Cinematheque Film Schedule

United Kingdom | 1936 | Alfred Hitchcock

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most exciting and cited films (made before he emigrated to Hollywood) tells of a London cinema manager who is actually a bomb-planting foreign saboteur. “May be just about the best of [Hitchcock’s] English thrillers.” –Pauline Kael. With Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka; not to be confused with Hitchcock’s Secret Agent, which preceded it, or Saboteur, which followed six years later.

France, United States | 2015 | Kent Jones

In 1962 30-year-old French film critic and budding auteur François Truffaut conducted an in-depth, eight-day interview with 63-year-old Alfred Hitchcock at Universal Studios. This resulted in a book that regarded the commercially successful Hollywood director, for the first time, as an artist. The tome became a cornerstone of 1960s/1970s cinephilia. In his new film that The Hollywood Reporter calls “catnip for film buffs,” Kent Jones, programming director of the New York Film Festival, looks back...

France, United States | 2015 | Kent Jones

In 1962 30-year-old French film critic and budding auteur François Truffaut conducted an in-depth, eight-day interview with 63-year-old Alfred Hitchcock at Universal Studios. This resulted in a book that regarded the commercially successful Hollywood director, for the first time, as an artist. The tome became a cornerstone of 1960s/1970s cinephilia. In his new film that The Hollywood Reporter calls “catnip for film buffs,” Kent Jones, programming director of the New York Film Festival, looks back...

United Kingdom | 1936 | Alfred Hitchcock

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most exciting and cited films (made before he emigrated to Hollywood) tells of a London cinema manager who is actually a bomb-planting foreign saboteur. “May be just about the best of [Hitchcock’s] English thrillers.” –Pauline Kael. With Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka; not to be confused with Hitchcock’s Secret Agent, which preceded it, or Saboteur, which followed six years later.

France | 1970 | Claude Sautet

Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider star in this Claude Sautet drama about an architect, separated from his wife and son, who is having an affair with another woman. But he can’t commit fully to his new love because he discovers he is still emotionally attached to his family. “Difficult to make a film about banality without being boring in the process, but Sautet pulls it off.” –Time Out Film Guide.

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

One of the film events of the year! The latest work from the acclaimed Portuguese director of 2012’s celebrated Tabu is either one very long film (381 min.) or a trilogy; Gomes says it is both. (We will show its three “volumes” over the next three weekends.) Inspired by the literary classic One Thousand and One Nights, in which the virgin Scheherazade indefinitely delays her morning death by strangulation by regaling her sultan husband (and...

Spain, Switzerland | 1965 | Orson Welles

Long out of release, this Shakespearean comedy/drama that Orson Welles regarded as his greatest film (some critics concur) can now been seen again! Welles compiled text from five different Shakespeare plays to chronicle the almost-father-and-son friendship between rotund, dissipated, disreputable Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) and young Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), the man who would be King Henry V. According to Pauline Kael, Welles' direction of the grim battle of Shrewsbury “ranks with the finest...

Spain, Switzerland | 1965 | Orson Welles

Long out of release, this Shakespearean comedy/drama that Orson Welles regarded as his greatest film (some critics concur) can now been seen again! Welles compiled text from five different Shakespeare plays to chronicle the almost-father-and-son friendship between rotund, dissipated, disreputable Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) and young Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), the man who would be King Henry V. According to Pauline Kael, Welles' direction of the grim battle of Shrewsbury “ranks with the finest...

France | 1970 | Claude Sautet

Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider star in this Claude Sautet drama about an architect, separated from his wife and son, who is having an affair with another woman. But he can’t commit fully to his new love because he discovers he is still emotionally attached to his family. “Difficult to make a film about banality without being boring in the process, but Sautet pulls it off.” –Time Out Film Guide.

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

One of the film events of the year! The latest work from the acclaimed Portuguese director of 2012’s celebrated Tabu is either one very long film (381 min.) or a trilogy; Gomes says it is both. (We will show its three “volumes” over the next three weekends.) Inspired by the literary classic One Thousand and One Nights, in which the virgin Scheherazade indefinitely delays her morning death by strangulation by regaling her sultan husband (and...

