Cinematheque Film Schedule

Japan | 2015 | Steven Okazaki

Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997), the first Asian actor to become an international action-movie star, is the subject of this new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki. Okazaki’s movie includes clips from some of Mifune’s 160+ films (16 of them directed by Akira Kurosawa) and interviews with colleagues and fans like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Keanu Reeves narrates. Subtitles. DCP. 80 min.

Mexico | 2016 | Emiliano Rocha Minter

Wandering through a post-apocalyptic city, a desperate brother and sister stumble upon the vast lair of a mysterious hermit who is part alchemist, part autocrat. In exchange for food and shelter, the siblings agree to do this man’s bidding—building a strange structure and engaging in depraved acts. Produced by Carlos Reygadas and endorsed by Mexico’s moviemaking heavyweights Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, this visionary shocker is not for the squeamish. “An extreme Mexican fiesta...

Italy | 1978 | Ermanno Olmi

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and one of the most acclaimed and honored movies of the past 40 years, Ermanno Olmi’s rustic epic employs non-professional actors to depict day-to-day, late 19th-century life in and around a northern Italian farmhouse shared by four peasant families. Living close to the earth, they remain sensitive to the eternal cycles of work and seasons, love and marriage, birth and death. “Intimate in scale...

United States | 1991 | Julie Dash

The first feature by an African-American woman to receive a wide theatrical release is also one of the most beautiful color movies ever made. (This 25th anniversary restoration, done in conjunction with UCLA and overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, should look stunning.) Set at the dawn of the 20th century, the film centers on a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off South Carolina. There these former West African slaves with...

Japan | 1948 | Akira Kurosawa

Toshiro Mifune is electrifying in his first performance for Akira Kurosawa, playing a gangster who visits an alcoholic slum doctor (Takashi Shimura) to have a bullet removed. When the doctor discovers that the criminal also has tuberculosis, the two men enter into a strangely symbiotic relationship. This terrific, visually stunning picture was followed by 15 other Mifune/Kurosawa collaborations. Subtitles. 98 min.

Japan | 2015 | Steven Okazaki

Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997), the first Asian actor to become an international action-movie star, is the subject of this new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki. Okazaki’s movie includes clips from some of Mifune’s 160+ films (16 of them directed by Akira Kurosawa) and interviews with colleagues and fans like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Keanu Reeves narrates. Subtitles. DCP. 80 min.

Italy | 1976 | Ettore Scola

The late Italian writer and filmmaker Ettore Scola (A Special Day, La Nuit de Varennes) won the Best Director prize at Cannes for this grotesque (but funny) comedy. Nino Manfredi (Bread and Chocolate) plays the one-eyed patriarch of a large extended family living in squalor and depravity in a Rome shantytown. He spends his time hiding and guarding an insurance windfall from his vile relatives, who scheme to steal it from him, even resorting to...

United States | 1991 | Julie Dash

The first feature by an African-American woman to receive a wide theatrical release is also one of the most beautiful color movies ever made. (This 25th anniversary restoration, done in conjunction with UCLA and overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, should look stunning.) Set at the dawn of the 20th century, the film centers on a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off South Carolina. There these former West African slaves with...

Mexico | 2016 | Emiliano Rocha Minter

Wandering through a post-apocalyptic city, a desperate brother and sister stumble upon the vast lair of a mysterious hermit who is part alchemist, part autocrat. In exchange for food and shelter, the siblings agree to do this man’s bidding—building a strange structure and engaging in depraved acts. Produced by Carlos Reygadas and endorsed by Mexico’s moviemaking heavyweights Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, this visionary shocker is not for the squeamish. “An extreme Mexican fiesta...

United States | 1996 | Cheryl Dunye

The first film directed by an African American lesbian is a breezy independent comedy that’s been restored and re-released for its 20th anniversary. The movie follows Philadelphia video store clerk Cheryl (director Dunye) as she researches the life of a forgotten, 1930s black actress for a film she’s making. Known as the “Watermelon Woman,” this performer was relegated to “mammy” roles. Cheryl is also involved in her own race relations via a budding romance with...

United States | 2016 | Anna Biller

The extravagantly praised new film from the director of 2007’s Viva is a sly, sexy, visually splendiferous feminist fantasy about a beautiful and dangerous young witch who uses spells and potions to get men to love her. Playing on—and subverting—men’s longstanding fear of female sexuality (seen in many of the 1960s and 1970s European and American color exploitation films that the movie mimics), the lavishly designed The Love Witch was actually shot and printed on...

France | 1931 | Alexander Korda

The first part of the celebrated and beloved “Marseille Trilogy,” written by the great Marcel Pagnol, introduces the saga’s three main characters: waterfront café owner César (Raimu); his dreamy son Marius (Pierre Fresnay), who yearns to go to sea; and local girl Fanny (Orane Demazis), who vies with the sea for Marius’ affection. This wonderfully acted, character-driven saga overflows with warmth, humor, and heart; it’s one of the most enjoyable and involving screen sagas ever...

