LA UPCOMING STUFF - NOVEMBER 2012

a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.

fri. nov. 2

raiders of the lost ark MIDNIGHT @ nuart
everybody in our family FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
a hijacking FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
sunrise FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
kid-thing FREE 6:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
pieta FREE 6:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
something in the air FREE 7 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
post tenebras lux FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
life of pi in 3d FREE @ afi fest @ grauman's chinese
wrong FREE 9:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
in the fog FREE 9:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
everybody's got somebody... not me FREE 10 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
reality FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 7:30 9:30 PM @ aero
alien (director's cut) MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
film TBA @ an evening with paul thomas anderson @ lacma
miss representation FREE 7 PM @ usc broccoli theatre
wake in fright 7:30 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
moonrise kingdom @ new beverly


sat. nov. 3

partner, the conformist @ ucla film archive
spires that in the sunset rise, lucky dragons @ the smell
berberian sound studio FREE 1 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
after lucia FREE 1 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
sunset blvd. FREE 3 pm @ afi fest @ grauman's chinese
the central park five FREE 3:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
beyond the hills FREE 3:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
tchoupitoulas FREE 3:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
shorts program 6 FREE 4:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
amour FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
greatest hits FREE 6:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
the most fun i've ever had with my pants on FREE 6:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
holy motors FREE 7 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
somebody up there likes me FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
west of memphis FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
caesar must die FREE 7:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5 
on the road FREE 8 pm @ afi fest @ grauman's chinese
the last step FREE 9:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
all the light in the sky FREE 9:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
ape FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
abcs of death FREE MIDNIGHT @ afi fest @ chinese 6
white fence @ satellite
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 7:30 9:30 PM @ aero
time 6:30 PM @ an evening with kim ki-duk in person @ silent movie theater
sound movies: kick that habit and twelve dark noons 8 PM @ epfc
uzi rash FREE 6 PM @ permanent records
wake in fright 10 PM @ silent movie theater
moonrise kingdom 3:30 7:30 PM @ new beverly


sun. nov. 4

the girl on a motorcycle FREE 8 PM @ biker movie night @ satellite
the last emperor 7 PM @ ucla film archive
tchoupitoulas FREE 1 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
reality FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
our children FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
the last step FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
war witch FREE 3:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
something in the air FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
after lucia FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
all the light in the sky FREE 4:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
antiviral FREE 6:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
barbara FREE 6:15 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
like someone in love FREE 6:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
the hunt FREE 7 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
pearblossom hwy FREE 7 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
leviathan FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
in another country FREE @ afi fest @ chinese 5
room 237 FREE 9 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
pieta FREE 10 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
greatest hits FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 7:30 9:30 PM @ aero
spring summer fall winter... and spring 7:45 PM, 3-iron @ silent movie theater
rose lowder: colorful frames @ velaslavasay panorama
our children FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges
the hospital 3:00 7:30 PM, ...and justice for all 5:05 9:35 PM @ new beverly


mon. nov. 5

the poetics of place: films by rose lowder 8:30 PM @ redcat
the central park five FREE 1:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
west of memphis FREE 1:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
in the fog FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
42nd street FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
somebody up there likes me FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
wrong FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
beyond the hills FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
a royal affair FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
post tenebras lux FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
starlet FREE 7 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
kon-tiki FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
tabu FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
tey FREE @ afi fest @ chinese 4
berberian sound studio FREE 9:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
the hunt FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
the sapphires FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
a hijacking FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
sun don't shine FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 6 PM @ aero
dial m for murder 3D 8 PM @ aero
bad guy @ silent movie theater
wake in fright 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
the hospital, ...and justice for all @ new beverly


tue. nov. 6

cosmonauts @ the echo
the caine mutiny 1 PM @ lacma
holy motors FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
the rules of the game FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
everybody in our family FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
war witch FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
like someone in love FREE 2:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
kon-tiki FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ grauman's chinese
caesar must die FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
tabu FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
amour FREE 4:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
everybody's got somebody... not me FREE 4:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
the sapphires FREE @ afi fest @ chinese 1
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 7:30 9:30 PM @ aero
election (1999) FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges


wed. nov. 7

surname viet given name nam 8:30 PM @ redcat
war don don FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark
room 237 FREE 1:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
ape FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
vivre sa vie FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
pearblossom hwy FREE 1:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
barbara FREE 4 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
tey FREE 4:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 6
sun don't shine FREE 4:45 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
our children FREE 6:45 pm @ afi fest @ egyptian
antiviral FREE 7:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 4
kid-thing FREE @ afi fest @ chinese 5
ginger and rosa FREE 8 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
starlet FREE 10 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 5
the most fun i've ever had with my pants on FREE 10:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 3
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 7:30 9:30 PM @ aero
the monkey talks @ silent movie theater
wake in fright 9:40 PM @ silent movie theater


thu. nov. 8

cat power @ palladium
ginger and rosa FREE 1:15 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 1
shorts program 6 FREE 1:30 pm @ afi fest @ chinese 2
episodes of "alfred hitchcock presents" FREE @ egyptian
a liar's autobiography: the untrue story of monty python's graham chapman in 3D 6 PM @ aero
dial m for murder 3D 8 PM @ aero
the people's crisis 8 PM @ epfc
an evening with fred worden FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark
architecture and cinema: new and rare films part three @ schindler house
impulse to archive 7 PM @ moca grand ave


fri. nov. 9

miami connection MIDNIGHT @ nuart
woggles @ satellite
machine-man: the musical mayhem of raymond scott 8:30 PM @ redcat
all ages: the boston hardcore film @ spielberg @ egyptian
our children @ aero
aliens MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
fear and desire, killer's kiss @ lacma
sic alps, crazy band @ highland park american legion hall
the set-up FREE 8 PM @ art share l.a.
motor psycho, faster pussycat kill kill @ new beverly


sat. nov. 10

the sea and cake @ bootleg
all ages: the boston hardcore film @ spielberg @ egyptian
hitchcock, psycho @ egyptian
boogie nights, punch-drunk love @ aero
the killing 5 PM @ lacma
paths of glory @ lacma
silent cry 8 PM @ epfc
mark sultan @ blue star
dirt dress @ the smell
motor psycho 4:10 7:30 PM, faster pussycat kill kill 5:45 9:05 PM @ new beverly


sun. nov. 11

sneakers, field of dreams @ egyptian
magnolia @ aero
neonates @ the smell
vixen 3:50 7:30 PM, supervixens 5:20 9:00 PM @ new beverly


mon. nov. 12

protest music films FREE 6 PM @ documental @ unurban
night control, bachsung, lessnesses @ pehrspace
vixen, supervixens @ new beverly


tue. nov. 13

two women @ egyptian
hard eight @ aero
wild gals of the naked west, mudhoney @ new beverly


wed. nov. 14

sister @ laemle noho
caesar must die 7 PM @ egyptian
wild gals of the naked west, mudhoney @ new beverly


thu. nov. 15

el ten eleven @ the echo
we won't grow old together @ new beverly
rear window, the man who knew too much @ egyptian
mystery kung fu movie (feat. q&a w/ rza), the man with the iron fists @ silent movie theater


fri. nov. 16

jon brion @ largo
we won't grow old together @ new beverly
tame impala @ el rey
gwen owens, roy ellis @ northern soul & boss sound revue @ echoplex
alien 3 (assembly cut) MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
spartacus @ lacma
the films of john smith 8 PM @ epfc
the hidden fortress FREE 8 PM @ art share l.a.
kool keith @ los globos
everybody has a plan @ egyptian
allah-las @ del monte speakeasy
a man vanishes @ silent movie theater
sixteen candles, the breakfast club @ grauman's chinese


sat. nov. 17

tame impala @ fonda
we won't grow old together @ new beverly
lolita @ lacma
recent work by monica gazzo 8 PM @ epfc
clandestine childhood @ egyptian
the tong man @ spielberg @ egyptian
diaz: don't clean up this blood 5 PM @ aero
miami connection MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
a man vanishes 4:00 10:00 PM @ silent movie theater


sun. nov. 18

chinese take-out, the last elvis @ egyptian
hail @ silent movie theater
thee cormans 5 PM @ dangerfields 3
a man vanishes 3 PM, the pirates of bubuan @ silent movie theater
a man vanishes 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater


mon. nov. 19

reconversao 8:30 PM @ redcat
wall street (1929) FREE @ ucla film archive
a man vanishes 10 PM @ silent movie theater


tue. nov. 20

the wild one 1 PM @ lacma
lost highway FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark
the big sleep 8 PM @ greg proops film club @ silent movie theater
a man vanishes 5 PM @ silent movie theater
the comic @ new beverly


wed. nov. 21

a man vanishes 9:50 PM @ silent movie theater


fri. nov. 23

tamaryn, tropic of cancer @ echo
holy motors 6:30 9:15 PM @ silent movie theater
alien: resurrection MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
dance hall racket FREE 8 PM @ art share l.a.
the new world @ egyptian
fast times at ridgemont high, back to the future @ grauman's chinese
all watched over by machines of loving grace @ epfc


sat. nov. 24

three stooges big screen event 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre
holy motors 7:00 9:50 PM @ silent movie theater
new works salon vii 8 PM @ epfc
the loons @ hollywood studio bar & grill
miami connection MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater


sun. nov. 25

merx, german army, net shaker @ part time punks @ the echo
holy motors 7:00 9:50 PM @ silent movie theater
vertigo (70mm) @ egyptian
lawrence of arabia @ aero


mon. nov. 26

print generation FREE @ ucla james bridges
gap dream, cosmonauts FREE @ echoplex
holy motors 7:30 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
romancing the stone, used cars @ aero


tue. nov. 27

dissolution FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark
holy motors 7:30 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
kon-tiki @ aero


wed. nov. 28

holy motors 7:30 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
rashomon, drunken angel @ new beverly


thu. nov. 29

charles bradley & the menahan street band @ ucla royce hall
stevie FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark
the river FREE 5 PM @ the crank @ ucla james bridges
holy motors 7:30 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater
beasts of the southern wild FREE @ lacma
days of heaven, breathless (1983) @ aero
the ring (1927) @ ampas samuel goldwyn
pola x @ silent movie theater
rashomon, drunken angel @ new beverly


fri. nov. 30

moon duo @ casbah (SD)
dr. strangelove @ lacma
fragmentation and flux in recent haitian video 8 PM @ epfc
morocco FREE 8 PM @ art share l.a.
twentieth century, planes trains and automobiles @ new beverly
pull my daisy, in search of "on the road" @ beats on film opening party @ silent movie theater


sat. dec. 1

moon duo @ down & out
audition, black peter @ ucla film archive
2001: a space odyssey (70mm) @ lacma
back to the future, who framed roger rabbit? @ aero
boy meets girl 5 PM @ silent movie theater
a bucket of blood @ silent movie theater
bombon FREE 6 PM @ permanent records
the devil probably, le pont du nord @ new beverly


sun. dec. 2

the wild ride FREE 8 PM @ biker movie night @ satellite
no man of her own 7 PM, the mating season @ ucla film archive
a christmas story 2 PM @ orpheum
mauvais sang 6:30 PM @ silent movie theater
on the road FREE (w/ rsvp) @ silent movie theater
the devil probably, le pont du nord @ new beverly


mon. dec. 3

recent work from anthology film archive FREE @ ucla film archive
shadows 8 PM, johnny staccato @ silent movie theater
la vacanza 3 PM @ hriff @ new beverly
nerosubianco 9:40 PM @ hriff @ new beverly


tue. dec. 4

the incredible indelible films of manuel delanda @ silent movie theater
burroughs "cut-up" films 9:45 PM, naked lunch @ silent movie theater
dropout @ hriff @ new beverly
manos: the hands of fate 9:30 PM @ hriff @ new beverly


wed. dec. 5

the phantom carriage @ silent movie theater
it's such a beautiful day 8:30 PM @ hriff @ new beverly


thu. dec. 6

veronika krausas' music & films FREE 7 PM @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque
dropout 2 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios
tempo lavorativo / tempo libero 8 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios
la vacanza 9:30 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios


fri. dec. 7

ornette: made in america @ new beverly
all over me @ ucla film archive
altered states MIDNIGHT @ nuart
a clockwork orange @ lacma
scarface (1983) @ grauman's chinese


sat. dec. 8

the swiss family skiiers, thee tee pees @ 5 star bar
ornette: made in america @ new beverly
barry lyndon @ lacma


sun. dec. 9

ornette: made in america @ new beverly
grass widow @ the echo
mtns. @ the smell


mon. dec. 10

ornette: made in america @ new beverly
pxl this 22 FREE 7:00 9:00 PM @ documental @ unurban


tue. dec. 11

ornette: made in america @ new beverly


wed. dec. 12

ornette: made in america @ new beverly
thrones @ smell
amour FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges


thu. dec. 13

ornette: made in america @ new beverly
king tuff @ the echo
la air: pablo valencia FREE 8 PM @ epfc
thrones, peter kolovos @ dem passwords
nothing like chocolate 6 PM @ hriff @ bellevarado studios


fri. dec. 14

wooden shjips, trans am @ echoplex
the shining @ lacma
king tuff @ center for the arts eagle rock
sullivan's travels, o brother where art thou? @ new beverly


sat. dec. 15

ty segall FREE 6 PM @ permanent records
ty segall, pangea @ el rey
loves of a blonde, the fireman's ball @ ucla film archive
full metal jacket 5 PM @ lacma
sullivan's travels 3:10 PM, o brother where art thou? @ new beverly
house of games 8 PM @ new beverly


sun. dec. 16

ty segall, bleached, audacity @ the observatory


fri. dec. 21

jon brion @ largo
psychic ills @ echo


sat. dec. 22

the loons @ bar pink (SD)


fri. dec. 28

the princess bride MIDNIGHT @ nuart
zongo junction @ the mint


sat. dec. 29

the greatest cartoons ever 2:00 7:00 PM @ alex theatre


mon. dec. 31

melvins, redd kross @ the alexandria


sat. jan. 12

the warlocks, cosmonauts @ bootleg


sun. jan. 20

budos band @ echoplex


sat. feb. 9

back to the future @ electric dusk drive-in


sun. feb. 10

moonbeams @ echoplex





WHAT IT IS:



AFTER LUCIA
DIRECTOR Michel Franco, 102 MIN
Roberto and his daughter, Alejandra, travel to Mexico City to begin a new life after the death of his wife, Lucia. Unable to cope with their grief and the pace of the unfamiliar city, the two proceed with their new lives at work and school, communicating less and turning inward. When Alejandra becomes the center of repulsive taunting and bullying, she remains silent to protect her father from further pain. This sparks continuous cruel abuse and humiliation from her classmates. Roberto is pushed to his limit when Alejandra disappears and the truth of her mistreatment is revealed. Probing the causes of malice and violence, Michel Franco's second feature brilliantly juxtaposes a steady reflexive camera with his protagonist's passivity in the face of brutal torture. Winner of the Un Certain Regard Category at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, this exquisitely original story details the sorrow and distress that ultimately leads a heartbroken father to the edge. —Dilcia Barrera


ALL AGES: THE BOSTON HARDCORE FILM
2012, 89 min, USA, Dir: Drew Stone
Drew Stone’s raw yet affectionate documentary explores the early Boston hardcore music scene from 1981-1984, delving into the social and communal aspects of the era. The tight-knit culture and straight-edge, DIY ethic of the time are bolstered by the never-before-seen archival footage, photographs, interviews and dramatizations that make up the body of this exciting, appropriately unpolished testament to an important, localized era in American music.  Discussion following with director Drew Stone and musicians Dave Smalley (DYS, Dag Nasty, All, Down By Law) (Nov. 9 only), Jonathan Anastas (DYS, Slapshot) (Nov. 9 only), Jaime Sciarappa (SS Decontrol), and music supervisor Donna Lee (Nov. 10 only).


