Nam June Paik Documentary Screens at MoMA

A scene from Amanda Kim's 2023 feature documentary NAM JUNE PAIK: MOON IS THE OLDEST TV

Fearlessly innovative and playfully prophetic, Nam June Paik comes to life in Amanda Kim’s feature debut through a skillful assembly of interviews and archival footage that portrays the father of video art both in his time and through his far-reaching legacy. While covering the artist’s peripapetic journey across the mid-century avant-garde in Europe and the United States, Kim pays special attention to Paik’s Korean-American identity and his life as an artist at the forefront of an emergent art form.

This film accompanies Doc Fortnight 2023: MoMA’s Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media.

Nam june paik in a scene from jonas mekas’ ZEFIRO TORNA

GME provided clips from Jonas Mekas’ ZEFIRO TORNA (1992), LOST LOST LOST (1976), SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1992), and RE: MACIUNAS AND FLUXUS (2011), as well as  from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), for Amanda Kim’s documentary on the father of video art.