United States | 2015 | Khalik Allah

In this immersive documentary that “seeks to give a voice to the voiceless and a face to the faceless” (Hollywood Reporter), acclaimed NYC street photographer Khalik Allah trains his digital video camera on the impoverished nighttime denizens who hang out at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem. Employing slow motion and non-synchronous sound, Allah’s hallucinatory nocturne captures these unfortunates (many of them homeless and drug addicted) in the glare of streetlamps...

France | 2008 | Bertrand Bonello

Mathieu Amalric, Asia Argento, Guillaume Depardieu, Léa Seydoux, and Michel Piccoli star in this provocative dramedy made by French writer/director/composer Bertrand Bonello just before his international breakthroughs, House of Tolerance and Saint Laurent. Amalric plays a film director who, after accidentally spending a life-changing night locked inside a coffin, joins a strange cult of pleasure seekers based at a remote mansion. There he and others touch each other, swim naked, participate in raves,...

France | 2008 | Bertrand Bonello

Mathieu Amalric, Asia Argento, Guillaume Depardieu, Léa Seydoux, and Michel Piccoli star in this provocative dramedy made by French writer/director/composer Bertrand Bonello just before his international breakthroughs, House of Tolerance and Saint Laurent. Amalric plays a film director who, after accidentally spending a life-changing night locked inside a coffin, joins a strange cult of pleasure seekers based at a remote mansion. There he and others touch each other, swim naked, participate in raves,...

Great Britain | 1945 | David Lean

Voted the most romantic film of all time in a poll of 101 film industry experts conducted by London’s Time Out Magazine (Casablanca finished #2), David Lean’s celebrated drama has long been one of the cinema’s great love stories. Written by Noël Coward, with music by Rachmaninoff, the film stars Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson as decent, respectable, middle-class Brits, both married with children, who meet by chance at a train station, fall in love,...

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

Part two of Miguel Gomes’ collection of sad, hilarious, fantastic tales illustrating the ill effects of economic belt-tightening in Portugal (see 2/6 at 6:45) is the Portuguese entry for this year’s foreign-language film Academy Award. Three stories are told in this installment, starting with the intriguingly titled “Chronicle of the Escape of Simão Without Bowels,” about a fugitive killer. “May be austerity-themed, but it’s a sensual and intellectual feast.” –Variety.

France, Italy, West Germany | 1972 | Claude Sautet

In Claude Sautet’s unconventional comic drama, a successful and jovial scrap metal dealer (Yves Montand) finds his comfortable relationship with a beautiful divorcée (Romy Schneider) threatened when one of her first loves, a soft-spoken cartoonist (Sami Frey), turns up unexpectedly one day. With Isabelle Huppert in one of her first screen roles. “A fluky, wry ode on the imperfect, haphazard nature of romantic love.” –Pauline Kael.

Great Britain | 1945 | David Lean

Voted the most romantic film of all time in a poll of 101 film industry experts conducted by London’s Time Out Magazine (Casablanca finished #2), David Lean’s celebrated drama has long been one of the cinema’s great love stories. Written by Noël Coward, with music by Rachmaninoff, the film stars Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson as decent, respectable, middle-class Brits, both married with children, who meet by chance at a train station, fall in love,...

France, Italy, West Germany | 1972 | Claude Sautet

In Claude Sautet’s unconventional comic drama, a successful and jovial scrap metal dealer (Yves Montand) finds his comfortable relationship with a beautiful divorcée (Romy Schneider) threatened when one of her first loves, a soft-spoken cartoonist (Sami Frey), turns up unexpectedly one day. With Isabelle Huppert in one of her first screen roles. “A fluky, wry ode on the imperfect, haphazard nature of romantic love.” –Pauline Kael.

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

Part two of Miguel Gomes’ collection of sad, hilarious, fantastic tales illustrating the ill effects of economic belt-tightening in Portugal (see 2/6 at 6:45) is the Portuguese entry for this year’s foreign-language film Academy Award. Three stories are told in this installment, starting with the intriguingly titled “Chronicle of the Escape of Simão Without Bowels,” about a fugitive killer. “May be austerity-themed, but it’s a sensual and intellectual feast.” –Variety.

Belgium, France | 2015 | Chantal Akerman

Topping some critics’ Ten Best lists for 2015, and appearing on many others, the final film by innovative Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman is an uncompromising portrait of the person who was the most important figure in her life: her mother. Natalia (Nelly) Akerman, a Polish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor who died in Brussels in April 2014 at age 86 (65-year-old Chantal took her own life 16 months later), figured prominently in many of her daughter’s...