All Over Me (1997)
"...tough, compassionate and true." - San Francisco Chronicle
Directed by Alex Sichel
Alex Sichel’s penetrating feature charts a young lesbian’s sojourn of self-discovery. Alison Folland is pitch perfect as Claude, a teenager whose wish to start a band runs aground of her growing attraction for friend and potential band-mate, self-destructive Ellen. One of only a few lesbian features to receive a general release, the film is an emblem of its time, featuring music of Sleater-Kinney, Ani DiFranco, and Babes in Toyland.
Producer: Dolly Hall. Screenwriter: Sylvia Sichel. Cinematographer: Joe DeSalvo. Editor: Sabine Hoffman. Cast: Alison Folland, Tara Subkoff, Cole Hauser, Wilson Cruz, Ann Dowd. 35mm, color, 90 min. 


ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY
DIRECTOR Joe Swanberg, 78 MIN | NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Joe Swanberg returns to AFI FEST following last year's Filmmaker Spotlight with a tale direct from Hollywood's backyard. Jane Adams plays a woman living in a house perched precariously on stilts above the beach in Malibu who clings to her life's ambitions in much the same way. With her age exempting her from more and more acting opportunities, her future is uncertain. That's when her young niece — a superb Sophia Takal — comes for a weekend stay. The film captures their night conversations, fears and stories that emerge in the witching hours. Swanberg has become a master at eliciting inspired performances from his actors. Here, he's working at the height of his powers and, with Adams, he's clearly tapped into an actor with creative reserves. Negotiating the language and relationships of 21st century Americans, Swanberg's alchemy is at its best. —Lane Kneedler.


ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE
The best way to spend your Black Friday is seeing British cinematic polymath Adam Curtis', All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. His latest film is a harrowing look at capitalism and colonialism through Curtis' trademark archival BBC footage and pop music collage. The film is made up of three sections exploring the idea that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world—a world where a new kind of global capitalism could thrive free of all risk. The best kind of capitalist horror movie, Adam Curtis examines ideas from disparate strands of society and shows how eerily connected they are through the shaky joint logic of political, technological, and scientific thought. It'll put a healthy fear of capitalism in you and, in all likelihood, prevent you from enjoying Black Friday ever again. 180 minutes, video.


A MAN VANISHES
What at first purports to be a documentary on the missing person problem in overcrowded Japan develops into Imamura's most brilliant illustration of the absurdity of "objective cinema." Using only a small crew and no cast as such, Imamura follows up on one of hundreds of missing persons reports filed with the police. He interviews the missing man's family, employers, acquaintances, and his fiancée, who has filed the report thinking that her own sister has murdered the man. The film takes on a surreal aspect when the fiancée loses interest in the murder and takes a strong liking to the interviewer himself. Using sync sound and hidden camera techniques to blur fact and fiction filmmaking long before it was trendy to do so, Imamura effects the final breakdown of cinema verité in the film's audacious final sequence. 1967, 130 min.


AMOUR
DIRECTOR Michael Haneke, 127 MIN
AMOUR won Michael Haneke his second Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Haneke also received the prize for his last film, THE WHITE RIBBON, which screened at AFI FEST in 2009. With AMOUR, Haneke gives us a masterpiece of compassion and tenderness told through the brilliant performances of two acting legends, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. They play a married couple in their 80s whose long, happy routine of life is sharply interrupted when a stroke causes one of them to gradually succumb to paralysis and dementia. The couple's reaction is to retreat from the world — to the point of not even allowing their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) into their apartment. She ultimately has to force her way inside in order to find out what is going on with her parents. The film is fearless in the way in which it embraces the impending tragedy. Without cliché or cynicism, Haneke gives us permission to believe that unconditional love will endure after death. —Jacqueline Lyanga


ANTIVIRAL
DIRECTOR Brandon Cronenberg, 108 MIN
Brandon Cronenberg's debut feature ANTIVIRAL takes us to an alternate reality where society's obsession with celebrity has grown exponentially. Syd March works in a clinic specializing in disease sales: harvesting infections from celebrities and selling them to their legions of fans. Syd moonlights by trafficking the latest viruses to piracy groups, smuggling them out of the clinic in his own body. When he infects himself with a disease that killed superstar Hannah Geist, he must solve the mystery surrounding her death before it leads to his own. Cronenberg expertly combines elements of sci-fi and body horror to examine the zeitgeist and explores it to frightening proportions, leaving the audience to reflect upon their own part in today's celebrity culture. With ANTIVIRAL, Cronenberg has made a name for himself that escapes the shadow of his father and has secured his place on the list of directors to watch. —Jenn Murphy


APE
DIRECTOR Joel Potrykus, 86 MIN | U.S. PREMIERE
Trevor Newandyke is the epitome of post-adolescent boredom, rising in the afternoon and endlessly complaining about mundane things like the cable company. His sole ambition in life is to be a famous comedian and he devotes his entire day to rehearsing. When Trevor strikes a deal with the devil and bites into a magical apple, his lackluster life and bleak jokes take a turn into madness. Written, produced, directed and edited by Joel Potrykus, the film avoids romantic trappings and elitist jargon to engage the audience in an inventive story that is clever, comical and outrageous. Winner of two prizes at the Locarno Film Festival including Best Emerging Director and a special mention from the jury for the Best First Feature prize, APE serves up an insane youthful energy and existential intensity that sets it apart from other American independent films this year. —Dilcia Barrera


Architecture and Cinema: New and Rare Films Part Three
Acclaimed filmmaker Thom Andersen has curated a series of architecture films from around the world, which will be shown over three evenings in the Schindler House courtyard.
The third evening will feature:
Miscellania III, by Heinz Emigholz (1997–2005). Heinz Emigholz filmed some architecture and landscapes that caught his eye while he was shooting D'Annunzio's Cave and Goff in the Desert: random snatches of beauty and clarity.
Angelica Fuentes, Schindler House, by Sasha Pirker (2008)
The Future Will Not Be Capitalist, by Sasha Pirker (2010). A portrait of the French Communist Party headquarters in Paris designed by Oscar Niemeyer, built from 1966-1971 and 1978-1980, now designated a National Heritage site.
Our Cities, Our Rights, by Jean-Louis Bertucelli, text by Henri Lefebvre (1975). Henri Lefebvre's manifesto on the battle for urban space, accompanied by images of Paris filmed by Jean-Louis Bertucelli. 


Audition (Konkurs) (1964)
Directed by Miloš Forman
Forman’s influential first feature is made up of two short stories. In the first, a pair of young musicians in rival brass bands skip an important concert to attend a motorcycle race. In the second, a young female pedicurist secretly takes time off from work to attend a singing audition. Both stories whimsically illustrate the wish to transcend drab, authoritarian strictures.
Filmové studio Barrandov. Screenwriter: Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer. Cinematographer: Miroslav Ondrícek. Editor: Miroslav Hájek. Cast: Jirí Suchý, Jirí Šlitr, Markéta Krotká, Ladislav Jakim, Karel Mares. 35mm, b/w, 77 min


BAD GUY
“When trouble occurs between men and women, it generates the energy that makes the world go round.” — Kim Ki-Duk
“Bad Guy, one of the [earlier] films in Kim’s fascinating back catalog, is a kind of cocktail — simple, bitter, served straight and in an unwashed glass. The scenario’s oddball reveal is almost whimsical: a glaring thug spots a young coed in a street crowd, sits beside her and soon enough grabs her for a kiss that soldiers have to break up. She spits on him, putting the unseen gears of vengeance and obsession in motion. The impulsive, silent goon turns out to be a [pimp], and before long the girl is implicated in a pickpocketing that lands her in the whorehouse. But Bad Guy isn’t actually about revenge, Park Chan-Wook-style — the plot toys with the amour fou between captive and captor, and Kim never settles for a theme. The beguilingly Magritte-ish climax could be read either as an “Owl Creek” death fantasy or — something else, and there are moments of voyeur poetry that leave a gentle thumbprint. If anything, Bad Guy is more enigmatic than his other hyperbolic parables.” — Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice
Dir. Kim Ki-Duk, 2002, 35mm, 100 min.


BARBARA
DIRECTOR Christian Petzold, 105 MIN
Working with Christian Petzold for the fifth time, the beautiful Nina Hoss exudes raw strength, bringing layers of meaning to Petzold's naturalistic and observational style. BARBARA is a portrait of a female doctor who is transferred to a country hospital in 1980s East Germany. Despite the fact that everyone at the hospital is surprised that such an accomplished physician would take a position at such a small hospital, Barbara is unruffled, deflecting their skepticism as though this were the most natural trajectory for her career. Petzold lets the missing pieces of Barbara's back-story ripple to the surface delicately in this well-paced drama. And thriller elements emerge as Barbara allows herself to connect emotionally with a handsome fellow doctor, whom she begins to suspect may be informing on her, a new development that would interfere with her secret plans. The true tragedy of BARBARA is the story of the state-imposed exile that denied individuals the ability to determine the course of their lives. —Jacqueline Lyanga


BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO
DIRECTOR Peter Strickland, 92 MIN
From the screams of ingénues to the splitting of skulls, a cacophony of tones echoes through the hallways of BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO, showcasing the work of a quiet Englishman with an unquiet mind. Having accepted a job as sound designer on an Italian horror film, he quickly finds himself conscripted without pay by an absentee director and a tyrannical producer. Drawn in equal parts from the works of Argento and the Coen brothers, this ‘70s-set film from British director Peter Strickland trumpets a base note of existential horror while keening a treble trill of dry, cross-cultural wit. With its period-rich art direction and haunting soundtrack, the film draws us into the lurid world of the giallo (Italian pulp fiction), while building exquisite moments of tension from the most mundane moments of film production until we, too, are lost in the mix, our hearts pounding at the sound of footsteps drawing closer in the dark. —Dayan Ballweg


The Best of “Johnny Staccato” – 9:45pm
A New York counterpart to the crime-solving hipsterism of its contemporary Peter Gunn, Johnny Staccato is still riveting in ways long removed from its lone ‘59/’60 season. Cassavetes-lovers can get hours of our main man as a moody jazz combo pianist who moonlights as an unorthodox detective, and the style points go through the roof from there: amazing wardrobe, fakey sets, and superb jazz music on the soundtrack, all bubbling within overblown plots and chewy dialogue. The young, mercurial Cassavetes is a blast, updating the old ‘40s noir detective fighting a confused world to the ‘50s fresh jazz era — and the series’ parade of guest stars is equal fun, as the show’s run included one-off turns by Dean Stockwell, Cloris Leachman, Martin Landau, Mary Tyler Moore and even Gena Rowlands! As well, Cassavetes even got to direct some of the episodes, giving him the opportunity to hone the skills he would simultaneously use on the production of Shadows. Join us for a snazzy selection of nuggets from this hidden treasure of golden-era television!


BEYOND THE HILLS
DIRECTOR Cristian Mungiu, 155 MIN
After winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2007 for 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, Cristian Mungiu returns with another strong film about women and self-determination. This time the story is set in a cloistered Orthodox community in Moldavia where the nuns are outcasts, runaways from a nearby orphanage or seeking shelter from abusive husbands. The actresses who play two women at the center of this tragic story shared the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Alina (Cristina Flutur) leaves Germany and returns to Romania desperate to free the childhood friend she loves — Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) — from the confines of the archaic beliefs binding the Orthodox nuns to their leader. The Orthodox community interprets Alina's thirst for freedom as a demonic spirit, threatening to disrupt their austere life and take action. By the film's tragic end, neither Voichita nor Alina have found fulfillment or freedom. And the memories of their shared romantic past will never cease to haunt their spirits. —Jacqueline Lyanga


Black Peter (Cerny Petr) (1964)
Directed by Miloš Forman
Peter is a disaffected teenager oppressed by his new job scoping out shoplifters in a supermarket, when he’d be much happier hanging out by a swimming pool and flirting with girls. The invectives with which his boss and his father harangue him seem almost of a language other than his own. Forman’s skilled use of non-actors and improvisation gives the film a surprising and cheeky charm.
Filmové studio Barrandov. Producer: Rudolf Hájek. Screenwriter: Miloš Forman, Jaroslav Papoušek. Cinematographer: Jan Nemecek. Editor: Miroslav Hájek. Cast: Ladislav Jakim, Pavla Martinková, Jan Vostrcil, Vladimír Pucholt, Pavel Sedlacek. 35mm, b/w, 85 min. 


BREATHLESS (1983)
1983, MGM/Park Circus, 97 min, USA, Dir: Jim McBride
After killing a cop, reckless drifter Jesse (Richard Gere) goes on the run, stringing French architecture student Monica (Valerie Kaprisky) along with him in this surreal reimagining of Jean-Luc Godard’s classic A BOUT DE SOUFFLE. Both thrilling and stylistically unique, director Jim McBride’s steamy crime drama features a stellar score by legendary composer Jack Nitzsche (THE EXORCIST, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN) and music from Brian Eno, Philip Glass, and Johnny Lee Lewis. Dense with thought-provoking filmic cross-referencing, BREATHLESS is a film that seductively engrosses both the casual moviegoer and the avid cinephile. “This is the kind of movie for which you need your Filmgoer's Companion.” -Roger Ebert.


