When the World Broke Open takes a cinematic look at New Orleans—a city of pleasure, politics, and pulsating prose that lives in the heart of anyone who’s seen its beauty—before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that continues to change American life 20 years later. This series, curated by New Orleans native, Katrina survivor, and programmer Maya S. Cade and critic and programmer K. Austin Collins, also explores how Katrina became the blueprint for who is protected in the aftermath of natural and unnatural disasters, as enduring infrastructural failures and climate catastrophes continue to ravage the country and the world.
When the World Broke Open traverses early cinematic renderings of the Gulf Coast; music-infused accounts of America’s greatest export, jazz; devastating filmic studies from the eye of the hurricane during the storm; and Hollywood blockbusters and documentaries made in the storm’s aftermath to center a monumental fracture point that has spilled over into every aspect of American life 20 years later. With cinema as a guide, the series contextualizes the unimaginable cost of abandoning entire communities, as well as the renewal of the human spirit—and the soul of a city—that persists in the face of this abandonment.
Guest curated by Maya S. Cade, film programmer, and K. Austin Collins, critic and programmer. Organized at MoMA by Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, and Francisco Valente, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Film.
Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Gund through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