France, Lithuania, Netherlands | 2015 | Alanté Kavaïté

Lithuania’s first lesbian romance is a sensuous summertime saga about the relationship between two teenagers who meet at a rural air show. Sangaile, the more troubled and introverted of the two, is enamored of stunt flying and dreams of becoming a pilot. But it’s the confident, artistic, ebullient local girl Auste who really knocks her for a loop. “[A] heartfelt snapshot of summer love and self-discovery, enhanced by lots of breathtaking scenery and two hugely...

France, Lithuania, Netherlands | 2015 | Alanté Kavaïté

Lithuania’s first lesbian romance is a sensuous summertime saga about the relationship between two teenagers who meet at a rural air show. Sangaile, the more troubled and introverted of the two, is enamored of stunt flying and dreams of becoming a pilot. But it’s the confident, artistic, ebullient local girl Auste who really knocks her for a loop. “[A] heartfelt snapshot of summer love and self-discovery, enhanced by lots of breathtaking scenery and two hugely...

France, Italy | 1974 | Claude Sautet

Yves Montand, Michel Piccoli, Gérard Depardieu, Serge Reggiani, and Stéphane Audran star in this drama about three longtime chums—a businessman, a doctor, and a writer—who face assorted mid-life crises: bankruptcy, loss of ideals, writer’s block, marital discord, etc. Can the men continue to find strength and sustenance in their friendship? “«««« (highest rating)…Enormously satisfying.” –Leonard Maltin.

Japan | 1949 | Yasujiro Ozu

One of the most perfect of Yasujiro Ozu’s family dramas, this piercingly beautiful movie delineates the attempts of an elderly widower (Chishu Ryu) to marry off his devoted grown daughter (Setsuko Hara) who is reluctant to leave him. Sublime!

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

The final part of Miguel Gomes’ collection of sad, hilarious, fantastic tales illustrating the ill effects of economic belt-tightening in Portugal (see 2/6 at 6:45) has a split personality. The film opens with a lushly imagined color segment in which the storyteller Scheherazade takes center stage, wandering though opulent settings and landscapes in exotic Orientalist garb, encountering lovers, bandits, and singers. Then the focus switches to Portugal’s unemployed, working class bird trappers, who catch and...

Belgium, France | 2015 | Chantal Akerman

Topping some critics’ Ten Best lists for 2015, and appearing on many others, the final film by innovative Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman is an uncompromising portrait of the person who was the most important figure in her life: her mother. Natalia (Nelly) Akerman, a Polish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor who died in Brussels in April 2014 at age 86 (65-year-old Chantal took her own life 16 months later), figured prominently in many of her daughter’s...

Palestine, United States | 2015 | Ellie Bernstein

Martin Sheen narrates this new documentary about the West Bank town of Hebron, which UNESCO, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch consider to be the most violent city in occupied Palestine. The movie profiles some of the families living there, and explores how Jewish settlements in Hebron have hurt chances for peace in the Middle East. Filmmaker Ellie Bernstein will answer audience questions after the screening, and so will Sister Paulette Schroeder of the Christian...

France, Italy | 1974 | Claude Sautet

Yves Montand, Michel Piccoli, Gérard Depardieu, Serge Reggiani, and Stéphane Audran star in this drama about three longtime chums—a businessman, a doctor, and a writer—who face assorted mid-life crises: bankruptcy, loss of ideals, writer’s block, marital discord, etc. Can the men continue to find strength and sustenance in their friendship? “«««« (highest rating)…Enormously satisfying.” –Leonard Maltin.

France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland | 2015 | Miguel Gomes

The final part of Miguel Gomes’ collection of sad, hilarious, fantastic tales illustrating the ill effects of economic belt-tightening in Portugal (see 2/6 at 6:45) has a split personality. The film opens with a lushly imagined color segment in which the storyteller Scheherazade takes center stage, wandering though opulent settings and landscapes in exotic Orientalist garb, encountering lovers, bandits, and singers. Then the focus switches to Portugal’s unemployed, working class bird trappers, who catch and...