CAESAR MUST DIE
DIRECTORS Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, 76 MIN
Deep within the walls of the Roman prison Rebibbia, inmates whisper and conspire, giving new life to the timeless words of William Shakespeare as they rehearse a production of "Julius Caesar." Utilizing the device of an unfinished theater, the players — a cast comprised entirely of real-life inmates — take the story to their cells, seamlessly moving in and out of the text as they wrestle with notions of necessary crimes and the boundaries of order. By finding the drama within the process rather than the performance, the effect is nothing short of haunting. In CAESAR MUST DIE, the written word takes on an overlay of modern violence and lingering guilt while stripping these men to their very cores. This latest masterpiece from Italy's famed Taviani brothers not only serves as a deeply human document, but a caustic portrait of our own imprisoned societies, reminding us that a life without art truly is a prison. —Dayan Ballweg.  Discussion following with directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Nov. 14 screening only)


THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE
DIRECTORS Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, David McMahon, 119 MIN
Ken Burns joins daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon to tell a story based on Sarah Burns' book, "The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding." They take us back to a night in 1989 when five young black and Latino teenagers were arrested in New York City's Central Park under suspicion of committing random assaults in the park. Later that same night, a young white female jogger, who had been brutally attacked and raped, was found in the park and the immediate public outcry sparked by her discovery changed the fate of those five young men forever as they became victims of a city-wide frenzy and extreme police action. The accused men can never recapture their teenage years spent behind bars, but by telling their stories, the filmmakers remind us they will not be forgotten. This moving documentary about a miscarriage of justice remains, sadly, as relevant today as it was in 1989. —Jacqueline Lyanga


CHINESE TAKE-OUT
(UN CUENTO CHINO)
2011, 93 min, Argentina, Dir: Sebastian Borensztein
Curmudgeon Roberto (Ricardo Darin from THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES) is shaken out of his solitary daily routine of collecting absurd newspaper clippings and visiting his parents’ grave when Chinese immigrant Jun (Huang Sheng Huang) literally falls into his life out of the back of a cab. Through a series of events that go against Roberto’s better judgment, the out-of-work Jun moves in with him, which proves a nightmare for Roberto as he makes increasingly desperate (and hilarious) attempts to get rid of his new roommate. Sebastian Borensztein’s warm, endearing third feature offers a heartfelt and funny reminder that friendship can crop up between the most strange, mismatched and plain old grumpy of odd couples. With Muriel Santa Anna. Winner of Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Film at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina. In Spanish with English subtitles.


CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD
(INFANCIA CLANDESTINA)
2011, 112 min, Argentina, Dir: Benjamin Avila
Benjamin Avila’s partly autobiographical account of his upbringing - in which, at the age of 12, he was forced to assume a false identity - is a moving portrait of adolescent life in politically tumultuous 1970s Argentina. Young Juan (Teo Gutierrez Moreno) and his radical parents (Cesar Troncoso and Natalie Oreiro) enter the country separately in order to reunite with Juan’s older brother in Buenos Aires and establish a false business front. Meanwhile, Juan attempts a life of normalcy at his new middle school, crushing on classmate Maria (Violeta Palukas), all the while mentally juggling the potentially deadly situation his family faces day in and day out. Winner of the Casa de America Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Official selection of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, and Directors Fortnight at the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival. In Spanish with English subtitles.


THE COMIC
Carl Reiner directed and co-wrote this comedy-drama which tells the tale of a silent screen comedian whose talent doesn't quite outstrip his knack for self-sabotage. Billy Bright (Dick Van Dyke) narrates the story from his coffin, as he looks back on his life and career during his shabby funeral. In the early 1920s, vaudeville comic Bright goes to California to break into the movies, making a splash as he steals the show in his first short subject; he also steals Mary Gibson (Michele Lee), the leading lady, away from his director, Frank Powers (Cornel Wilde). Billy soon becomes one of the top funnymen in Hollywood after a series of successful two-reelers, and launches his own production company the same day he weds Gibson. But as Bright's star rises, his worst qualities come to the surface; he becomes an arrogant alcoholic who can't stay faithful to his wife, and while his first feature film, Forget Me Not, is a major success, his career quickly goes into a tailspin, and with the arrival of the talkies Bright is a has-been. In the 1960s, with a revival of interest in silent films, Bright is able to make a few bucks appearing in television commercials, but it doesn't take much success for his bad habits to take hold again. Reiner and Van Dyke drew inspiration from the onscreen work and off-screen lives of several silent-era funnymen for the character of Billy Bright, most notably Stan Laurel, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton; the film also features a fine supporting performance from Mickey Rooney as Billy's faithful friend and sidekick, Cockeye.  1969, USA, 35mm, 94 minutes.  directed by Carl Reiner; written by Carl Reiner, Aaron Ruben; starring Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Michele Lee, Cornel Wilde.  Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke are scheduled to appear IN PERSON to discuss the film!


DANCE HALL RACKET
Scalli (Timothy Farrell) runs a dance hall on the waterfront where lonely sailors can enjoy the company of pretty girls for a dime a dance. It's also a prime location for fencing smuggled diamonds, so Scalli keeps the hot-headed Vinnie (Lenny Bruce) in his employ as a strong-arm man. Whenever a beef arises, Vinnie can be counted on to go too far, and when one of his victims washes ashore with a dance ticket in his pocket, the customs officials put one of their men undercover to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile, a former associate of Scalli's is being released from prison. For 11 years the jailbird has kept quiet about the location of a large stash of stolen dough. Even getting his tongue cut out while in stir wouldn't convince him to spill. Scalli throws him a party, hoping to weasel some information out of him. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of offering Vinnie's girl, Rose (Honey Harlow), as a gift, and Vinnie's temper explodes into a torrent of violence that changes everybody's plans.  Dir. Phil Tucker, 1953, 60 mins.


DIAZ: DON'T CLEAN UP THIS BLOOD
2012, Fandango Portobello, 120 min, Italy, Dir: Daniele Vicari
When a slew of hardboiled cops raid the Diaz school, looking for a ring of international anarchist thugs but finding hundreds of mostly peaceful protestors sleeping, the police brutality reaches a fever pitch. Based on real events in Genoa in 2001, Daniele Vicari's hard-hitting procedural exposé stars Claudio Santamaria as Max, one of the film's few good cops, Elio Germano as an unlucky journalist, Jennifer Ulrich as a German demonstrator submitted to particularly heinous police treatment, and Davide Iacopini as the organizer of the G8 Summit. An official selection at the 2012 Berlin and Karlovy Vary international film festivals. In Italian with English subtitles.


DISSOLUTION
(HITPARKUT)
 A Film by Nina Menkes with David Fire
Followed by a Q&A with Nina Menkes, moderated by SCA Professor David James.
Dissolution (HITPARKUT) combines an almost surreal fairy-tale energy with brutal black and white realism to explore the condition of violence which permeates contemporary Israeli society. Shot in Yafo (the predominantly  Arab area of Tel Aviv), the movie follows the moral collapse and  first glimmer of redemption, of a young, morose Israeli Jew, played by David (Didi) Fire.  B&W. Running time: 88 minutes.


Episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"
To celebrate his 98th birthday, actor Norman Lloyd stops by the Egyptian Theatre for a selection of eerie classic episodes from “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Lloyd was brought to Hollywood to play a supporting part in Hitchcock's SABOTEUR (1942). The director later used Lloyd in SPELLBOUND (1945) and other films, and made him an associate producer on the successful, long-running TV show.
Episodes included in the program:
“The Jar” (1964, 48 min). Norman Lloyd directs this episode about a jar containing a mysterious mass of… something. Based on a story by Ray Bradbury.
“Man From the South” (1960, 26 min). Norman Lloyd directs this macabre episode set in a Las Vegas casino, starring an unbeatable duo of Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre. Based on a story by Roald Dahl.
“The Little Man Who Was There” (1960, 25 min). Evangelical locals think the Little Man (Norman Lloyd) might be the Devil incarnate.
“Incident in a Small Jail” (1961, 25 min). Norman Lloyd directs this bone-chilling episode following a suspected serial killer and a salesman stuck in the same house - with a lynch mob waiting outside.
“Maria” (1961, 25 min). Norman Lloyd stars as Leo Thorby, a fellow who mistakenly thinks he buys a chimp, when in fact his purchase is a woman, Maria, in a monkey costume. Things get iffy when Maria seems to be out to ruin Leo’s marriage.
Discussion after the third episode with Norman Lloyd.


AN EVENING WITH FRED WORDEN
Fred Worden has been making experimental film since the mid 1970s. Worden’s films develop out of his interest in intermittent projection as the source of cinema’s primordial powers. How a stream of still pictures passing through a projector at a speed meant to overwhelm the eyes might be harnessed to purposes other than representation or naturalism. Fred teaches film history and theory courses as well as film and video production classes at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A screening of short experimental films by Fred Worden, interspersed with a discussion between Fred Worden and SCA Professor David James.


EVERYBODY HAS A PLAN
(TODOS TENEMOS UN PLAN)
2012, 118 min, Argentina, Dir: Ana Piterbarg
Viggo Mortensen (showing an impressive command of Spanish) stars in Ana Piterbarg's subtle, mood-infused thriller as identical twin brothers Augustin and Pedro. When Pedro dies, Augustin, tired of his daily life, takes the opportunity to swap places, returning to Pedro's home in the swamplands of the Delta Tigre region and taking on his beekeeper brother's identity. But Pedro had shady business dealings on the side, which Augustin quickly learns as he becomes the target of some very dangerous, unsavory individuals. With Soledad Villamil, Sofia Gala Castiglione and Daniel Fanego. An official selection of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. In Spanish with English subtitles.


EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY
DIRECTOR Radu Jude, 107 MIN
Divorced father Marius will finally be allowed to take his five-year-old daughter Sofia on a much anticipated weekend vacation to the beach. He takes time off from school, borrows his parents' car and even buys little Sofia a stuffed octopus. Impatient to leave, Marius is told by Sofia's grandmother that his daughter is not free to go until her mother, Marius' ex-wife Otilia, returns from the salon. When Otilia walks through the door, the film veers sharply, quickly reaching a point of no return. Losing control of his emotions and the situation, Marius' anger escalates with horrifying consequences. Disguised as a family drama, EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY is a suspenseful exploration of a father being pushed to his limits when his child is kept from him. Shot in real time and set mostly in one location, Radu Jude's third feature film is a dangerous, claustrophobic tale that sets the bar high for contemporary Romanian cinema. —Dilcia Barrera


EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMEBODY... NOT ME
DIRECTOR Raúl Fuentes, 95 MIN
In his first feature film, Raúl Fuentes dares to explore the psyche of a woman caught in a vicious self-sabotaging cycle that incapacitates her ability to love. EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMEBODY...NOT ME details the story of Alejandra, a condescending intellectual with many emotional problems, who lacks the capacity to connect with anyone around her. When Alejandra meets Maria, an evolving and curious private school teen, the two start a passionate love affair that makes their generation gap seem trivial. Before long, the couple realizes their differences when Alejandra obsessively tries to control Maria's activities, interests and decisions. Alejandra's oppression becomes worse than a parent's and Maria must decide whether or not she wants this intense relationship with such an apprehensive person to continue. Shot in black and white, Raúl Fuentes' innovative filmmaking approach and his unconventional narrative unquestionably marks him as a new and exciting voice in contemporary Mexican cinema. —Dilcia Barrera


Fear and Desire
1953/b&w/72 min./digital | Scr: Howard O. Sackler, Stanley Kubrick; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Frank Silvera, Paul Mazursky Kenneth Harp, Virginia Leith
In Stanley Kubrick’s feature debut, four ragged soldiers find themselves stranded behind enemy lines. Shot in the San Gabriel Mountains and starring Paul Mazursky in his earliest screen role, Kubrick’s film delves into the psyche of this lost battalion—divulging their innermost thoughts through voiceover—as they plot a treacherous escape. The country they’re in is nameless, their nationalities are not revealed, and their enemies are never identified. Closer to an existentialist allegory than a battlefront docudrama, the film was scripted by poet Howard Sackler, who went on to co-write Saint Jack with Peter Bogdanovich. A climactic confrontation is rendered in jagged bursts of imagery that evokes Soviet-style montage. Financed by Kubrick’s entrepreneur uncle, Fear and Desire was released by Joseph Burstyn, who brought such landmarks of world cinema as Bicycle Thieves, Rome Open City, and A Day in the Country to American theaters. Long disowned by Kubrick, the film fell out of circulation for decades and has been seen by very few. This version of Fear and Desire is made from archival 35mm elements newly restored by the Library of Congress. 
Tonight’s screening will be preceded by Kubrick’s very first moving image works: based on his own 1949 pictorial essay “Prizefighter” in Look, Day of the Fight (1951) follows twenty-four-year-old middleweight boxer Walter Cartier and his twin brother/manager in the build-up to a big match, After releasing Day of the Fight, RKO commissioned Kubrick to direct a second newsreel, and the resulting film, Flying Padre, explores the daily chores of the Reverend Fred Stadtmueller, who pilots the single-engine Spirit of St. Joseph in order to reach his remote parishioners over four thousand square miles of rural New Mexico.
Day of the Fight 1951/b&w/16 min. | Scr: Robert Rein, Stanley Kubrick; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Walter Carter, Vincent Cartier, Douglas Edwards
Flying Padre 1951/b&w/9 min.  | Scr/dir: Stanley Kubrick; w/ Rev. Fred Stadtmueller


THE FILMS OF JOHN SMITH
"The films of John Smith create a world from the ‘simple’ experiences of living, breathing and being a filmmaker or artist in a particular place and time. Smith's often humorous films produced over the last 30 years have inventively documented and probed his immediate surroundings, often not even moving much beyond the front door of his various abodes in a small area of East London. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to describe Smith's films as overly delicate, preciously insular or purely personal – assignations that the previous description might suggest – as his work sees within the minutiae of familiar surroundings a range of philosophical, aesthetic, technical and quotidian challenges and revelations that extend far beyond the realm of much other comparable cinema. In film after film, Smith explores the cracks within and the tribulations of the world he confronts everyday, taking a closer look at and often transforming (verbally, associatively, just by observing from a different angle) things like a pane of glass, the discolorations of a mouldy ceiling, a hospital water-tower, the archaeology of an ancient toilet, an old shepherd's proverb, or a work he was unhappy with some 20 odd years before. In the process, he makes us look more closely, not just at his films and the cinema generally, but our own surroundings, the everyday world that engulfs us but that we probably routinely dismiss as a suitable subject for contemplation, art and imagination." –Adrian Danks in Senses of Cinema. Program: Leading Light (1975), The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), The Black Tower (1985–7), Lost Sound (1998–2001), Unusual Red Cardigan (2011). Filmmaker John Smith in person!


