This weekend's worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--For a few years back in the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo represented the foci of a studio duel to make the quintessential over-the-top historical epic of their era. They each played Mata Hari within the same 12-month period, and not long afterward starred in two other films that seemed to crystallize this period in Hollywood: Garbo's 1933 classic Queen Christina (right) and Dietrich's 1934 classic disaster The Scarlet Empress. Both films screen Saturday as part of the Symphony Space's Divas! series, showcasing everything that made each woman the legends they were: poetic blends of vulnerability and sex and impermeable power. What Rouben Mamoulian accomplishes for Garbo in Queen Christina's final shot has to be seen to be believed—a close-up even a face as resonant as Dietrich's never had. That is why they call it the Golden Age, I guess.

--New York filmmaker Jennie Livingston stunned audiences in 1991 with her influential drag-queen-as-social-commentary documentary Paris is Burning, which is finally going to have its DVD release Sept. 6. Livingston will be at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater on Saturday for a screening of Paris, preceded by her quasi-musical new short "Who's The Top?" and followed by discussion with her audience. For a little more news about what Livingston has been up to, check out indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez's hot-off-the-press interview here.

--Tonight at Automotive High School in Brooklyn, Rooftop Films will host its Found Footage Film Festival. Featuring a blend of what usually turns out to be a cross-section of enthralling discoveries and repellent voyeurism (which has its own virtues, naturally), the event will screen storied classics like the rap-a-rific "Wendy's Grill Skill" and the Schwarzenegger-cuts-reeeeeeeeeallllly-loose magic of "Carnival in Rio." Hopefully everyone at Rooftop will be recovered enough from Thursday's boat-trip bender to enjoy what promises to be another charming night of filmgoing.