In 1979, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude proposed one of the largest public art installations in history: a “golden river” of 7,503 fabric-paneled gates in Central Park. Transcending controversy, it was finally completed in 2005. Antonio Ferrera and Albert Maysles’ film chronicles the artists’ 26-year commitment to transform the winter darkness of the park into a garden of light and color. Featuring meetings and conversations between Christo and Jeanne-Claude and government officials of the City of New York from the 1970s through 2005, THE GATES chronicles the artists’ unique passion to bring art to the people of New York.
Runtime: 98 minutes
Antonio Ferrera graduated with a degree in English, fine arts and philosophy from New York University. In 1992, he moved to Chicago to study the craft of filmmaking at Columbia College, then returned to New York to work on documentaries.
In late 2003, he became involved in a film project that started in 1979 when David and Albert Maysles began filming Christo and Jeanne-Claude as they proposed The Gates project to the City of New York. The recording of these debates and discussions continued until the project was declined in 1981 and the footage was vaulted uncut for 23 years until Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved and resurrected Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work of art.
He undertook the monumental task of directing, producing, filming, writing and editing the film with no narration or interviews about the artwork that brought New York and the world together for two weeks. The Gates debuted at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and premiered on HBO on February 26, 2008.
Robert H. Mnookin is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, faculty chair of the Program on Negotiation, and the director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project. Professor Mnookin has written or edited nine books, including Beyond Winning, and numerous scholarly articles. Before joining the Harvard faculty, Professor Mnookin was the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation, an interdisciplinary group concerned with overcoming barriers to the negotiated resolution of conflict.
Professor Mnookin received his A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1964 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968. Professor Mnookin has been a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University; a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; holder of the International Francqui Chair in Belgium; and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.
James K. Sebenius is the first Gordon Donaldson Professor at Harvard Business School and was previously on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He specializes in analyzing and advising on complex negotiations. Professor Sebenius is the co-author of The Manager as Negotiator and 3D Negotiation. He is also the author of Negotiating the Law of the Sea, as well as a number of professional journal articles.
Professor Sebeius holds a Ph.D. from Harvard in business economics, a masters degree in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford’s Engineering School, and an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt in mathematics and English. He is also a member of the Executive Committee that oversees the activities of the Program on Negotiation (PON) and is the co-chair of the 2008 PON Great Negotiator Committee.
Join us after the film for a discussion with co-director Antonio Ferrera.
Facilitated by Professors Robert Mnookin and James Sebenius.
Free admission, food and drinks!