The Fireman's Ball (Horí, má panenko) (1967)
"The movie is just plain funny. And as a parable it is timeless, with relevance at many times in many lands." - Roger Ebert
Directed by Miloš Forman
Forman’s absurdist comedy depicts social breakdown at a ball organized for a local fire department during which raffle prizes are looted, an impromptu beauty contest becomes a farce, and a fire breaks out, challenging inebriated firemen to do their job. Based on an actual anecdote, this allegory of official corruption and ineptitude was Oscar-nominated and provided a springboard to Forman’s American career.
Filmové studio Barrandov. Producer: Rudolf Hájek. Screenwriter: Miloš Forman, Jaroslav Papoušek, Ivan Passer, Václav Sasek. Cinematographer: Miroslav Ondrícek. Editor: Miroslav Hájek. Cast: Vaclav Stöckel, Josef Švet, Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebánek, Milada Jezková. 35mm, color, 73 min. 


FRAGMENTATION AND FLUX IN RECENT HAITIAN VIDEO
Fragmentation and Flux is a program of work by five Haitian filmmakers responding to radical shifts in their physical, political, and social landscapes. These shifts can be characterized as both collisions and collusions, from the disaster capitalism merely accelerated by the earthquake, to the syncretism that has always made up Haitian culture. An American volunteer doctor working in the sea side town Jacmel experiences catharsis in "Zaka" Chery Claudel's genre and gender crossing 9 hopes for Haiti. Romel Jean-Pierre's Al fé Tet Ou is an experimental requiem created in Port au Prince after the earthquake. Maksaen Denis's Deville/ Devil follows a young group of activists in Port au Prince armed with paint, rollers, and tape take back their city from the relentless branding by the Digicel telecommunications corporation. In Denis's M Le President we see a presidential candidate slowly change from what he appears to be to who he really is. With a hairbrush for a mic and a cutout painted bottle for a camera, the investigative Teleghetto journalists roam the streets, tent camps and and voting booths of Port au Prince. "Zaka" Chery Claudel's La Vie Dwoltakes us into a day in the life Sedjo, a load carrier facing challenges from every conceivable direction. Somewhere in the diaspora, young Anton tries to divine our ecological trajectory with his Russian Tarot Cards in Jean Guerly Pétion's, A Reading. Proceeds from the screening will benefit Jakmel Ekspresyons, a grassroots, volunteer run arts organization that works on a model of solidarity to provide opportunities for training and exhibition in the arts. Jakmel Ekspresyons is welcoming to all and is a vital safe space for local LGBTQ and disabled artists. Filmmakers “Zaka” Chery Claudel and Jean-Guerly Pétion in person!


GINGER AND ROSA
DIRECTOR Sally Potter, 89 MIN
Sally Potter retraces the steps to the roots of the aesthetic and political  consciousness that shaped many of the artists who came of age in the 1960s amid social upheaval and the sexual revolution. Through Ginger (Elle Fanning) and Rosa (Alice Englert) — both born on the day the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima — we are privy to the way in which radical shifts in society brought on internal struggles that could not always be reconciled. Potter has always been a filmmaker who pushes her narratives to the borders of avant-garde cinema. Here, it is the pacing and layers of plot that are carefully crafted to lead the patient viewer to an explosive climax, at once innovative and powerful. Fanning gives a raw and brilliant performance as a young woman simmering with intellectual curiosity who is harshly awakened to the hypocrisy of adulthood when she discovers she has been betrayed by those closest to her. —Jacqueline Lyanga


GREATEST HITS
DIRECTOR Nicolás Pereda, 103 MIN | U.S. PREMIERE
In one of the most inventive and humorous films of AFI FEST 2012, 30-year-old Nicolás Pereda's sixth film deconstructs linear storytelling by wittily playing with reality, perception and appearances. Gabino grew up without a father, male guidance or a career path. To make ends meet and support his mother, he sells “Greatest Hits” CDs in the subway. After decades of absence, Gabino's father materializes, asking for a place to stay. Gabino and his mother turn him away, unaware that he already has a new home and a job. Pereda creates a hybrid observational film by cleverly utilizing actors he has cast in his previous films to play the same roles thus enabling various genres to coexist. Challenging all cinema norms, GREATEST HITS drifts from documentary to fiction, questioning and exploring the dynamics of a common theme in Mexican households: the absent father. —Dilcia Barrera


HAIL
An occasionally near-hallucinogenic telling of his battle to escape the lure of crime and the consequences of betrayal and grief. Unable to accept society and always on the brink of excess and violence, Daniel struggles daily with his existence until one terrible act brings things to a head. Director Amiel Courtin-Wilson and cinematographer Germain McMicking will both be here for a Q&A after the film! Dir. Amiel Courtin-Wilson, 2012, 104 min.


A HIJACKING
DIRECTOR Tobias Lindholm, 110 MIN | U.S. PREMIERE
One mistake can mean life or death to the crew on board a Danish ship taken hostage by Somali pirates. In Denmark, the shipping company's CEO boldly ignores advice from a hostage negotiator and speaks on the phone directly with the pirate's translator, Omar. Conditions worsen on the claustrophobic ship as the psychological pressure intensifies and months pass while negotiations continue. Shifting from the chaotic conditions onboard to the offices of the Danish shipping company, A HIJACKING skillfully examines the art of bargaining in this fraught, high-pressure drama. Meticulously authentic, the film was shot in the Indian Ocean on a ship that had been hijacked before, using real pirate weapons and casting a real-life hostage negotiator to play himself. Tobias Lindholm's first solo-directing effort succeeds at cultivating a documentary-style realism that hold us in its grip until the very last scene. —Dilcia Barrera


HITCHCOCK
2012, Fox Searchlight, USA, Dir: Sacha Gervasi
Set in classic Hollywood in the 1950s, HITCHCOCK is the behind-the-scenes story of the famous director's personal life and his love affair with his wife and partner, Alma Reville. Told against the backdrop of the making of the director's seminal masterpiece, PSYCHO, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren play Hitchcock and his wife, and Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh. The film is directed by Sacha Gervasi (ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL) and also stars Jessica Biel, Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Michael Stuhlbarg and James D'Arcy. Together Hitch and Alma challenged the studio and risked everything to make the film, gambling their home and their reputations. What begins merely as an ambitious film project eventually tests the limits of their marriage, yet with groundbreaking new editing, sound and advertising, the two overcome the odds and create one of cinema's enduring masterpieces.  Discussion between films with HITCHCOCK director Sacha Gervasi (Nov. 10 only)


HOLY MOTORS
DIRECTOR Leos Carax, 116 MIN
HOLY MOTORS may be the most driven and divine film produced this year. After a brief overture, harkening back to the very earliest images of cinema itself, Léos Carax's beguiling work takes us on a voyage unlike any other. The ship of choice is a gleaming white limousine. Inside, we follow the adventures of Mr. Oscar (Carax's longtime leading man, Denis Lavant) who has nine "assignments" to complete. More like command performances, these assignments require that he inhabit various roles and lives as if on a movie set, becoming an old woman, a tramp and an assassin, among other things. As the odyssey continues (and after a bizarre musical interlude), the performances (or bouts of possession) begin to take their toll on Mr. Oscar and his ever-faithful chauffeur, Celine. By turns heartbreaking and uproariously funny, playful and morose, HOLY MOTORS is a wild and heavenly ride with endless interpretations and no easy answers. —Lane Kneedler


THE HUNT
DIRECTOR Thomas Vinterberg, 111 MIN
Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Prize at Cannes this year for this performance. Thomas Vinterberg revives themes he has explored — the sanctity of childhood, family and community. As always, he challenges his characters with dark secrets. THE HUNT is about the witch-hunt that ensues when Lucas (Mikkelsen), a daycare worker, is accused of sexually abusing the young daughter of one of his closest friends. The accusation puts everything in Lucas' life on hold, including his ability to gain custody of his son and retain the life-long friendships by which he defines himself. The possible facts are too disturbing for anyone to even discuss, so very little is ever disclosed about what may have happened. Every part of Mikkelsen's face is a controlled canvas that somehow contains and expresses the anger and fear that Lucas suppresses. The performance is a controlled mirror into emotional turmoil; we get only glimpses of anger and fear in this career-defining performance. —Jacqueline Lyanga


"Impulse to Archive”
In conjunction with the exhibition, Blues for Smoke, Los Angeles Filmforum at MOCA presents a program of short films and videos evoking the spirit of the blues—its lyrical and sometimes ecstatic laments—as it appears in American independent cinema. Including work by Thom Andersen, Charles Burnett, Ken Jacobs, Kevin Jerome Everson, Cauleen Smith, and more. In person: Kevin Jerome Everson


IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
DIRECTOR Hong Sang-soo, 89 MIN
Each time Isabelle Huppert's Anne returns to the seaside town of Mohan she is a different woman; a new character in a completely different story. Hong Sang-soo gives us a trio of stories, each with its own very different interpretation of "Anne." Each Anne has a history that complicates the relationship between her character and the man of the house where she is staying, leading the woman of the house to feel competitive towards the foreigner she has welcomed into her home. However, it soon becomes clear that every Anne is very lonely and is relying on new experiences to redefine herself: Anne's tough exterior masks naïveté. Huppert is spectacular as always and quite at home playing a woman with a sharp tongue who is accustomed to being forgiven. And yet, there is a side of Anne that is determined to find meaning in her story, to reconcile her murky past with the undeniable beauty and peace of the beach to which she continually returns. —Jacqueline Lyanga


THE INCREDIBLE, INDELIBLE FILMS OF MANUEL DELANDA
“An anarchist who studies analytical philosophy, Manuel DeLanda makes aggressive, wild movies that simultaneously leap all over the place and stand absolutely still. A touch of the happy charlatan is similarly brought to his glitter punk credentials that hark back to such diverse Spanish-speaking surrealists as Arrabal, Buñuel, Dali, and Jodorowsky — although, unlike most of his predecessors, DeLanda prefers LSD and computers to the sacraments and anti-Christs of Catholicism in establishing the terms of his shock (and semi-mock) rebellion.” –Jonathan Rosenbaum
Audacious. Outlandish. Subversive. Intense. Insane. These are just a few of the inadequate adjectives that fail to describe Manuel DeLanda’s fantastically disarming and deeply funny films. Known today as an author, teacher, and philosopher, DeLanda’s iconic celluloid works remain among the most innovative, abrasive, and hypnotic films produced in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Unique among the films of their era (or of any other for that matter), DeLanda’s movies have a highbrow philosophical tinge, lowbrow wit, and punk rock style. Radically conceived and frantically edited, DeLanda’s energetic, semiotic cinema earned him instant acclaim in the international experimental film world — and, raised in Mexico but transplanted to NYC, DeLanda rather amazingly created most of these films while still an undergraduate at the School for Visual Arts. Out of circulation for nearly two decades and newly restored by Anthology Film Archives from the best existing sources, these utterly distinctive films will undoubtedly re-arrange your synapses. Andrew Lampert (of Anthology Film Archives) will be here to introduce the films!
Anthology Film Archives’ preservation of the films of Manuel DeLanda was generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Film scheduled:
- JUDGEMENT DAY (1983, 8 minutes, Super 8mm-to-16mm): Cockroaches meet their maker in the first installment of DeLanda’s incomplete “Jerry Falwell trilogy.”
- THE ITCH SCRATCH ITCH CYCLE (1976, 8 minutes, 16mm): A bickering couple unleash holy hell on each other in this deconstruction of the shot/countershot technique.
- MAGIC MUSHROOM MOUNTAIN MOVIE (1981, 10 minutes, Super 8mm-to-digital): Shot in 1973 but not edited until years later, this rarely-screen Jodorowsky-ian Mexican travelogue is surprisingly lovely and, for DeLanda, relatively restrained.
- INCONTINENCE: A DIARRHETIC FLOW OF MISMATCHES (1978, 18 minutes, 16mm): WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF goes gaga in this optically-printed masterpiece featuring a very surprise appearance by Professor Mamboozoo (artist Joe Coleman).
- ISMISM (1979, 8 minutes, Super8mm-to-16mm, screening on digital): “ISMISM documents my graffiti activities in New York (before switching to more obscene drawings on subway walls). The film was originally made as a class project for P. Adams Sitney. It has the form of a manifesto against the orthopedic power of language.” –Manuel DeLanda
- RAW NERVES: A LACANIAN THRILLER (1980, 30 minutes, 16mm): A noir mostly set in a bathroom stall and stairwell. A private dick trapped in a tight spot. A narrator searching for a way out of the story. Toilet humor and pulp fiction captured in colors like you’ve never seen, RAW NERVES is DeLanda’s most accomplished film.


IN THE FOG
DIRECTOR Sergei Loznitsa, 128 MIN | U.S. PREMIERE
Adapted from the novel by Vasili Bykov, recent Palme d'Or nominee IN THE FOG is director Sergei Loznitsa's sobering meditation on the complicated moral decisions faced by both soldiers and citizens during wartime. Set in Nazi-occupied Belarus, Loznitsa's film begins with the hanging of three villagers for conspiring against their German oppressors. Later that night, Sushenya — a man who stood accused but was spared by the Germans — is visited by two of his country's resistance fighters, who intend to execute him for presumed collaboration with the Nazis. When their plan is interrupted by enemy fire, all three men become unwilling companions on an evasive trek through the forest. Through flashbacks, Loznitsa closely examines how each of the men reached this point. Impeccably directed, these haunting sequences all turn on an impossible choice and focus on the torturous moments of quiet before each man chose a course of action that would yield devastating consequences for himself, his family and his fellow countrymen. —Mike Dougherty


KID-THING
DIRECTOR David Zellner, 83 MIN
Childhood is a stage of life that has long fascinated filmmakers. From THE 400 BLOWS to HOME ALONE, directors have explored youth with their own signature style. In their second feature film, writer/director David Zellner and his brother Nathan, the film's co-star, producer and cinematographer, take us down the rabbit hole of the messy, unformed and capricious nature of young minds. Annie is a young girl living in Austin, Texas, doing what most kids do: riding bikes, chucking dirt at cars and generally stirring up mischief. With an absentee father, she has a lonely existence. When she stumbles upon an old well in the woods and hears a woman's voice calling for help from the depths below, she's interested, but not necessarily in helping. As fascinating a film about childhood that has come along in recent years, KID-THING is a haunting and evocative work of art, anchored by a brilliant performance by the young Sydney Aguirre. —Lane Kneedler. Preceded by the short: ‘92 SKYBOX ALONZO MOURNING ROOKIE CARD | DIRECTOR Todd Sklar | 12 MIN


Killer’s Kiss
1955/b&w/64 min. Scr: Howard O. Sackler, Stanley Kubrick; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret
In Kubrick’s first film noir, he weds the moody, urban milieu of Day of the Fight with the narrative experimentation that he would explore further in his subsequent crime thriller, The Killing. Fading boxer Jamie Smith falls for the girl next door, or in this case the girl on the other side of his flophouse courtyard: Irene Kane, a taxi dancer who works for lecherous Frank Silvera at Pleasureland, a midtown dive. With his hired guns in tow, Silvera plays a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with Smith that limns the sordid underbelly of New York. Shot on location throughout the Big Apple, Killer’s Kiss prominently features the old Penn Station, Times Square, and a chase across the vast rooftops that overlook the industrial expanse now known as DUMBO. Tonight’s screening will be preceded by The Seafarers, Kubrick’s final short documentary and his first work in color.
The Seafarers 1953/color/30 min.  | Scr: Will Chasen; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Don Hollenbeck, members of the Seafarers Union.


