The 21st century opened the world with flip phones, file sharing (Napster), dial up Internet. From 18 April to 14 June, Eye Filmmuseum celebrates the 25th anniversary of that spectacular year for film with 25 movies that were released in 2001. From the reflections on AI and its cultural imagination in Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, through Richard Linklater’s philosophically-tinged Waking Life, to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo, Eye’s 2001 is a programme as iconic as the year itself.
Seen from 2026, Gen Z and Alpha carry the memory of 2001 with a bittersweet nostalgia without being (consciously) experiencing it, with Y2K clothing, analogue technology – a world before social media. The programme includes the transitional period between analogue and digital not only in stories, but in format: films with early CGI animation, later released in 35 mm prints, among them is Lucrecia Martel’s La ciénaga (“The Swamp”).
2001 was not only a year of technological transition, but a turning point in culture and politics, marked by the terror of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan that changed the world. Before, Western Culture was full of irony and optimism, with movies like Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie or Hayao Miyazaki’s animated classic Spirited Away. After the rupture, everything shifted as the release of Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko was delayed due to the 9/11 attacks. Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar, shot before 9/11, acquired a meaning in the aftermath of the events.
Eye’s 2001 programme is relevant today, both in terms of artificial intelligence, social issues, and aesthetics. Some of the special performances in clothing and Y2K fashion can be seen in Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World, as well as in the depiction of sexual transgression in Michael Haneke’s La pianiste. The only movie released in 2025 is Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza, assembled from three MiniDV tapes from a 2001 visit to the Gaza Strip.
Full programme can be found here: 2001: Eye
For the movie buffs – here are the screenings on 35 mm screens from the Eye’s collection:
- Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
- Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko
- Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl
- Nanouk Leopold’s Îles flottantes (‘Floating Islands’)
- Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar
- Lucrecia Martel’s La ciénaga (‘The Swamp’)
- Michael Haneke’s La pianiste (‘The Piano Teacher’)
- Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millenium Mambo
- David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
- Richard Linklater’s Waking Life
- Tsai Ming-liang’s What Time Is It There?
- Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (‘And Your Mother Too’)
