MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT doc opens 6/15 @ The Nuart June 15, 2012

In MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT, first-time director Matthew Akers follows the woman affectionately called “the grandmother of performance art” as she prepares for what may be the most important moment of her life: a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art. To be given a retrospective at one of the world's premiere museums is, for any living artist, the most exhilarating sort of milestone. For Marina, it is far more: it is the chance to finally silence the question she has been hearing over and over again for four decades: “But why is this art?” With total access granted by Abramovic and MoMA — where she sat for over 7 hours a day for 3 months silently engaging any audience member who sat opposite her — the film is a captivating cinematic journey inside the world of radical performance, and an intimate portrait of an endlessly intriguing woman who draws no distinction between life and art.

Featured in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival
Prize Winner of the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival

“A moving and masterfully constructed exploration of what makes art—or anything else—worth doing in the first place.” – Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

“Breathtaking…A genuine work of art about a person creating a genuine work of art…You immediately get the sense of how intense and, in many cases, transformative someone’s brief one-on-one moment with the Serbian performance artist must have been. The longer you observe her willing partners tremble, cry, beam or return to some primal emotional state, the more you feel yourself moved by the spectacle of two people silently bonding. The movie’s power as a potent secondhand art high is damned near peerless.” – David Fear, Time Out New York

“Sheds light on the…artist's process” – IndieWire 20 Indies You Must See Summer 2012

“A performance artist who has achieved worldwide renown, Abramović received a career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010.” – LA Times “Culture Monster”

The film’s running time is 106 minutes; it is not rated.

Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/337334759666795/