The Killing
1956/b&w/83 min. Scr/ dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Sterling Hayden, Colleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Ted DeCorsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Timothy Carey
Stanley Kubrick’s first foray into Hollywood is a tightly paced noir starring Sterling Hayden as tough-talking ex-con Johnny Clay, the mastermind behind a race track heist that goes off the rails. Hayden assembles a stellar crew of accomplices to set his plan in motion—meek cashier Elisha Cook Jr., slightly deranged sharpshooter Timothy Carey (en route to cult stardom), and crooked cop Ted DeCorsia. Unfolding non-linearly through interlocking scenes, the film’s high-contrast lighting, bravura tracking shots (executed by veteran cinematographer Lucien Ballard, the first professional cameraman to work with Kubrick), crackling, hard-boiled dialogue (courtesy of pulp novelist Jim Thompson), and Marie “bedroom eyes” Windsor’s turn as a scheming femme fatale all combine to make The Killing a solid, gritty crime classic. The film’s hyper-stylized climactic shoot-out, fragmented structure, and bitterly ironic ending burnish its genre credentials while also signaling Kubrick’s cinematic ambitions.


KON-TIKI
DIRECTORS Joachim Roenning, Espen Sandberg, 119 MIN
Thor Heyerdahl is alone in his belief that Polynesia was first populated by settlers from South America rather than by men from the East, but he is determined to raise the funds for an expedition to prove his hypothesis. The crew that he ultimately gathers is not made up of the most experienced men, but every man is as desperate and hungry as Thor for an opportunity to succeed. Epic in ambition and scale, KON-TIKI features beautiful cinematography from Geir Hartly Andreassen capturing the majestic expanse of sky and ocean that Thor and his crew attempt to cross. The special effects work is first-class, resulting in a rare big-budget action film in the spirit of Hollywood action-adventure spectaculars set at sea like 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and JAWS. Based on a true story, KON-TIKI features epic set pieces that pit man vs. shark and storm. —Jacqueline Lyanga.  Discussion following with co-directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg (Nov 28 screening only).


THE LAST ELVIS
(EL ULTIMO ELVIS)
2012, 91 min, Argentina, Dir: Armando Bo
John McInerny gives a knockout performance as Elvis impersonator Carlos Gutierrez, who lives in a pocket of Buenos Aires peopled by similarly obsessive Gene Simmons, Barbra Streisand and you-name-it lookalikes and spends his every waking hour crooning, strutting and pelvic-thrusting like the King. Naturally he's become estranged from his family, but when wife Alejandra (Griselda Siciliani) is in a dire car accident, Carlos somehow must reintegrate himself into the world of the living and learn to be a father to his tellingly named daughter Lisa Marie (Margarita Lopez). Directed by first-time filmmaker Armando Bo, co-screenwriter of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's BIUTIFUL. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best World Cinema - Dramatic at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. In Spanish with English subtitles.


THE LAST STEP
DIRECTOR Ali Mosaffa, 88 MIN
"I always lost track of past events, even before my death," says the deceased protagonist of Ali Mosaffa's THE LAST STEP, inviting us down the rabbit hole of this playful puzzle of a film. The narrator is Koshrow (Mosaffa), a depressed architect who has just died in a mysterious fall. Mosaffa peels away the layers of the story to explore Koshrow's mercurial marriage to Leili, a successful and independent actress, played by Mossafa's real-life wife (Leila Hatami from A SEPARATION). The story is complicated by the arrival of Amin, a mysterious doctor seeking a part in Leili's next film. Drawing inspiration from Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," Joyce's "The Dead" and its self-referential setting inside the Iranian film community, THE LAST STEP is an elegantly constructed and intellectually rewarding film. Its non-linear narrative freely shuffles points-of-view to explore the nature of memory, cinema and storytelling. — Matt Cornell


LEVIATHAN
DIRECTORS Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 87 MIN
Emerging from inky darkness, we join the writhing life that is nighttime on a commercial fishing boat. With uncanny intimacy, LEVIATHAN propels the viewer into the rhythmic horrors of the sea and the men who live in it. Cameras are flung into the water, mingle with fish guts and are carried lovingly by the fishermen themselves. Evocative and ephemeral, LEVIATHAN is similar to co-director Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s previous work SWEETGRASS (AFI FEST 2009), pushing the boundaries of traditional nature documentary filmmaking. The images and rhythms of life at sea form a cinematic experience that is far more than the sum of its parts. As the credits roll, the names of each genus and species of fish and fowl are presented alongside the names of the human collaborators, signifying that the collective behind LEVIATHAN is as diverse and disparate as the sea itself. —Lane Kneedler 


A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHON’S GRAHAM CHAPMAN
2012, Brainstorm Media, 85 min, UK, Dir: Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson, Ben Timlett
Before Monty Python alum Graham Chapman’s death in 1989, he recorded himself reading his book, 'A Liar's Autobiography.' These recordings, both wildly hilarious and poignant, and covering everything from Chapman’s WWII upbringing and his open homosexuality to his years as a Python member and his battle with alcoholism, have ingeniously been used to provide his voice for this 3-D animated feature. Featuring fellow Pythons John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam playing themselves as well as other characters, A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY is Chapman's own take on his bizarre life and his search for self-knowledge. Now, as the film re-unites Chapman with his Python cohorts for the first time in 23 years, he is set to earn a new title - “the most prolific corpse since Elvis.”


LIFE OF PI in 3D
DIRECTOR Ang Lee, 126 MIN
Director Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN; CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) creates a groundbreaking movie event about a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with another survivor — a fearsome Bengal tiger. LIFE OF PI takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years and a wide universe of imagination. Lee’s vision, coupled with stunning 3D visuals, has turned a novel long thought unfilmable into a thrillingly audacious mix of grand storytelling and powerful and provocative themes. The film takes us through a young man’s incredible adventure, at turns thrilling and spiritual; harrowing and triumphant; humorous and inspirational.


LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE
DIRECTOR Abbas Kiarostami, 109 MIN
With his new film, Abbas Kiarostami goes to Tokyo and delves even more deeply into the world of artifice that he explored in his last film, CERTIFIED COPY, by crafting characters wrought with shame, whose emotional wounds lead them to engage in even more layered and dangerous games. The masquerade begins when Akiko (Rin Takanashi), a call girl, and her client Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), an elderly professor, pretend to be granddaughter and grandfather in order to avoid the wrath of Akiko's jealous boyfriend when they are caught in a car together. Kiarostami builds layers of secrets into the stories that Akiko and Takashi tell each other; their lies eventually become more real and powerful than the truth and increasingly dismissive of the uninitiated third party that is Akiko's boyfriend. LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE is ultimately an explosive and intriguing companion piece to CERTIFIED COPY that delights in denying its desperate characters the happy ending they desire. —Jacqueline Lyanga


Lost Highway (1997)
Directed by David Lynch. Written by David Lynch and Barry Gifford. Produced by Mary Sweeney, Deepak Nayar, and Tom Sternberg. Edited by Mary Sweeney. Followed by a Q&A with Patricia Arquette, Bill Pullman and SCA Writing Professor Mary Sweeney


Loves of a Blonde (Lásky jedné plavovlásky) (1965)
Directed by Miloš Forman
A troop of conscripts is sent to a small factory town with a man shortage. Their smooth moves at an organized dance fail to charm young schoolgirl Andula, though she falls for a fast-talking pianist, unexpectedly following him to his home in Prague. Ironic and touching, Forman’s portrait of love’s letdowns implicitly critiques social engineering in communist Czechoslovakia of the 1960s.
Filmové studio Barrandov. Producer: Rudolf Hájek, Vlado Hreljanovic. Screenwriter: Miloš Forman, Jaroslav Papoušek, Ivan Passer, Václav Sasek. Cinematographer: Miroslav Ondrícek. Editor: Miroslav Hájek. Cast: Hana Brejchová, Vladimír Pucholt, Vladimír Menšík, Ivan Kheil, Jirí Hrubý. 35mm, b/w, 88 min. 


THE MAKIOKA SISTERS
The Makioka Sisters chronicles the life and affairs of four sisters in late '30s Japan. An older, conservative sister tries to continue family traditions and pretensions to status, while the younger sisters discover the new freedoms becoming available to them. "This Kon Ichikawa film has a triumphant simplicity about it. You don't just watch the film--you coast on its rhythms and glide past the precipitous spots" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). The cast includes Juzo Itami, who would later emerge as a prominent director with The Funeral, Tampopo and A Taxing Woman. In Japanese with English subtitles.  1983, Japan, 35mm, 140 minutes. 35mm print made in 2011! directed by Kon Ichikawa; starring Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yûko Kotegawa; in Japanese with English subtitles.


MISS REPRESENTATION
Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.
In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.
Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective. Provided courtesy of Girls' Club Entertainment. Not rated. Running time: 90 minutes.


MOROCCO
Like so many campaigners before him, Gary Cooper joins the Foreign Legion to "forget." At a smoky cabaret in Morocco, Cooper meets café entertainer Marlene Dietrich (making her American film debut). A woman with a very checkered past, Dietrich toys with the callow Cooper, but eventually falls hopelessly in love with him, even to the extent of throwing over wealthy Adolphe Menjou. There is considerably more to the story than that, but these bare-bones details should be enough to entice anyone familiar with the exotic eroticism of the Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich vehicles. Dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1930, 1 hr. 32 min.


THE MOST FUN I'VE EVER HAD WITH MY PANTS ON
DIRECTOR Drew Denny, 95 MIN
After spreading the ashes of her father, Andy and her childhood friend Liv set out on a road trip from LA to Austin — to decompress, try new experiences and basically see what it's like to do crazy things. It's more about the journey than the destination. Shot on Super 16 and digital, the film captures beautiful landscapes and candid performances. This somewhat autobiographical dark comedy is a funny and honest exploration of life and death, love and friendship. Written and directed by first-time director Drew Denny, the film is based on performance artwork she created in memory of her dad. Denny also stars in the film along with Sarah Hagan. —April Wright


THE MUMMY’S CURSE, 1944, Universal, 62 min. Dir. Leslie Goodwins. “The Devil’s on the loose and he’s dancin’ with the mummy!” The final film with Lon Chaney Jr. as the undead Kharis shifts the action to the Louisiana bayou, where the mummy and his beloved have been buried in a swamp for years, until a couple of Egyptian disciples start brewing up the tana leaves. With Virginia Christine and Martin Kosleck.


THE MUMMY’S HAND, 1940, Universal, 67 min. Dir. Christy Cabanne. The MUMMY returns to Egypt, as Indiana Jones-style adventurer Dick Foran squares off against nefarious George Zucco and the immortal mummy Kharis (played by a surprisingly effective Tom Tyler). First-rate matinee style entertainment. With Peggy Moran and Wallace Ford.


THE MUMMY’S GHOST, 1944, Universal, 61 min. Dir. Reginald Le Borg. In this installment, Chaney is joined by fellow horror great John Carradine, who plays a high priest charged with returning Kharis and the body of Ananka to Egypt. But the plan goes haywire when it turns out Ananka has been reincarnated as a beautiful young woman (Ramsay Ames).


THE MUMMY’S TOMB, 1942, 60 min. Dir. Harold Young. Foran, Zucco and Ford return for this atmospheric and fast-paced sequel set thirty years after THE MUMMY’S HAND. Here Lon Chaney Jr. debuts in the role of Kharis; and his caretaker Turhan Bey brings the mummy to America to avenge the desecration of Princess Ananka’s tomb in the previous film, by killing all the archeologists and their descendents.


NEW WORKS SALON VII
Several local and visiting artists will present in-progress or recently completed works. Sean Batton will present 16mm footage from a recent trip to Tokyo. Chris Girard will integrate blurry photographs with slices of words to create a live collage poetry making session; the placement of the photographs next to words expresses the dissolution of the blur through the words. Cosmo Segurson will present Super 8 footage from his recent trip to Tokyo, unrelated to Mr. Batton’s. Elizabeth DiGiovanni will present two recent video works, Now and Then and Spirit Evidence, which deal with collecting and imaging the traces, residues, and evidence from the realm of spirits, ghosts, and memory. Walter Vargas will show his 16mm film Balance of Endeavour: Apollo 11 and NASA are the pride of America and the unity of the world in the new frontier, but what is the history when the space shuttle Endeavour travels through South Central Los Angeles? Plus others TBA! 


No Man of Her Own (1950)
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
A train accident and a case of mistaken identity gives a pregnant woman abandoned by her lover the opportunity to pass as the daughter-in-law of a wealthy couple. When her past returns to threaten her new life, she discovers the lengths she will go to escape it. Leisen’s suspenseful noir probes the possibility of reinvention and redemption.
Paramount Pictures Corp. Producer: Richard Maibaum. Screenwriter: Sally Benson, Catherine Turney. Based on a novel by William Irish. Cinematographer: Daniel L. Fapp. Editor: Alma Macrorie. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Phyllis Thaxter, Lyle Bettger. 35mm, b/w, 98 min. 