United States | 2016 | Lonny Price

1981’s Stephen Sondheim/Harold Prince musical Merrily We Roll Along was a rare flop for the legendary team that had previously brought the Tony-winning classics Company, Follies, and Sweeney Todd to Broadway. It closed after 16 performances. Was this bold, forward-thinking but backward-progressing work—which dramatized, in reverse time, how an idealistic, exuberant, penniless young songwriter became a jaded but successful movie producer—just too dark and cynical for the Great White Way? In his acclaimed new documentary,...

United States | 2016 | Anna Biller

The extravagantly praised new film from the director of 2007’s Viva is a sly, sexy, visually splendiferous feminist fantasy about a beautiful and dangerous young witch who uses spells and potions to get men to love her. Playing on—and subverting—men’s longstanding fear of female sexuality (seen in many of the 1960s and 1970s European and American color exploitation films that the movie mimics), the lavishly designed The Love Witch was actually shot and printed on...

France | 1931 | Alexander Korda

The first part of the celebrated and beloved “Marseille Trilogy,” written by the great Marcel Pagnol, introduces the saga’s three main characters: waterfront café owner César (Raimu); his dreamy son Marius (Pierre Fresnay), who yearns to go to sea; and local girl Fanny (Orane Demazis), who vies with the sea for Marius’ affection. This wonderfully acted, character-driven saga overflows with warmth, humor, and heart; it’s one of the most enjoyable and involving screen sagas ever...

United States | 1933 | Felix E. Feist

King Kong wasn’t the only RKO special effects extravaganza of 1933. But its main competitor, the Pre-Code disaster epic Deluge,has been forgotten. Deluge was a lost film for decades—until a dupe negative of the original English-language version turned up a few years ago in France. Now newly restored, this thriller about a series of earthquakes in California that causes a tsunami to hit New York City is back on the big screen, where it belongs!...

United States | 2016 | Lonny Price

1981’s Stephen Sondheim/Harold Prince musical Merrily We Roll Along was a rare flop for the legendary team that had previously brought the Tony-winning classics Company, Follies, and Sweeney Todd to Broadway. It closed after 16 performances. Was this bold, forward-thinking but backward-progressing work—which dramatized, in reverse time, how an idealistic, exuberant, penniless young songwriter became a jaded but successful movie producer—just too dark and cynical for the Great White Way? In his acclaimed new documentary,...

United States | 1939 | Leo McCarey

The beloved 1957 Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr romance An Affair to Remember was actually a remake of a popular comedy-drama made by the same director (Leo McCarey) during “Hollywood’s greatest year,” 1939. Many regard the black-and-white original as the better movie. In that version, which we screen tonight in a print preserved by the Library of Congress, Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne play the shipboard lovers who, despite being engaged to others, agree to meet six...

France | 1974/1977 | Chantal Akerman

Two key works by the late, great Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. The director herself stars in her minimalist first feature, Je Tu Il Elle. Reminiscent of early Fassbinder, it’s the stark tale of an isolated young woman who writes love letters in her spartan apartment and ventures out only for two sexual encounters. News from Home, made after Akerman moved to New York City, juxtaposes evocative images of 1970s Manhattan with Akerman’s voiceover reading of...

United States | 1930 | Howard Hawks

Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. play veteran WWI flying aces in a British squadron that’s losing many of its ill-trained youngest recruits. Risking reprimand, they decide to take on the Germans themselves. Howard Hawks’ first sound film is an antiwar classic with aerial scenes so good that they were re-used in Edmund Goulding’s 1938 remake of The Dawn Patrol starring Errol Flynn. 35mm print preserved by the Library of Congress. 107 min.

France | 2015 | Jascques Perrin, Jacques Ciuzaud

The spectacular new nature film from the director of Winged Migration and Oceans focuses on the beasts—and humans—that flourished in the lush green forests that emerged in Europe after the Ice Age. “Truly beautiful…Captures the poetry, humor and drama of wildlife.” –The Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 95 min.

France | 1932 | Marc Allegret

In the second part of Marcel Pagnol’s enthralling “Marseille Trilogy” (see 2/11 at 5:00), Fanny, impregnated and abandoned by Marius, marries the dull but decent Panisse (Charpin), a prosperous widower who’s 30 years older than she is. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 127 min.

France | 1932 | Marc Allegret

In the second part of Marcel Pagnol’s enthralling “Marseille Trilogy” (see 2/11 at 5:00), Fanny, impregnated and abandoned by Marius, marries the dull but decent Panisse (Charpin), a prosperous widower who’s 30 years older than she is. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 127 min.

Germany | 1925 | E.A.Dupont

Jealousy and a love triangle bring a high-flying trapeze act down to earth in this dazzling silent masterpiece full of unusual compositions, quick cutting, and sweeping, subjective camera movements. The great Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh, The Blue Angel) gives one of his best performances. New music score by The Tiger Lillies. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 95 min.

