Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 2019 | Jacob Koestler

The shuttered, century-old Oakwood Country Club and its vast golf course that borders Warrensville Center Road in Cleveland Heights and South Euclid serve as the springboard for this meditation on history, landscape, impermanence, and memory by Cleveland filmmaker Jacob Koestler. Premiered at SPACES this past spring, the movie (which should have lots of local interest for residents of the eastern suburbs) receives its East Side Cleveland premiere today. Koestler, who teaches photography and video (and...

Australia | 1985 | George Miller, George Ogilvie

Tina Turner joins Mel Gibson in the third Mad Max film, in which Max tries to escape the post-apocalyptic cesspool of Bartertown by engaging in man-to-man arena combat. The movie is imaginatively designed and full of weird characters, with bone-crushing action sequences. 107 min.

United States | 1990 | Jennie Livingston

Here’s a new restoration of the landmark documentary about NYC’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag ball scene during the 1980s. The film offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion “houses” who compete against each other for trophies but stand together to provide a bulwark against homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Features legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women like Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza. Cleveland revival premiere. DCP. 78...

United States | 1968 | Frank Simon

Hailed by The NY Times as “the mother of all drag documentaries,” this groundbreaking nonfiction film about the 1967 Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant introduced movie audiences to the world of competitive drag. The film takes us backstage as the contestants talk among themselves, rehearse, and transform into their drag personas before facing a panel of celebrity judges that includes Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, and Terry Southern. DCP. 68 min.

South Africa | 2018 | Christiaan Olwagen

This unique coming-of-age musical, set in 1985 South Africa, focuses on Johan, an 18-year-old misfit enamored of Boy George. When Johan faces compulsory military service, he auditions for the Canaries, the South African Defence Force Church Choir and Concert Group. While touring with them, Johan falls in love, witnesses the oppression and injustice of the apartheid regime, and finds himself. “A winning combination of thoughtfulness and exuberance.” –Hollywood Reporter. In English and Afrikaans with subtitles....

France, United Kingdom | 1981 | James Ivory

Isabelle Adjani, Maggie Smith, and Alan Bates star in this Merchant Ivory Production set in 1927 Paris. A penniless, West Indies-born woman whose husband is in prison for art theft moves in with a wealthy, hedonistic, ex-pat British couple whose intentions may not be entirely honorable. From the semi-autobiographical novel by Jean Rhys. DCP. 101 min.

Australia, South Africa, United States | 2015 | George Miller

Tom Hardy (taking over the Mel Gibson role), Charlize Theron, and Riley Keough star in George Miller’s slam-bang restart of his popular, post-apocalyptic action series. In this installment, the uncouth baddies on wheels pursue an armored semi loaded with women across the unforgiving desert. This was unquestionably the best action movie of 2015; it may have also been the best movie of 2015. 120 min. Note: Mad Max: Fury Road – Black & Chrome Edition...

South Africa | 2018 | Christiaan Olwagen

This unique coming-of-age musical, set in 1985 South Africa, focuses on Johan, an 18-year-old misfit enamored of Boy George. When Johan faces compulsory military service, he auditions for the Canaries, the South African Defence Force Church Choir and Concert Group. While touring with them, Johan falls in love, witnesses the oppression and injustice of the apartheid regime, and finds himself. “A winning combination of thoughtfulness and exuberance.” –Hollywood Reporter. In English and Afrikaans with subtitles....

Canada | 2018 | Patricia Rozema

In this moving new film by the veteran director of I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and Mansfield Park, two different actresses simultaneously personify—and give voice to the conflicted feelings of—a confused young woman whose mother has just died, and who now must plan the funeral while also grieving and re-examining her relationship with her mom. “A truly revolutionary piece of filmmaking.” –L.A. Times. DCP. 91 min.

United States | 1968 | Frank Simon

Hailed by The NY Times as “the mother of all drag documentaries,” this groundbreaking nonfiction film about the 1967 Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant introduced movie audiences to the world of competitive drag. The film takes us backstage as the contestants talk among themselves, rehearse, and transform into their drag personas before facing a panel of celebrity judges that includes Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, and Terry Southern. DCP. 68 min.

Australia, South Africa, United States | 2016 | George Miller

This is director George Miller’s preferred black-and-white version of his 2015 action classic. Tom Hardy (taking over the Mel Gibson role), Charlize Theron, and Riley Keough star in Miller’s slam-bang restart of his popular, post-apocalyptic action series. In this installment, the uncouth baddies on wheels pursue an armored semi loaded with women across the unforgiving desert. This was unquestionably the best action movie of 2015; it may have also been the best movie of 2015....

United States | 1979/2019 | Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Coppola’s new, definitive version of his hallucinatory Vietnam War masterpiece is a half hour longer than the film’s original cut—but 15-20 minutes shorter than 2001’s Apocalypse Now Redux. The movie's picture and sound have also been digitally restored and enhanced, resulting in what The Hollywood Reporter calls “an overwhelming sensory experience” that must be seen in a theater. Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the filme follows a U.S. Army captain (Martin Sheen)...

Australia | 2018 | Stephan Elliott

The outrageous new comedy from the director of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is set in a beachfront Australian community during the tacky, hedonistic 1970s. The film focuses on three suburban families with bad hair, loud clothes, and too much time and money on their hands. While their kids fixate on a recently beached blue whale, these Dionysian suburbanites drink cheap wine and dabble in wife swapping. With Guy Pearce and Kylie...