ON THE ROAD
DIRECTOR Walter Salles, 124 MIN
Walter Salles gives Jack Kerouac's coming of age classic new life with a screen adaptation that burns bright and boldly captures the spirit of the novel. The ensemble cast brings Kerouac's characters to life with an intensity that overflows from the start. Garrett Hedlund gives a standout performance as a kinetic Dean Moriarity, the beautiful star who draws everyone in his vicinity into the vortex of his boundary-pushing paths to self-discovery. Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) narrates as he builds up an archive of boozing, sexing and drugging to reference in his future life as a writer and everyone falls for Marylou (Kristen Stewart), who challenges the societal constraints placed on her sexuality because of her gender whenever the opportunity arises. Fueled by post-war Beat Generation disillusionment, Dean, Sal and Marylou hit the road against a backdrop of jazzy '50s cool, to discover, find and challenge the definition of freedom.


Ornette: Made in America
Shirley Clarke cemented her place as one of the key figures of the American independent film movement with her films The Connection (1961) and The Cool World (1963), both of which had strong jazz elements. Before retiring from filmmaking in the '80s, Clarke returned to the jazz scene for her final work, making this brilliant documentary on the decades-spanning career of multi-instrumentalist Ornette Coleman, a towering yet humble figure whose "free jazz" innovations rocked the world upon the release of his album "The Shape Of Jazz To Come" in 1959. Highlights include Coleman's homecoming performance of his "Skies Of America" symphony in Fort Worth, Texas (a town whose segregated past Coleman longed to escape as a child), and footage of Coleman's fusion group Prime Time overlayed with 8-bit video game effects! Dir: Shirley Clarke, 1985, 35mm, 85 min.


OUR CHILDREN
(A PERDRE LA RAISON)
2012, 111 min, Belgium, Dir: Joachim Lafosse
Emilie Dequenne received a Best Actress Un Certain Regard award at Cannes 2012 for her extraordinary performance as a young mother caught between two men (Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup, both stars of Jacques Audiard's A PROPHET) and driven to the unthinkable in this stranglehold psychological drama. Based on true events from a Brussels suburb in 2007, the film stars Dequenne as schoolteacher Murielle, so emotionally frittered by her manipulative husband and his authoritarian surrogate father that she murders her four children in cold blood with a kitchen knife. Belgium's official entry for the 2013 Best Foreign-Language Oscar. "Turning a gruesome real-life incident into an arresting portrait of one woman¹s gradual slide towards the unspeakable, OUR CHILDREN, an Un Certain Regard film, represents another tightly wound study of domestic malaise from Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse (PRIVATE PROPERTY)... In one of her strongest leading roles to date, Dequenne (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, ROSETTA) does a remarkable job depicting Murielle’s wavering psychological states as she heads for oblivion." - The Hollywood Reporter. In French and Arabic with English.   Discussion following the film with director Joachim Lafosse (Nov 9 screening only)


Partner (1968)
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Bertolucci’s most experimental—and rarely seen— feature concerns a theater professor and his murderous double, who emerges from out of nowhere to lead a libidinal assault on the forces of convention. Coinciding with Godard’s influential renunciation of narrative convention, Bertolucci too sought a new idiom to express twin interests in Marxism and psychoanalytic theory. The film foreshadows The Dreamers (2003) in its examination of the politics of 1968.
Red Film. Producer: Giovanni Bertolucci. Screenwriter: Bernardo Bertolucci, Gianni Amico. Cinematographer: Ugo Piccone. Editor: Roberto Perpignani. Cast: Pierre Clémenti, Stefania Sandrelli, Tina Aumont, Sergio Tofano, Giulio Cesare Castello. 35mm, color, in Italian and French w/ English subtitles, 109 min. 


Paths of Glory
1957/b&w/86 min. Scr: Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w / Kirk Douglas, Adolph Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris, Timothy Carey, Joseph Turkel
Kubrick shot onto the A-list with Paths of Glory, a scathing antiwar indictment. The film marks Kubrick’s first opportunity to direct a bona-fide star (Kirk Douglas) as well as seasoned Hollywood veterans such as Adolphe Menjou. Set on the frontlines of World War I and based on a true story, Kubrick’s film excoriates the gross inequalities between the French officer class and the rank-and-file soldiers they command. Kubrick underlines this disparity by having the top brass determine the soldiers’ fate from a baronial chateau (a Munich mansion later used by Alain Resnais as the setting for Last Year at Marienbad), while Douglas and his men face the grit and terror of a volatile battlefield. Douglas gives a bare-knuckle performance as the valiant Colonel Dax, who, caught in a power play between generals Broulard (Menjou) and Mireau (George Macready), must defend his regiment against charges of cowardice and possible execution by firing line. The film culminates with an affecting coda as a terrified German captive’s song (Susanne Christian, whom Kubrick would marry soon after) silences a tavern full of raucous French soldiers. Banned in France and Switzerland for two decades, Paths of Glory firmly established Kubrick’s as a major American filmmaker. 


PEARBLOSSOM HWY
DIRECTOR Mike Ott, 80 MIN | NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Friends Cory and Anna are drifting through life, struggling to find their place. Cory is sick of life in the desert and wants to be on a reality show so he can prove to his brother that he isn't a screw-up. Anna is in the country illegally, selling sex to save enough money to take her citizenship test. When Cory's brother visits and Anna's dying grandmother takes a turn for the worst, the two are forced to examine the direction of their lives. Filmmaker Mike Ott (AFI FEST 2010) further explores coming of age, immigration and disillusionment with the American Dream, themes present in his previous films. With PEARBLOSSOM HWY he also blurs the line between character and actor by re-teaming with LITTLEROCK collaborators Cory Zacharia and Atsuko Okatsuka, who incorporate excerpts of their real life stories in the film. This is Ott's most challenging and personal work to date. —Jenn Murphy


THE PEOPLE’S CRISIS
The real crisis in North Korea is not about its reclusive leaders or its nuclear weapons. It is about 24 million people living under the most ruthless system of political oppression ever assembled by humankind. The North Korean people have suffered through crippling poverty, humanitarian disasters, chronic food shortages and a denial of even the most basic of freedoms. This documentary offers a comprehensive overview of the North Korean people’s crisis, featuring interviews with North Korean refugees who have escaped, their journey to freedom, expert analysis, and insight into some of the little-known grassroots changes that are happening inside the country.  


THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE
Victor Sjostrom's silent ghost story, The Phantom Carriage (Korkarlen), is based on the legend that the coachman of Death must be replaced by the last man to die each year. The film is as famous for its realistic depictions of life in the slums as it is for its fantasy sequences that make evocative use of double exposures.  Victor Sjostrom---Sweden---1920---107 mins. 


PIETA
DIRECTOR Kim Ki-Duk, 104 MIN | U.S. PREMIERE
Kim Ki-duk (ARIRANG) returns to AFI FEST with his Golden Lion winner, PIETA, the story of a man working as a loan shark who threatens and cripples those who can't make their payments. One day a woman appears on his doorstep claiming to be the mother who abandoned him as a baby. At first he rejects her, but then he gradually accepts her into his life, eventually quitting his job in an attempt to spend his days recapturing the time lost with her. When she is kidnapped, he must track down the culprit, revisiting all those he had hurt in the past, only to discover his mother is harboring a dark secret of her own. A return to form for Kim who explores the themes of guilt and revenge, creating such fascinating characters that he elevates the Korean revenge sub-genre to a whole new level and in doing so reaffirms his seat as a master of Korean cinema. —Jenn Murphy


THE POETICS OF PLACE: FILMS BY ROSE LOWDER
Rose Lowder is one of Europe’s most influential and celebrated cinematic treasures—a filmmaker and scholar who first trained as a painter and sculptor, then later studied with filmmaker Jean Rouch. Since 1977 Lowder has made more than 50 films that create complex single-frame matrices, bordering eerily on the edge of animation. Whether filming the view from her Avignon window, the French countryside, or centuries-old structures, Lowder composes highly charged, multiple-perspective mosaics that explore nature’s visual wonders and the underlying ecology of specific places. She investigates the world around her with a scientist’s precision, and exalts it with a singular vibrancy of form and color. The program includes the early masterwork Rue des Teinturiers (1977), the series of stunning one-minute cinematic studies, Bouquets 11–20 (2005–10), and the recent tour-de-force Jardin du sel (Garden of salt, 2011). In person: Rose Lowder


POST TENEBRAS LUX
DIRECTOR Carlos Reygadas, 120 MIN
Winner of the Best Director prize of the 65th Cannes Film Festival, POST TENEBRAS LUX further establishes Carlos Reygadas as a distinctive voice in contemporary Mexican cinema. The film details the life of Juan and Natalia, a wealthy couple living in a stunning house in the country with their two little children (played by Reygadas' own children) and their pack of dogs. The family hires and trusts the local townsmen with help around the house, including childcare, construction and security. When an employee they considered a friend backstabs Juan, chaos enters the household. Continuing the exploration of themes from his previous films, Reygadas employs minimal dialogue, instead focusing on lush sound and haunting landscapes. One of the most challenging films of the year, POST TENEBRAS LUX juxtaposes animalistic brutality and pure innocence in order to examine darkness and pursue light. —Dilcia Barrera


Print Generation (1974)
"Print Generation is a masterfully accomplished film. With it, Murphy sums up concerns that have marked independent filmmaking since the late Sixties: intrinsic film structure and personal diary." - Mike Reynolds, Berkeley Barb
Directed by J.J. Murphy
J.J. Murphy’s feature length experimental film is a meditation on light, chemistry, and the properties of photographic emulsion and can therefore be identified as a structuralist film. Beginning with points of red light, the film takes a single minute of film and reprints it over and over, moving through several levels of abstraction, then returning to them. Winner of several experimental film festival awards. 16mm, color 50 min.


PXL THIS 22
22th annual festival features films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder. PXL THIS is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly. 


REALITY
DIRECTOR Matteo Garrone, 115 MIN
REALITY opens with a gorgeous aerial shot that follows a beautiful horse-drawn chariot to a wedding celebration where the real guest of honor is surprising — a reality television star. Watching in the wings is Luciano (Aniello Arena) in a clownish drag costume that he dons at family and friends' weddings. Luciano's clown would be at home on the stage in a work of commedia dell arte; yet, he is a man uncomfortable in his own skin. The village setting and its archetypes recall Fellini but Garrone's Naples is thoroughly modern and the story finds its focus in the way it gradually traces the trajectory of Luciano — from a reluctant prospect for a Big Brother-style reality show to a man on the verge of insanity because of his obsession with obtaining television celebrity. Garrone gives us an intimate portrait of a charming and respected fishmonger who is transformed into a man who has lost touch with his real life. —Jacqueline Lyanga


RECENT WORK BY MONICA GAZZO
San Francisco Art Institute MFA graduate Monica Gazzo is an artist and filmmaker who makes films in Italy and America. Tonight, she shares recent work including Trevi (2009, DVD, sound, color, 22 minutes, world premiere), shot from a window above the Trevi Fountain in Rome; Insights On Acting With Sandro Lombardi (2009, DVD, sound, color, 15 minutes, LA premiere), a video portrait of Florentine actor and writer Sandro Lombardi; and Imagined Nature: A Day With Andrea Marini, Sculptor (2009, DVD, sound, color, 22 minutes, LA premiere), a video portrait of Florentine Sculptor Andrea Marini, in his Calenzano studio. 


RECENT WORK FROM ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
Curator of Collections Andrew Lampert will present a program of recent preservations undertaken by Anthology Film Archives including Money, a radically-composed, rapid-fire time capsule of Lower Manhattan and United States, a conceptual bicentennial film dealing with spatial and temporal relationships between two travelers, their car, and the geographic, political, and social changes from New York to Los Angeles. In addition to the other works listed, Lampert will show a sampling of newly digitized videos and a few reels from the “Unessential Cinema” collection of works gathered from deceased laboratories, bereaved widows and trash dumpsters.  Approx. TRT: 60 min. 
Money (1985) Directed by Henry Hills. A radically-composed time capsule, a rapid-fire portrait of the innovative ‘downtown’ Lower Manhattan community of poets, musicians, dancers, and personalities active in the early-to-mid-1980s. As much a sound work as it is a film, Money features John Zorn, Christian Marclay, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Abigail Child, Charles Bernstein, and an extraordinary cast of luminaries. 35mm, b/w, 15 min. 
Chewing (1980) Directed by Madeleine Gekiere. A delightful structuralist study of the act of eating an apple. 16mm, color, 6 min. 
Letter to D.H. in Paris (1967) Directed by David Brooks. An influential figure within the NYC experimental film community of the mid-1960s, David Brooks died tragically young leaving behind only a handful of works. This piece is described by the maker as “Stoned people, music, movement, fields.” 16mm, color, 4 min. 
Six Windows (1979) Directed by Marjorie Keller. “A pan and a dissolve make a window of a wall on film. A portrait of the filmmaker in a luminous space, synthetically rendered via positive and negative overlays. ... I lived in some rooms by the sea and watched the inside and the view as well as the window panes that divided and joined them. I was often lost in thought. The birds would come and make a racket, reminding me I shared that space and sky with them. The film is a moody record of that place and my peace of mind.” 16mm, color, silent, 7 min. 
The United States of America (1975) Directed by Bette Gordon, James Benning. A true masterpiece of 70s cinema, more remarkable today than ever before. A conceptual bicentennial film dealing with spatial and temporal relationships between two travelers, their car, and the geographic, political, and social changes from New York to Los Angeles. The space within each frame is at the same time continuous and elliptical. 16mm, color, 27 min. 


RECONVERSAO
Portugal/USA, 65 mins, video
With Reconversão (Reconversion), Thom Andersen opens another fascinating chapter of his ongoing investigation of architectural landscapes, their filmic representation, and their relation to history, by focusing on 17 buildings and projects by the often-controversial Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura—winner of the 2011 Pritzker Prize. Echoing Dziga Vertov’s concepts and Eadweard Muybridge’s techniques (shooting only one or two frames per second), Andersen masterfully brings forward what makes Souto de Moura an original: the incorporation of the passing of time into architectural designs, positing them within a history fraught with class struggle and societal changes, in a continuum with ruins—from which they may originate, and to which they will return—and with nature—which they frame, and by which they are framed. In person: Thom Andersen


THE RING
The U.S. premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent feature “The Ring.” A film restoration by the BFI National Archive in association with STUDIOCANAL. “The Ring” is Hitchcock’s one and only original screenplay, although he worked extensively with other writers throughout his career.
This British Film Institute restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s sixth film as a director, “The Ring,” also played at the London 2012 Festival, twelve weeks of events programmed to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The London screening featured a newly composed and performed score by award-winning British jazz and hip hop musician Soweto Kinch and the Soweto Kinch Septet. "The Ring" is part of the BFI’s larger restoration project “Rescue the Hitchcock 9,” a major campaign to restore all nine surviving silent films of Alfred Hitchcock.
The story is a love triangle melodrama set in the world of boxing, a milieu that fascinated Hitchcock. The title of the film refers not just to the boxing ring, but to the wedding ring that unites up-and-coming contender Jack “One Round” Sander (Carl Brisson) and his girlfriend Mabel (Lilian Hall Davis), and to the threat to their relationship symbolized by an arm bracelet given to Mabel by Jack’s rival, Australian boxing champion Bob Corby (Ian Hunter).
John J. Cox, an experienced effects cameraman who worked on all ten of Hitchcock’s features at British International Pictures, was encouraged by the director to experiment with new techniques. A full-scale fairground was built on the studio lot and was populated by hundreds of extras, giving Hitchcock ample scope to indulge his taste for visual tricks and distortions.
The Academy screening will be from a digital cinema package (DCP) and features the Soweto Kinch score. 108 minutes. 


