screen t...
09/26/2026

The power of the people is greater than the man’s forecast. 🌩️✊🏾

4 PM: Legacy: Spirit of the Black Panthers WILL screen today.

7 PM: Black Panther in Africa has been postponed until Monday September 28th.

Stay safe. Safe dry. Power to the People.

Friday, September 18th, 2026 at 7PMMAD BILLS TO PAYJoel Alfonso Vargas, 2025, 103 min19-year-old Dominican American Rico...
09/17/2026

Friday, September 18th, 2026 at 7PM

MAD BILLS TO PAY

Joel Alfonso Vargas, 2025, 103 min

19-year-old Dominican American Rico (Juan Collado) figures he’ll ride out the summer selling his homemade “nutcracker” cocktails (rum, vodka, juice) on Orchard Beach and hanging out with his friends. But after his girlfriend, Destiny (Destiny Checo), moves into his family’s already-crowded apartment, the two must face a new, adult reality. Bronx-born debut filmmaker Vargas based MAD BILLS TO PAY on his own experiences, shot the film guerilla-style in 14 days, and cites influences as disparate as John Cassavetes, Pedro Costa, and Andrea Arnold.
Friday, September 18th, 2026 at 7PM

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026 at 7PMAfter AL: An Albies After Party and Film CelebrationFrom These RootsWilliam Greav...
09/16/2026

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026 at 7PM

After AL: An Albies After Party and Film Celebration

From These Roots

William Greaves, 28 minutes, 1974, USA

The Dream Keeper

St. Clair Bourne, 60 minutes, 1987, USA

While the Albies ceremony unfolds at Ginny’s Supper Club, the celebration begins at Maysles with two films honoring Harlem’s cultural memory and the Black documentary tradition.

William Greaves’s FROM THESE ROOTS offers a poetic journey through the Harlem Renaissance. It will be followed by a rare print of St. Clair Bourne’s LANGSTON HUGHES: THE DREAM KEEPER, a vibrant portrait of Hughes and the international Black imagination he helped shape.

At 9:00 PM, the Albies honorees and guests arrive from Ginny’s, joining the screening audience for music, drinks, and a community-wide celebration.

The Albies begin at Ginny’s. Then we come home to Maysles.

7:00 PM — Film program
9:00 PM — Albies After-Party

Benefit admission: $25 Community / $50 Supporter / $100 Sustainer

All ticket levels include the complete film program and after-party. Guests are invited to give at the level they can. Proceeds support Maysles Documentary Center and its work as Harlem’s home for documentary film.
Ticket link in bio!

We mourn the passing of Patricio Guzmán (1941–2026), the great Chilean documentarian whose cinema made memory an act of ...
09/15/2026

We mourn the passing of Patricio Guzmán (1941–2026), the great Chilean documentarian whose cinema made memory an act of resistance.

His monumental trilogy The Battle of Chile remains one of the essential works of political documentary, recording the final months of Salvador Allende’s government, the popular movements surrounding it, and the 1973 military coup. Guzmán would spend the next five decades returning to Chile’s history, exile, landscape and collective memory in films including Nostalgia for the Light, The Pearl Button and The Cordillera of Dreams.

Patricio Guzmán died today in Paris at the age of 85. His work reminds us that documentary cinema does more than record history. It keeps history alive.

Rest in power, Patricio Guzmán.

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343 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY
10027

Telephone

+16468531296

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