Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film at MoMA, has steered the film department on a more youthful, indie, diverse and tech-savvy course. Picture credit: Marc Ohrem-Leclef

Instead of academic film world references, Roy brought a degree in political science from the University of California, San Diego. He studied art history and French literature at Paris’ Sorbonne Nouvelle, and learned film programming by doing rather than studying.

Roy stumbled into movie programming when he moved to New York to become a musician and an actor. While waiting for a break, Roy volunteered for Mix – an annual gay and lesbian experimental film festival held at the Anthology Film Archive in New York's East Village. Two years of volunteering led to a staff position at the festival. In the fourth year, Roy was appointed the executive director of the Mix festival.

It worked out for Roy, because he met a lot of filmmakers and developed film connections. John Hanhart, who was a senior film curator at New York’s Guggenheim Museum and a fan of the Mix festival, became Roy’s mentor. Eventually in 2000, Roy joined Guggenheim as a film program manager. He later headed the programming of the prestigious Hamptons International Film Festival before joining MoMa.

Roy now presides over one of the leading film collections in the world with an archive of 22,000 films. He has cultivated new audiences and drawn them through the archive’s doors.

Braingainmag.com put Roy through a rapid fire round.

1. Were you a bold pick for MoMa?

   I came to a department with tremendous history. It's a big responsibility to keep the historical legacy intact. Certainly, I think my appointment reflected Moma’s mission which is partly to re-explore definitions of modernity. I am from a different generation than most of my colleagues in the museum so it's an opportunity to bring the contemporary, the past and cross-cultural lines together. MoMa’s film department is the gold standard of film in a museum context. But I understood I was chosen to bring a new perspective. My generation is nurtured by independent cinema which is critical.


   It is also important thing to recognize MoMa is a very American institution. As a child of an Indian immigrant father and an American mother of Dutch ancestry I bring a very traditional in a way American experience to the job which involves assimilating lots of different cultures.

2. What inspired your love for cinema?

   My love for cinema grew out of the fact that it was a rare treat when growing up. My grandfather was converted by missionaries in India and my father was raised in an Orthodox fashion. As a result, we really didn't go to the movies much. There were very few films that we were actually allowed to see so going to the movies became a very special thing! I think that desire to spend more time in a movie theatre always filtered into my appreciation for cinema.

3. Where do your diplomacy and organizational skills come from? 

   I was supposed to be a lawyer, and I studied political science, so, essentially I earned a degree in bullshit placement. It’s a skill set that comes in handy. Not lying or misleading, but diplomacy is important in getting what you need done, done. Imperiousness is a completely outmoded way of operating. The “goddammit, don’t you know who I am?” era is long gone.

4. Your father was a great believer in the American Dream.

   My father, a sociology professor, immigrated to the US in the mid-60s. He has one of those great immigrant stories. He comes from a family of 13 in Madras. He got himself an education and moved to the US, married a six-foot blond and now has two kids who are taking that American Dream to another level.

Uttara Choudhury is Editor, North America for TV 18’s Firstpost news site and a writer for Forbes India. In 1997, she went on the British Chevening Scholarship to study Journalism at the University of Westminster, in London.