The River
1951/color/99 min. | Scr: Rumer Godden, Jean Renoir; dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Nora Swinburne, Patricia Walters, Thomas E. Breen
This sublime adaptation of a novel by Rumer Godden, who was raised in India and collaborated during the shoot, was a challenge to bring to the screen: the first Technicolor film shot in India, it involved heavy equipment and long delays in printing the dailies; the cast was almost entirely nonprofessional; local festivities and superstitions interfered with the normal pace of production; and the locations needed frequent adjustments to reflect a year of seasons. The story is narrated by Harriet, now an adult, who recalls her life in India at age fifteen, the year that Captain John came to visit; and through her eyes we follow the day-to-day routine of a British colonial family, share her adventures with her closest companions, an Indian girl and her little brother, contemplate the natural beauty and mysterious culture of a foreign land, and experience the pain and joy of first love. In time with the flow of the ever-present river, the film has a measured pace that chronicles life with its sudden bursts of tragedy and pleasure.  "Like Rossellini's Voyage to Italy (1953), The River has survived falling out of fashion to re-emerge as a touchstone for a certain kind of modernity in cinema. It's a self-conscious, reflective film that draws on the 'reality' of India but does so to immerse us in the spiritual drama of its central character. None of the principal characters in The River find immediate happiness; instead, they learn to overcome frustration and despair… Unlike conflict-centered Hollywood narratives, which invariably end in resolution, Renoir's films tend to show that not all problems are soluble."—Ian Christie. 


ROOM 237
DIRECTOR Rodney Ascher, 102 MIN
In ROOM 237, filmmaker Rodney Ascher delves into the symbols and motifs in Stanley Kubrick's historic film, THE SHINING, revealing even more secrets hidden within the story over 30 years later. A filmmaker as rigorously detailed as Kubrick demands close examination and THE SHINING is a film loaded with oddities that become curiouser and curiouser the farther down the rabbit hole you fall. Why is there a doorknob on the ceiling? The television Danny is watching is clearly not plugged in — why? What's with the disappearing three-story tree? Why are there coded messages describing man's trip to the moon embedded in a horror film? These provocative questions and many more come from a variety of theorists and fanatics, whose fascination with the classic horror film shows no sign of abating. After viewing ROOM 237, you might very well feel compelled to wander the halls of the Overlook Hotel forever and ever and ever. —Lane Kneedler


Rose Lowder: Colorful Frames
Filmmaker Rose Lowder in person from France!
Since 1977, Rose Lowder has made over fifty experimental films, many of them shot frame-by-frame in rural Europe. Whether filming the view from her Avignon window, the French countryside, or centuries-old structures, Lowder composes highly charged, multiple-perspective mosaics that explore nature’s visual wonders and the underlying ecology of specific places. She investigates the world around her with a scientist’s precision, and exalts it with a singular vibrancy of form and color. 


A ROYAL AFFAIR
DIRECTOR Nikolaj Arcel, 132 MIN
In the age of enlightenment, a young woman becomes Queen of Denmark via an arranged marriage, but shortly after the ceremony it becomes clear that the young king suffers from mental illness. German physician and philosopher Johan Struensee is called to attend the unstable King and an epic romance results between the doctor and the queen, giving Johan the power to make transformational social changes within the Danish kingdom. Based on a true story, A ROYAL AFFAIR is Denmark's official submission for Academy Award® consideration. —April Wright


THE SAPPHIRES
DIRECTOR Wayne Blair, 99 MIN
From the Land Down Under comes this inspiring and thrilling true story of a late 1960s girl group caught up in the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. The film's screenwriter is the real-life son and nephew of the four incredible women who were discovered singing in an outback pub by an Irish manager with an ear for soul. The Sapphires take their music on the road, battling racial prejudice regarding their aboriginal heritage. The beautiful and talented girls find success and embark on the biggest adventure of their lives, traveling to Southeast Asia to entertain American troops at war. With standout performances from Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell, THE SAPPHIRES is a toe-tapping, rollicking crowd-pleaser with dynamite sound and a mighty heart.


THE SET-UP
One of the best movies ever made about the seedy world of professional boxing. Robert Ryan stars as Bill "Stoker" Thompson, a proud but aging palooka who really believes he is just one punch away from a big purse. Filmed in real time, this hard-hitting drama still packs a major wallop. The top notch cast includes Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Wallace Ford and Percy Helton. Screenplay based on a narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March.  1949, USA, 35mm, 73 minutes. directed by Robert Wise; starring Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford


SHORTS PROGRAM SIX
72 MIN
IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY, USA. DIRECTOR Don Hertzfeldt, 23 MIN. Bill finds himself in a hospital struggling with memory problems in this third and final chapter of Don Hertzfeldt’s EVERYTHING WILL BE OK trilogy.
JUST ANCIENT LOOPS, USA. DIRECTOR Bill Morrison, 25 MIN. Using archival footage, chemical processes and animation, Bill Morrison presents a unique view of the heavens.
NARCOCORRIDO, USA. DIRECTOR Ryan Prows, 24 MIN. Narcocorrido – the drug ballad of a gravely ill border cop’s reckless heist of a cartel shipment, sung by a desperate soul destroyed in its wake.


SILENT CRY
We continue to explore the films of the late Stephen Dwoskin, who passed away earlier this year. Silent Crywas originally commissioned by German television as part of a loose trilogy that began with Behindert, which was screened at EPFC in April. "A kind of impressionistic 'diary' of a girl and her silent cry for help/understanding/love/identity. Not everything is seen from her viewpoint but everything is felt as she feels it. What Dwoskin calls an 'under-narrative' develops and interweaves through the film giving a composite of dreams, distortions, diaries, memories and feelings. Dwoskin has likened the film to a kind of contemporary Alice in Wonderland, 'a world which we can feel more and more as the filmic tapestry is woven.' It is also, one should emphasize, beautifully photographed with not only highly effective extreme close-ups but also many finely-patterned almost abstract shots." - Ken Wlaschin, catalogue, 1977 London International Film Festival


SISTER
Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) lives with his older sister (Léa Seydoux) in a housing complex below a luxury Swiss ski resort. With his sister drifting in and out of jobs and relationships, twelve-year-old Simon takes on the responsibility of providing for the two of them. Every day, he takes the lift up to the opulent ski world above, stealing equipment from rich tourists to resell to the local kids down in the valley. He is able to keep their little family afloat with his small-time hustles and his sister is thankful for the money he brings in. But, when Simon partners with a crooked British seasonal worker, he begins to lose his boundaries, affecting his relationship with his sister and plummeting him into dangerous territory.  Conversation to follow with director Ursula Meier and cinematographer Agnès Godard. Moderated by Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times film writer


SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
DIRECTOR Bob Byington, 76 MIN
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME continues in the comedic tradition of Bob Byington's 2009 film HARMONY AND ME, albeit with the presence of a mysterious suitcase. There's something unusual about Max's story as he is oddly immune to aging, a curious trait that the principal people in his life don't seem to notice. After Max discovers his ex-wife in bed with another man, he capriciously marries again, the disastrous cycle repeating itself perfectly. As he traipses through life trying to navigate love, friendship with his co-worker and business partner and the turbulent business world, Max clings to the suitcase, which might just possibly contain his personal fountain of youth. With this, his fourth feature, Byington is at the top of his comedic game, crafting memorable characters with a first-rate acting ensemble, including Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Keith Poulson and Jess Weixler. —Lane Kneedler


SOMETHING IN THE AIR
DIRECTOR Olivier Assayas, 122 MIN
Set in Paris in 1971, just a few years after the student riots of 1968, SOMETHING IN THE AIR feels like an open letter to the friends and forces that shaped director Olivier Assayas' coming of age. Assayas masterfully makes the encompassing political issues personal by focusing on the journey of Gilles (Clément Métayer ), a young man whose transformation begins when he is exposed to revolutionary literature. Although his intellectual awakening leads him to join the political protests and vandalism in the streets, when an opportunity to escape to Italy for the summer appears, Gilles seizes it. In Italy, he experiences artistic inspiration fuelled by a new muse and the unbridled freedom of expression he discovers in a leftist filmmaking collective where a member proudly proclaims, "We don't make fiction." Film becomes a new medium for Gilles, through which he is able to reconcile the tension between his aspirations and his political ideals. —Jacqueline Lyanga


SOUND MOVIES: KICK THAT HABIT and TWELVE DARK NOONS
Mike Stoltz presents a night of musician-filmmaker collaborations featuring Peter Liechti's Kick That Habit and Jaqueline Castel's Twelve Dark Noons. Kick That Habit (Peter Liechti, 1989, Switzerland, 45:00, 16mm presented on HD) is a portrait of the household electronics duo VOICE CRACK whose musical workings are explored as part of Liechti’s vision. Whether clicking quietly and rhythmically or humming and shrieking at ear-splitting volume, their recycled electronics produce innovative sounds and provide an appropriate accompaniment in this cinematic search for the detritus of our culture, the lost and destroyed remains of the last century of progress. Set against the Australian Outback, Twelve Dark Noons (Jaqueline Castel, 2011, 16:00, Super8 to HD) is a character study of a lone man, lost in an unforgiving desert terrain with nothing but a suitcase and fragments of his unraveling memory. As memories unfold and reality dissolves, the film’s scenery transforms into a psychological dreamscape haunted by a mysterious woman hidden in the dunes. Sydney-based band Naked on the Vague star in the film and contribute a darkly hypnotic psychedelic score.


Spring, Summer Fall, Winter... and Spring – 7:45pm
“It all comes back to a temple, floating in the middle of a lake at the end of a remote mountain path. Even if Kim Ki-Duk’s bracingly pure Buddhist parable Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring didn’t contain vivid characters and devastating life lessons, the writer-director could still serve up shot after shot of that temple, whose isolation and austere beauty provides a picture-postcard representation of what the movie means to say. The story follows the goings-on at the temple over the course of 30 to 40 years, as a boy grows to manhood under the guidance of a wise old monk in five season-specific vignettes. Spring, Summer… emphasizes the natural world through a contemplative but not showily abstracted visual rhythm, relying on striking images: a man repeatedly carving calligraphy into planks of wood, or the recurring motif of animals and people struggling to move while tied to rocks. Since its agonizing logic establishes that “want” of any kind is tantamount to lust, which lies on the same continuum as murder, Kim’s beautifully staged morality play affirms that life itself is exquisitely impossible.” — Noel Murray, AV Club
Dir. Kim Ki-Duk, 2003, 35mm, 103 min.


STARLET
DIRECTOR Sean Baker, 103 MIN
Sean Baker's unusual character study follows the improbable friendship that develops between Jane, a rootless 21-year-old porn actress and Sadie, a prickly octogenarian who accidentally sells her a thermos full of cash at a yard sale. Jane's unspoken attempts to “repay” her debt to Sadie result in a combative yet tender mother-daughter dynamic. Baker juxtaposes this transaction against the stark economic realities of Jane's profession. Beautifully shot in the sun-blasted San Fernando Valley, STARLET has a strong sense of place, an unforced naturalism and a refreshingly matter-of-fact approach to its porn industry setting. Featuring a breakout performance by Dree Hemingway (daughter of Mariel) and the film debut of 85-year-old Besedka Johnson (who was discovered in a Los Angeles gym), STARLET is that rare film about female friendship, which also explores the delicate bonds we forge to build surrogate families. —Matt Cornell


STEVIE
In 1995, filmmaker Steve James returns to Pomona, a beautiful rural hamlet in Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, for whom James once served as an advocate Big Brother. He finds that the once difficult, awkward child has become -- ten years later -- an angry and troubled young man. Part way through filming, Stevie is arrested and charged with a serious crime. He confesses to the crime and then later recants. The filmmaker himself is drawn into the film as he tries to sort out his own feelings, past and present, about Stevie and how to deal with him in the wake of his arrest. What was to be a modest profile of Stevie, turns into an intimate four and a half year chronicle of a dysfunctional family's struggle to heal.  Directed by Steve James. Produced by Steve James, Adam D. Singer, and Gordon Quinn. Followed by a Q&A with Steve James


SUN DON'T SHINE
DIRECTOR Amy Seimetz, 82 MIN
Amy Seimetz's directorial debut, SUN DON'T SHINE, follows Crystal and her boyfriend Leo as they travel across the Sunshine State to escape Crystal's haunting past and embark on a new future together. As they travel, we are introduced to their complex relationship and the mystery of what brought them to this point in their lives. Part road film, part noir, this subtle and cryptic film is expertly paced and reveals layer by layer the secret that Crystal and Leo are harboring in the trunk. In what promises to be a breakout performance, Kate Lyn Sheil plays Crystal, a fractured and frightened woman who seems on the verge of shattering at any moment. SUN DON'T SHINE is expertly lensed by cinematographer Jay Keitel, whose lush photography adds emotional depth to the film. Seimetz's first feature ably mixes genres and challenges the notion of a "mumblecore" film, elevating the genre to a whole new level. —Jenn Murphy


SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS
DIRECTOR F.W. Murnau, 89 MIN
Studio head William Fox offered F.W. Murnau complete artistic freedom when he brought the German director to the United States after the filmmaker's critical triumphs, THE LAST LAUGH (1924) and FAUST (1926). SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS, which contains few explanatory and dialogue titles, continues Murnau's experiments in purely visual storytelling and conveys its simplified narrative in three symphonic movements that represent betrayal, atonement and trial. Overtly expressionistic in its art direction and performances, audiences of the time found it hard to accept the highly stylized performances of all-American players George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor, but the newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized SUNRISE for its “Unique and Artistic Production” at the first Oscar ceremony in 1929. —Bob Birchard. New 35mm print