France | 2015 | Jascques Perrin, Jacques Ciuzaud

The spectacular new nature film from the director of Winged Migration and Oceans focuses on the beasts—and humans—that flourished in the lush green forests that emerged in Europe after the Ice Age. “Truly beautiful…Captures the poetry, humor and drama of wildlife.” –The Hollywood Reporter. Subtitles. DCP. 95 min.

France | 1974/1977 | Chantal Akerman

Two key works by the late, great Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. The director herself stars in her minimalist first feature, Je Tu Il Elle. Reminiscent of early Fassbinder, it’s the stark tale of an isolated young woman who writes love letters in her spartan apartment and ventures out only for two sexual encounters. News from Home, made after Akerman moved to New York City, juxtaposes evocative images of 1970s Manhattan with Akerman’s voiceover reading of...

France | 2016 | Alain Guiraudie

Alain Guiraudie’s follow-up to his superb 2013 thriller Stranger by the Lake is a dreamlike and darkly funny fairytale (with wolves) about an itinerant filmmaker who fathers a child with a rural shepherdess, then has to raise the kid by himself when the mother flees. Set in a pastoral landscape populated by pansexual eccentrics who are all fathers, custodians, or guardians, this oddball movie seems to be some sort of parable about surviving in a...

France | 2016 | Eugene Green

The new film from one of our favorite directors, Eugène Green (The Portuguese Nun, La Sapienza), is an offbeat comedy about a sullen Parisian teenager, living with his single mom, who is so tired of not knowing who is father is that he actively takes steps to find out. With Mathieu Amalric. “There’s everything we’ve come to expect in a Green film—crystalline poetry, beguiling formal control, religious and spiritual matters treated seriously yet lightly, impassive...

France | 2016 | Eugene Green

The new film from one of our favorite directors, Eugène Green (The Portuguese Nun, La Sapienza), is an offbeat comedy about a sullen Parisian teenager, living with his single mom, who is so tired of not knowing who is father is that he actively takes steps to find out. With Mathieu Amalric. “There’s everything we’ve come to expect in a Green film—crystalline poetry, beguiling formal control, religious and spiritual matters treated seriously yet lightly, impassive...

France | 2016 | Alain Guiraudie

Alain Guiraudie’s follow-up to his superb 2013 thriller Stranger by the Lake is a dreamlike and darkly funny fairytale (with wolves) about an itinerant filmmaker who fathers a child with a rural shepherdess, then has to raise the kid by himself when the mother flees. Set in a pastoral landscape populated by pansexual eccentrics who are all fathers, custodians, or guardians, this oddball movie seems to be some sort of parable about surviving in a...

Japan | 1993 | Tomomi Mochizuki

The last remaining Studio Ghibli film to be released in the U.S.was also the first Ghibli animated feature not directed by one of the studio’s two co-founders, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Made for television by some of the company’s younger animators, this coming-of-age tale is set in a small Japanese town where two high school classmates, a boy and a girl, are best friends until a beautiful female transfer student from Tokyo gets between...

United States | 1982 | Susan Seidelman

Early 1980s Lower East Side New York is vividly rendered in Susan (Desperately Seeking Susan) Seidelman’s debut feature, the first American independent film to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The movie follows a self-absorbed New Jersey girl (Susan Berman) who moves to Manhattan determined to break into the punk music scene. Richard Hell co-stars; music by The Feelies. “An energetic poem to late 1970s SoHo.” –The Rough Guide to Film. New color print!...

France | 1936 | Marcel Pagnol

Pagnol himself directed the emotional third part of his Marseille Trilogy, which takes place 20 years after the events of Part 2 (see 2/18 at 9:05). Panisse becomes ill and Fanny reveals some surprising truths to her now-grown son. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 142 min.

Japan | 1993 | Tomomi Mochizuki

The last remaining Studio Ghibli film to be released in the U.S.was also the first Ghibli animated feature not directed by one of the studio’s two co-founders, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Made for television by some of the company’s younger animators, this coming-of-age tale is set in a small Japanese town where two high school classmates, a boy and a girl, are best friends until a beautiful female transfer student from Tokyo gets between...

France | 1936 | Marcel Pagnol

Pagnol himself directed the emotional third part of his Marseille Trilogy, which takes place 20 years after the events of Part 2 (see 2/18 at 9:05). Panisse becomes ill and Fanny reveals some surprising truths to her now-grown son. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 142 min.

Israel, Palestine, United States | 2016 | Stephen Apkon, Andrew Young

This inspiring new documentary profiles some of the former enemy combatants—both Israeli soldiers from elite units and Palestinian freedom fighters—who have banded together and formed “Combatants for Peace,” an organization advocating for a nonviolent resolution of the longstanding (and often seemingly hopeless) Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film’s co-producer Marcina Hale will answer audience questions after the screening. “Critics’ pick…Compelling—and persuasive.” –The NY Times. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 87 min.