I remember Adrienne as one of the most erudite and passionate cheerleaders a filmmaker could have.

Adrienne was always a friend and a supporter of my work. We had so many fun times together. Miss her a lot.--Richard Peña, Director Emeritus, New York Film Festival

Adrienne was a very special person with an amazing eye for talent.  It was a pleasure to work with her these many years and we will forever be grateful for her extraordinary help in bringing the 1990/91 retrospective of our Yiddish feature film collection to MOMA.  Her fierce determination to introduce new works of cinema were legendary. I fondly recall a few days that she spend with us here in Boston when she stayed at my home in Brookline, MA.  
Sharon Pucker Rivo, National Center for Jewish Film.


We met in the 1960's when she would visit a film class Bill Everson and I were teaching at SVA, and remained friends over the years.
Adrienne was always  a charming, positive, intelligent and open
to all film ideas and film makers. I and the Film World learned a great deal from her. For me, she was a beautiful human being engaged in the work she loved and brought her knowledge and unbound enthusiasm to everything and everyone she engaged with.
The lat time we met, I joyfully remember giving her a hug at BAM

Everett Aison

A life well lived!!!  
Let's honor Adrienne's memory by, each of us in our own way, working as hard to defend great cinema as she did throughout her life.   
Adrienne was always kind and effusive, and a role model for me and I'm sure many others.  - Wendy Lidell

My Aunt Adrienne meant more to me, my mom and my sister than we could ever even begin to articulate. We love her and will miss her with all our hearts.

My Aunt Adrienne meant more to me, my mom and my sister than we could ever even begin to articulate.  We love her and will miss her with all our hearts. 

My first association with Adrienne was long ago—MoMA, early 80s—but she made such a strong and lasting impression that she still counts as a major influence on my life. I was a pipsqueak in my 20s working as the press rep for the MoMA film department. She was the passionate force for global cinema that everybody knows and loves and is writing about here. Of course I learned a lot about film from her, but more important, I learned that a dedicated and serious intellectual can also be funny, irreverent, eccentric, and warm (and generous—I still have and wear two sweaters she passed on to me during a closet-cleaning forty years ago). That big soul of Adrienne’s has stuck with me all these years. 

In April of next year, it would have been 20 years since I met Adrienne for the first time. I will never forget how independent and impressive I thought she was. She knew exactly what she wanted.  
Such a nice and generous person. I will miss her dearly. 

Adrienne was the first boss I had after moving to New York in 1980.  I heard through grapevine that the MoMA Film Department was looking for a project coordinator for a summer-long series on Indian  film in 1981, starting with a Satyajit Ray retrospective, followed by  the history of Indian cinema, and new Indian cinema.  Adrienne figured out that I loved film from years hanging out at the Telegraph Repertory Cinema in Berkeley, but more importantly for her, I had dealt with Indian bureaucracy from my time as a graduate student in Delhi.  It was the start of a wonderful period of my life, and I owe it all to Adrienne.  May she rest in peace in a cinematheque in heaven.  

I will always love and be grateful for the incredible kindness and generosity of spirit that Adrienne showed me when I was a neophyte film festival attendee in the early 1990s. This smart, feisty, and funny mother hen took me under her wing made sure that I knew I was a real member of the film flock. And as our company started to release films, she was always our fan and friend. I am so sorry this bright light of a human being is no longer shining... but her glow remains in so many of us who loved her. 

Adrienne was the best friend to everybody in the film world. She had a passion for film, food, and friends. Wherever we met in the world, and whichever film festival, lunch or dinner with her was always the highlight of the week. She was brilliant, opinionated, and just a wonderful confidant. I will miss her.

Dear Adrienne, 




I will miss you so much, more and more , every day that goes by. We had so many wild adventures in Sicily and we saw so many films together in New York and in Bologna. I learnt about your taste and programming philosophy working on the Diva retrospective with you. While we were in Rome, sitting in Piazza del Popolo, you told me stories about Jean Rouch and the Franchina family; we attended Alberto Sordi's b-day together with the great-grand-niece of Pina Menichelli  as the organizer.  We partied with William Weaver and reminisced on Pier Paolo Pasolini.  I took you to Venice and showed you all my favorite spots, but your true Italian home was always and only the Rome of the fifties. You have been one of my best and closest friends for decades. Thank you. 

From the time I first met her--as a teenager--Adrienne was always an inspiration and a source of support for me. We worked as colleagues for a number of years at New Directors/New Films, and shared many good times and memories. She was a major pillar of New York film culture for many decades--Richard Peña

My first meeting with Adrienne is one I’ll never forget. I had just made my first feature film. There was a selection committee screening at MoMA. As a first time filmmaker I was unsure of what I’d made, uncertain about this journey I was setting out on, and wondering what I was doing in New York, all the way from Bombay. 

Adrienne came out wearing her dark glasses, pointed a finger at me and said in her classic style, “where have you been hiding”? 

Those words will always remain with me. 

Her passion for cinema, for the undiscovered films, for nurturing new voices, and in her own way encouraging filmmakers like me will remain an indelible memory. 

She selected “English, August” for New Directors New Films at MoMA. 

Adrienne was an extraordinary person, a passionate and rebellious visionary. She was my first boss at The Museum of Modern Art where she elevated the screening of films to the level of a major exhibition  program respected worldwide, and, when there were few other venues for the showing of "old" films or for the discovery of new ones  in this city, she gave to New York marvelous opportunities  to celebrate the art of cinema.  Cinephiles owe her a debt of gratitude. May she rest  in peace.  

OBITUARY

Adrienne Phyllis Johnson Mancia

June 5, 1927 – December 11, 2022

Gutterman and Musicant Jewish Funeral Directors

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