SUNSET BLVD.
DIRECTOR Billy Wilder, 110 MIN
Paramount Pictures, in association with Technicolor, proudly presents a special screening of the newly restored SUNSET BOULEVARD as part of AFI FEST. With restoration services by Technicolor, be the first to experience one of Hollywood's most beloved films as it was originally intended. A fitting release to continue Paramount's centennial celebration, Billy Wilder's seminal classic continues to enthrall audiences with its bizarre and tragic tale of Hollywood's dark side. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and winner for Best Writing, Best Art Direction and Best Music, SUNSET BOULEVARD is ranked #12 on AFI's original 100 Years...100 Movies list of America's Greatest Movies. William Holden, as a struggling young screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson, as an aging silent film queen, created two of the screen's most memorable characters, delivering unforgettable performances amid the dramatic light and shadow of John Seitz's evocative cinematography. A Stunning new restoration presented by Technicolor


SURNAME VIET, GIVEN NAME NAM
USA, 1989, 108mins., 16mm 
Twenty-three years after its premiere, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film remains a post-colonial classic, tackling issues of translation and untranslatability: from a Vietnamese transcript of half-spoken voices recorded at night, to the French publication of these interviews, to their re-translation into English by a native Vietnamese speaker, to the patient efforts of ordinary Vietnamese women to memorize and utter them—then to the lyrics of Vietnamese ballads translated into English subtitles—and finally to Trinh delivering, in English, fragments of oral history, epic poems, and folk sayings about women’s role in society. What is lost and what is gained in this multiple-entry process, in this palimpsest of half-erased texts? What is not gained is a “knowledge-about” a certain object: Vietnam. And what is not lost is a certain truth about the bodies of Vietnamese women. In person: Trinh T. Minh-ha


TABU
DIRECTOR Miguel Gomes, 111 MIN
TABU is a highly stylized dream of a film. The film takes its name from the F.W. Murnau and Robert Flaherty 1931 silent classic TABU: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS and is similarly an epic colonial romance. However, in Miguel Gomes' TABU, the romantic ideals of colonial history are juxtaposed against a moral ineptitude that penetrates the cloistered colonial world of African servants, garden parties, rifles, difficult childbirths and tropical diseases — and leads to despair and moral and physical deaths that are small and large. The film is a haunting and beautiful homage to tragic love, as seen through the eyes of a hungry crocodile, set to a soundtrack of Portuguese versions of Phil Spector songs. From Lisbon to Mount Tabu, the remote outpost of the Portuguese motherland, the film is a dazzling black and white spectacle that shows us the promise and potential that Gomes holds as a director. —Jacqueline Lyanga


TCHOUPITOULAS
DIRECTORS Bill Ross, Turner Ross, 80 MIN
The Ross brothers' TCHOUPITOULAS is a dreamlike documentary following three young boys as they venture across the mighty Mississippi River into New Orleans' famous French Quarter for a night of revelry among street performers, drag queens, burlesque dancers and Mardi Gras parades. Following their Independent Spirit Award winning debut film, 45365, Bill and Turner Ross have once again applied their incredible observational style to one of America's oldest and most colorful cities, thereby adding themselves to the roster of filmmakers with a truly distinctive eye. Expertly weaving together a visual and aural tapestry, the Ross brothers bring to life a distinct portrait of a thriving nocturnal population renowned for its decadence and debauchery. The directing duo skillfully captures this teeming adult world through the wide eyes of their adolescent subjects. The film's vignettes — colorful local characters, quiet moments of exploration, blaring brass bands — make TCHOUPITOULAS a kaleidoscopic journey through the “other” side of New Orleans. —Jenn Murphy


TEY
DIRECTOR Alain Gomis, 86 MIN
Alain Gomis' third film is a lyrical and poetic portrait of modern Senegal. Sau?l Williams is Satché, a healthy young man who is told by the community's fortuneteller that he has only one day left to live. Satché accepts his fate and sets out to spend his final day with the people who will remember him when he is gone. He essentially conducts his own wake — stealing a few final moments with a lover, enacting a traditional funeral ceremony with an elder, leading a parade through the town. These moments are beautiful and rich with symbolism; Gomis gives us a rare glimpse of life in a contemporary African city. Despite its celebration of life, TEY is inherently sad; it feels like an allegory for the young men of Africa whose lives are cut short by violence. And yet, Satché finds peace before his soul takes flight. Gomis' visual palate is lush and emotional and with this film he proves himself to be an emerging master filmmaker. —Jacqueline Lyanga


3-Iron
A centerpiece from one of the most highly interesting cinematic about-faces of the last few decades (perhaps only rivaled by David Gordon Green’s recent left turn from stylistic art-house fare to mainstream Hollywood comedies), Kim Ki-Duk’s enigmatic 3-Iron takes the viewer away from the beautiful transgressivity of early shockers like The Isle, Real Fiction and Bad Guy to an entirely different (but no less electrifyingly unique) calm trajectory. Spelunking deep into the private lives of total strangers, a mysterious drifter devises a system to identify if a house’s owner is on vacation; instead of breaking in to steal their stuff, he repays his hosts’ “hospitality” by fixing broken items and cleaning up. But when he sneaks into a sprawling mansion and discovers a “kept” wife trapped in a boring marriage, thus begins an erotic cat-and-mouse game that ends in startlingly hilarious tragedy. This nearly dialogue-free excursion into a gentle private madness shows the filmmaker operating at the high-frequency peak of his powers.
Dir. Kim Ki-Duk, 2004, 35mm, 88 min.


TIME
Around half of South Korean women in their twenties have had plastic surgery. In this chilling melodrama, Kim Ki-duk uses this most disturbing national obsession — the ideal of ul-jjang (literally, “a perfect face”) — as the launching point for a wildly original exploration of love, identity, and, of course, time. Ji-Yeon Park stars as the petulant woman whose extreme jealousy prompts an extreme makeover. After leaving her boyfriend, she disappears for six months and emerges with a completely altered face, keeping her identity hidden from him in order to test his love. With the “post-op” version of the lead character played by a completely different actress, Time recalls a more paranormal Douglas Sirk in its provocative and histrionic approach to physical mutation and modern romance.
Dir. Kim Ki-Duk, 2006, 35mm, 97 min.  Preceded by:
AN EVENING WITH KIM KI-DUK IN PERSON
Winner of the highest prizes at such prestigious institutions as the Berlin, Venice and Cannes Film Festivals, yet treated at arm’s length in his home country, the fiercely independent Kim Ki-Duk is South Korea’s preeminent cinematic enfant terrible, and continues to shock and surprise the entire world with works that tread the line between the profane and the impossibly beautiful. This highly prolific picturemaker, having had no previous background in artistic pursuits, first dropped out of the South Korean marine corps to become a bohemian painter in France — and it is this unusual lineage that informs his entire cinematic body, as he continues to spin narratives that immediately grab you by the throat and don’t let go, while also treating you to a host of images that can be as wispy as dandelion fuzz in the breeze of a summer morning. Tonight, Kim Ki-Duk appears on the Cinefamily stage, for an extremely rare live stateside interview session in which he discusses his work past and present!


THE TONG MAN
1919, 58 min, USA, Dir: William Worthington
Japanese-American Sessue Hayakawa produced and starred in this unusually violent silent film about smuggling and the Chinese mafia, featuring realistic gun and knife fights and even a hatchet to the face! Hawakaya's extraordinary presence dominates the screen. Almost 40 years later, the actor received an Oscar nomination for his role in David Lean's BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI. Screening format: 8mm.  A great selection of silent shorts, including “The Woman in Grey, Episode 5” (1919), will also screen.


USED CARS
1980, Sony Repertory, 113 min, USA, Dir: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis simultaneously satirize and celebrate what it means to be successful in America in this hilarious tale of a used-car salesman (Kurt Russell) who will do anything to hold onto his lot and make a sale. Jack Warden gives one of the best performances of his career as twin brothers who own rival dealerships where the gimmicks become increasingly outrageous as the competition escalates; Russell is at his most charming as a cynical variation on the Capra-esque hero.


VERONIKA KRAUSAS' MUSIC & FILMS
Composer Veronika Krausas screens films and discusses her music. "In all her creative endeavors, be they music, performance, film or photography, she is a compiler, forging compositions in a literal sense through a vast archive of accumulated observations and the unlikely connections between them. Sonically and visually, she is intrigued by dissonance. Krausas is a student of randomness, engineering conceptual juxtapositions of elements that have haphazardly intruded into her consciousness and piqued her interest." -Shan Nys Dambrot, Art Critic & LA Weekly. "Krausas' extraordinary works eschew the commonplace, the pretty, and the predictably lyric sensibility to explore a more provocative and uncharted path... a sortie into an incongruous universe where forking paths inexplicably converge, and where discordances co-exist in subtle sympathy... [Her] pieces invoke a place beyond comfort or familiarity, and deliver the listener into a crossroads of authentic grace, discovery, and delight." - Quintan Ana Wikswo, Catalysis Projects.


WAKE IN FRIGHT
“The best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence” – Nick Cave
“Wake In Fright is a deeply — and I mean deeply — unsettling and disturbing movie. I saw it when it premiered at Cannes in 1971, and it left me speechless. Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, it’s beautifully calibrated.” — Martin Scorsese
Soaked in immensely palpable dread from its opening frames to its closing image, Ted Kotcheff’s masterpiece Wake In Fright is one of the earliest examples of the legendary super-kick-ass wave of Aussie exploitation movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the desolate Australian outback, a bunch of bored yokels (including sleazy, alcoholic doctor Donald Pleasence) drag a down-on-his-luck visiting teacher into their excessive lifestyle of booze and sex, but things take an even nastier turn before the final reel. Kotcheff really cut his teeth on atmospheric action here before doing First Blood, a film which owes a strong debt to this overlooked peek at the nasty underbelly of the folks who live Down Under. Believed to be lost for decades and virtually unseen in America until now, Wake In Fright is presented in a brand-new 35mm print!
Dir. Ted Kotcheff, 1971, 35mm, 114 min.


Wall Street (1929)  
Directed by Roy William Neill
Roller McCray, a former steelworker who built a business empire through ruthless  tactics, drives a competitor to suicide. His widow wants to take revenge by joining forces with his former business partner to destroy him and his empire. Efficiently directed by Roy William Neill, Wall Street was an early example of a synchronous sound film from Columbia, but it is still topical today.
Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: Harry Cohn. Screenwriter: Paul Gangelin, Norman Houston, Jack Kirkland. Cinematographer: Ted Tetzlaff. Editor: Ray Snyder. Cast: Ralph Ince, Aileen Pringle, Philip Strange, Freddie Burke Frederick, Sam De Grasse. 35mm, b/w, 68 min. 


WAR DON DON
After ten years of violent civil war, Sierra Leoneans were relieved in 2002 when the brutal war was over (exclaimed as “war don don” in the Krio language), but the painful memories of murder, systematic rape and dismemberment remained. War Don Don, directed by first-time filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen, follows the war crimes trial of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Issa Sesay, exploring the complex relationship between individual accountability, collective reconciliation and the limits of international justice.
From 1991 to 2001, the RUF fought to overthrow the ruling government of Sierra Leone. In 2003, after the end of the war, the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone spent more than $200 million building a Special Court to seek justice and reconciliation, setting up the world’s first international war crimes “hybrid tribunal.” Three years in the making, War Don Don draws on unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense and prosecution in Issa Sesay’s trial, including access to Sesay himself, exploring the contradictions of a man who dealt in blood diamonds, commanded child soldiers and was blamed for mass atrocities against civilians, while also being credited by some with single-handedly ending the war.   Directed & Produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen. Produced & Edited by Francisco Bello. Introduced by Anne Archer, Actress and Founder, Artists for Human Rights. Followed by a Q&A with Rebecca Richman Cohen; Elise Keppler, Senior Counsel in the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch; Dr. Michael Renov, Ph.D., Vice Dean, School of Cinematic Arts; Moderated by Hannah Garry, Professor at the USC Gould School of Law.


WAR WITCH
DIRECTOR Kim Nguyen, 90 MIN
A harrowing drama laced with moments of exquisite beauty, WAR WITCH unfolds as a bedtime story of sorts — told by a 14-year-old African child soldier to her unborn son. Taken from her village at gunpoint, Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is given a rifle and fed an hallucinogenic milk that gifts her with the ability to see the ghosts of the fallen. Fighting alongside an albino boy named Magician, she soon comes to understand that her career as "Witch" to the rebel leader will only last as long as their victories. The two set off together, putting their violent past behind them while searching for the white rooster she has demanded as proof of his love. Crafted over a 10-year period, Canadian director Kim Nguyen has interwoven true stories of child soldiers in Burma with footage captured in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create something raw, immediate and emotionally true. —Dayan Ballweg


WEST OF MEMPHIS
DIRECTOR Amy Berg, 146 MIN
Unfolding with the epic scope and emotional complexity of a Russian novel, Amy Berg's WEST OF MEMPHIS casts a light on the brutal murder of three young boys in the Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas — and the 18-year struggle to exonerate the teenagers who were convicted of the crimes. As the final appeal nears, supporters of the West Memphis Three, including filmmakers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, as well as musicians Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines, enlist a team of forensic and legal experts to build a case against a new and unconsidered suspect, pushing the state towards a seemingly impossible resolution of simultaneous guilt and innocence. The film deliberately lingers on the faces as much as the facts — showing both sides of the debate while illustrating the complex mingling of memory and emotion that frequently barricade us from the truth. —Dayan Ballweg


WE WON'T GROW OLD TOGETHER
Maurice Pialat, who one critic dubbed "the French Cassavetes" and Film Comment called "the most important French filmmaker since Robert Bresson", directed this semi-autobiographical drama about a couple unable to separate from one another.  Maurice Pialat---France---1972---106 mins. 


WRONG
DIRECTOR Quentin Dupieux, 94 MIN
Dolph Springer (the wonderful Jack Plotnick) awakens one morning to realize he has tragically lost the love of his life — his dog, Paul. So begins WRONG, the micro-epic tale of Dolph's quest to reunite with his best friend and set his world right. Things quickly spiral into the realm of the absurd. Using epic super-realism, Quentin Dupieux creates a surrealist world tinged with a heightened reality bordering on the bizarre. Impeccably cast and directed, Dupieux's gifted company raises the tension of existence so high that audiences have no choice but to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The director's previously fantastical trademarks are also on display here. Shadowy organizations and magical/supernatural occurrences are front and center. But what makes WRONG such a bold step forward for this artist is his uncanny control over the diction, breadth and mise en scene of this world, creating a dizzying, absurdist canvas you won't forget. —Lane Kneedler 

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