Japan | 1949 | Yasujiro Ozu

One of the most perfect of Yasujiro Ozu’s family dramas, this piercingly beautiful movie delineates the attempts of an elderly widower (Chishu Ryu) to marry off his devoted grown daughter (Setsuko Hara) who is reluctant to leave him. Sublime!

France, Germany, Italy | 1995 | Claude Sautet

Emmanuelle Béart and Michel Serrault star in this César-winning French film, about a young woman burdened with debt and a ne’er-do-well husband who goes to work for a wealthy, retired businessman 40-50 years her senior. An unusual relationship ensues. “An exquisitely witty, beautifully moving film…Classical French filmmaking par excellence.” –Time Out Film Guide. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 106 min.

Chile, France, Spain, Switzerland | 2015 | Patricio Guzmán

Master Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán says his new film is part of a diptych with Nostalgia for the Light, his sublime 2011 documentary of remembrance that linked astronomy, archaeology, and Chile’s traumatic political history. The Pearl Button is similarly interdisciplinary. Focused at first on water and on the oceans that border his country, Guzmán soon expands his view to include the extermination of the indigenous coastal tribes of Patagonia and the countless victims of torture...

Chile, France, Spain, Switzerland | 2015 | Patricio Guzmán

Master Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán says his new film is part of a diptych with Nostalgia for the Light, his sublime 2011 documentary of remembrance that linked astronomy, archaeology, and Chile’s traumatic political history. The Pearl Button is similarly interdisciplinary. Focused at first on water and on the oceans that border his country, Guzmán soon expands his view to include the extermination of the indigenous coastal tribes of Patagonia and the countless victims of torture...

Austria, Germany, Netherlands, United States | 2015 | Don Hardy Jr.

Devo, Matt Groening, and Penn Jillette are among the fans interviewed in this new film about The Residents, the avant-garde sound and video collective that has released 60+ albums and numerous music videos, short films, and DVD’s during the last four decades. And all this time the band members have remained anonymous, thanks to the iconic eyeball masks they wear when performing. This new documentary includes archival film clips and performance footage, as well as...

France, Germany, Italy | 1995 | Claude Sautet

Emmanuelle Béart and Michel Serrault star in this César-winning French film, about a young woman burdened with debt and a ne’er-do-well husband who goes to work for a wealthy, retired businessman 40-50 years her senior. An unusual relationship ensues. “An exquisitely witty, beautifully moving film…Classical French filmmaking par excellence.” –Time Out Film Guide. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 106 min.

Germany, Israel | 2015 | Mor Loushy

Winner of the Ophir Award (Israel’s Oscar) for Best Documentary, this revelatory movie takes another look at 1967’s Six-Day War, during which the young nation of Israel decisively defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and nearly tripled its size with the occupation of the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. One week after the war, Amos Oz (soon to become Israel’s most famous writer) recorded frank conversations with returning soldiers, who expressed misgivings...

United States | 1986 | Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s groundbreaking first feature stars Tracy Camilla Johns as a liberated Brooklyn woman with three lovers—the earnest Jamie, the vain Greer, and the irrepressible Mars (Lee)—each of whom wants her solely for himself. According to The NY Times , this modern classic “ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the...

Germany, Israel | 2015 | Mor Loushy

Winner of the Ophir Award (Israel’s Oscar) for Best Documentary, this revelatory movie takes another look at 1967’s Six-Day War, during which the young nation of Israel decisively defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and nearly tripled its size with the occupation of the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. One week after the war, Amos Oz (soon to become Israel’s most famous writer) recorded frank conversations with returning soldiers, who expressed misgivings...

United States | 1986 | Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s groundbreaking first feature stars Tracy Camilla Johns as a liberated Brooklyn woman with three lovers—the earnest Jamie, the vain Greer, and the irrepressible Mars (Lee)—each of whom wants her solely for himself. According to The NY Times , this modern classic “ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the...

Austria, Germany, Netherlands, United States | 2015 | Don Hardy Jr.

Devo, Matt Groening, and Penn Jillette are among the fans interviewed in this new film about The Residents, the avant-garde sound and video collective that has released 60+ albums and numerous music videos, short films, and DVD’s during the last four decades. And all this time the band members have remained anonymous, thanks to the iconic eyeball masks they wear when performing. This new documentary includes archival film clips and performance footage, as well as...