To Save and Project ’26: The Long Way Home (Remastered and Expanded)

Boris Grebenshchikov was no Dean Reed—and not just because his name is so much more difficult to spell. Unlike the American pseudo-defector, Grebenshchikov never submitted his lyrics to the Soviet censors for approval. He remains a true rock & rebel. Grebenshchikov also might have been a crossover star in America, but it just didn’t quite work out. The late, great filmmaker Michael Apted followed Grebenshchikov during his bid for breakout Glasnost fame in the long unavailable documentary The Long Way Home, which screens with a new afterward (directed by Steven Lawrence & Susanne Rostock) during the 2026 To Save and Project festival at MoMA.

During the 1980s, Grebenshchikov worked outside the official state system, but he was enormously popular. Consequently, it made sense for CBS Records to sign him, with plans to capitalize on the Glasnost-driven publicity. However, the project appears to run out of steam during the recording sessions. It wasn’t for a lack of musical support. Grebenshchikov’s album was produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, who recruited Annie Lennox and Chrissie Hynde to sing on some tracks. However, Grebenshchikov often confused the engineers, changing his concept for songs midway through.

Ultimately, the moment might have already passed. CBS booked Grebenshchikov on Letterman, but they had little stock in the field. His Russian fans were resistant to the English lyrics while his pronounced influences from Russian and Celtic folk music might have been too exotic for American tastes. Yet, the moment was real. 80s kids will recall Pepsi airing Russian-themed commercials in America.

In fact, Grebenshchikov’s music, as documented in Apted’s original film, is consistently interesting, because he has a distinctive style. He also lived up to rock’s rebel roots, by calling out the hypocrisies of Russian society. Clearly, he paid an economic price, because his living quarters did not match the volume of his fanbase. Yet, Apted treads carefully when politics are addressed—presumably in the spirit of Glasnost reconciliation.

To Save and Project ’26: Free Jazz on Film

Jazz hasn’t been considered popular music since the mid-1940’s. Even so, Free Jazz has always been and probably shall always be jazz’s least commercial style. Yet, like all jazz musicians, Free Jazz artists consistently find greener pastures abroad. Not surprisingly, most (or perhaps all) of these Free Jazz short documentaries were filmed on foreign soil. Cecil Taylor had a high-profile concert gig in Paris. Archie Shepp was touring Africa. Plus, Sun Ra might have been playing on the planet Saturn—at least in spirit. Yet, their music—though free—is more accessible than you might expect, when their respective films screen today as part of the “Free Jazz on Film” program, during MoMA’s 2026 To Save and Project festival at MoMA.

Phil Niblock’s The Magic Sun might even be more experimental than Sun Ra’s music. Using stark reverse negative black-and-white cinematography and extreme close-ups, Niblock captures Sun Ra and his Arkestra in performance. It is not your grandpa’s big band jazz, but it is big—and a band. It is also funky and psychedelic. This is a great example of why Sun Ra was a huge influence on bands like Sonic Youth.

At seventeen minutes, it certainly constitutes a short film. However, you could also think of it as the Sun Ra video that should have aired on MTV.  Even today, it looks cutting edge, but it also serves as relatively easy entry point into Free Jazz. However, Sun Ra was always just as much a big band leader as he was a Free Jazz artist. Indeed, his final A&M records were largely straight-ahead, but still funky.

Ghaouti Bendeddouche’s We Came Back (Archie Shepp Chez Tauregs) has always been hard to find but the live recording of the Panafrican Festival performance it documents has been much easier to get your hands on. It was a celebration of culture and radical politics, but fortunately the speeches and sloganeering Bendeddouche excerpts are relatively bland out of context.

Arguably, this features the most stirring music of the three-film block. Shepp starts out quite free, playing with the anguished expressiveness that defined his style. However, the rhythm and instrumentation of the Yoruba and Berber musicians accompanying him impose structure that brings out the best in Shepp.

In fact, Shepp could play it straight quite eloquently. His two duo standards albums with Horace Parlan, Trouble in Mind and Goin’ Home, are bluesey and truly beautiful.

Gerard Patris’s Great Rehearsals: Cecil Taylor in Paris is exactly what the title suggests. This is Taylor at his prime, with an accomplished and highly compatible combo, including Jimmy Lyons on alto, Alan Silva on bass, and Andrw Cyrille on drums. This is as free as the triple feature is going to get, but the first two films should partially acclimate viewers.

To Save and Project ’26: The Ozu Diaries

His films are distinguished by their quiet calm, which rather counterintuitively makes him one of the most easily identifiable auteurs of the 20^th Century. You can recognize a Yasujiro Ozu film in under 30 seconds. Even sixty-plus years after his death. nobody does family dramas better. Daniel Raim pays tribute to the master, using his own words in The Ozu Diaries, which screens tomorrow as part of the 2026 To Save and Project festival at MoMA.

After his death, scholars discovered dozens of Ozu’s journals, from which most of Koi Ohori’s narration was drawn. As the revered filmmaker recalled in his journals, when he fell in love with cinema, it was not considered respectable work by Japanese society. Young Ozu also rarely saw his father, who left seeking work in Tokyo, much like Chishu Ryu’s character in There Was a Father.

Fulfilling his childhood ambition, Ozu did indeed find employment in the movie industry. Ironically, he allegedly earned his opportunity to direct through what is now referred to as the “Curry Rice Incident, illustrated by Patrick Mate’s original manga-style art. According to the legend, Shochiku studio chairman Shiro Kido was perversely impressed by the fit the very junior Ozu threw in the company cafeteria, when served after a senior director, despite ordering first.

As cineastes probably know, Ozu was the last major Japanese director to transition from silent film to talkies. Yet, Raim’s small but distinguished battery of experts make a good case his perfection of silent techniques directly shaped his mature style. Unfortunately, Ozu’s transition to sound was also delayed by his WWII military service, which Raim chronicles at length. However, he mostly focuses on Ozu’s enlisted comradery with his friend and fellow film director Sadao Yamanaka, rather than the details of their armed duties—although he carefully establishes Ozu was transferred to Nanjing after the notorious massacre.

Although small in number, Raim’s carefully selected assembly of talking heads nicely compliment the diary voice-overs. Hearing from the great Kyoko Kagawa adds an apostolic connection to Tokyo Story, which is especially notable considering how few thesps from that era yet remain with us. In addition, we hear from accomplished filmmakers like Wim Wenders, Luc Dardenne, Tsai Ming-liang, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who all were influenced by the master, to varying degrees.