Twenty-six years ago, at the 35th New York Film Festival, curators Gavin Smith and Mark McElhatten introduced the festival's experimental sidebar, Views from the Avant-Garde.While their inaugural program featured names like Stan Brakhage, Gregory Markopoulos, and Nathaniel Dorsky, it also opened a space where voices experimenting with cinema's language might meet new audiences. In the festival's intervening years, the vocabulary around this type of cinema evolved and Views from the Avant-Garde has since transformed, first into Projections and then into its most recent incarnation, Currents.When Currents was first announced in 2020, it was also the first year of Docs in Orbit, and every year since, it’s been where we have encountered gems of the festival to bring into conversation, such as My Mexican Bretzel by Nuria Giménez, A Night of Knowing Nothing by Payal Kapadia, and Rewind & Play by Alain Gomis.So, for this year’s edition, we decided to focus more intently on their programming to get a behind-the-scenes look at their curatorial approach. In today's episode, I sit down with the curators of Currents at the 61st New York Film Festival. Our guests are Rachel Rakes, Ali Nash, and Tyler Wilson. They put together an exciting collection of films, which we'll explore, and what sets Currents among other programs in New York and abroad. Moderated by Emile KleinFor show notes visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit for updates.