Switzerland | 2018 | Sophie Huber

The history and influence of Blue Note Records, one of the most important jazz labels of all time and home to such groundbreaking artists as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, and Art Blakey, is amplified via archival film clips, footage of recording sessions, and interviews with contemporary jazz luminaries. Cleveland theatrical premiere. DCP. 85 min.

France | 1982 | Daniel Vigne

Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye star in one of the biggest art house hits of the 1980s, now newly restored. Based on a French legend, the movie tells of a 16th-century man who returns to his family and farm after nine years in the war. But is he the same person who abandoned his pregnant child bride almost a decade earlier, or an opportunistic imposter? Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 122 min.

Australia | 2018 | Stephan Elliott

The outrageous new comedy from the director of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is set in a beachfront Australian community during the tacky, hedonistic 1970s. The film focuses on three suburban families with bad hair, loud clothes, and too much time and money on their hands. While their kids fixate on a recently beached blue whale, these Dionysian suburbanites drink cheap wine and dabble in wife swapping. With Guy Pearce and Kylie...

United States | 1928 | Charles Chaplin

Made between The Gold Rush and City Lights, the least-known of Chaplin’s silent comedy features finds the Little Tramp joining a circus, falling in love with a bareback rider, and hilariously battling monkeys on a high-wire. Music track. 72 min.

Iran | 1974 | Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami’s second feature boasts the hallmarks of his later masterpieces: non-professional actors, a strong sense of place, and a central journey and quest. When a young boy who is a big soccer fan learns that his favorite team will be playing in Tehran, 150 miles from his village, he turns petty thief and swindler to get the required bus fare. “As wonderful as the later Kiarostami films.” –Time Out Film Guide. Preceded at showtime...

Hungary | 2019 | Barnabás Tóth

Having survived the concentration camps, 42-year-old Aldo lives a solitary life as a doctor in post-WWII Budapest. 16-year-old Klara reluctantly lives with her great-aunt, holding on to the hope that her father and mother will return. Once Klara meets Aldo, the two of them find in each other something they have long needed. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 83 min.

France | 1982 | Daniel Vigne

Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye star in one of the biggest art house hits of the 1980s, now newly restored. Based on a French legend, the movie tells of a 16th-century man who returns to his family and farm after nine years in the war. But is he the same person who abandoned his pregnant child bride almost a decade earlier, or an opportunistic imposter? Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 122 min.

Switzerland | 2018 | Sophie Huber

The history and influence of Blue Note Records, one of the most important jazz labels of all time and home to such groundbreaking artists as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, and Art Blakey, is amplified via archival film clips, footage of recording sessions, and interviews with contemporary jazz luminaries. Cleveland theatrical premiere. DCP. 85 min.

Iran | 1974 | Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami’s second feature boasts the hallmarks of his later masterpieces: non-professional actors, a strong sense of place, and a central journey and quest. When a young boy who is a big soccer fan learns that his favorite team will be playing in Tehran, 150 miles from his village, he turns petty thief and swindler to get the required bus fare. “As wonderful as the later Kiarostami films.” –Time Out Film Guide. Preceded at showtime...

United States | 1972 | Peter Bogdanovich

Actor Austin Pendleton, who appears in person at the Cinematheque this Saturday at 2:00 pm, gives one of his most memorable screen performances in this classic farce inspired by Bringing Up Baby and other great screwball comedies of the 1930s. Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, and Madeline Kahn star in Peter Bogdanovich’s frantic follow-up to his The Last Picture Show, about four identical overnight bags that cause endless confusion and complications for their assorted owners when...

Mexico | 2017 | Issa López

Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King are all big fans of this new horror fantasy that has won over 50 festival awards around the world. The movie explores the plight of children orphaned by Mexico’s brutal drug wars by focusing on one ten-year-old girl who is followed around by the ghost of her late mother. Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 83 min.

United States | 1992 | Jonathan Lynn

Stuttering defense attorney John Gibbons is one of Austin Pendleton’s most indelible roles, and it’s contained in this classic courtroom comedy that won an Oscar for co-star Marisa Tomei. The movie focuses on two NY college boys who, while traveling through the Deep South, are falsely accused of murder. One of them summons a relative, an erratic Brooklynite who just passed the bar exam after six tries (Joe Pesci), to come to Alabama and defend...

United Kingdom | 2019 | Oliver Murray

Bill Wyman, founding member and bassist for the Rolling Stones, reflects on his three decades as part of “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” Famously private and normally reticent, Wyman opens up his vast personal archive of home movies, photographs, and memorabilia to shed new light on a whirlwind era of pop music history. Cleveland theatrical premiere. DCP. 105 min.

United States | 1980 | Marshall Brickman

Austin Pendleton has one of his rare lead movie roles in this largely forgotten satirical comedy co-written and directed by the Oscar-winning co-writer of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Sleeper. It’s an inventive and peculiar movie in which a group of mischievous, nutzoid think-tank scientists convinces a psychology professor (Alan Arkin) that he is an extraterrestrial being. Soon the rest of the world also believes it. With Madeline Kahn, William Finley, Wallace Shawn, Adolph...

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Austin Pendleton is one of the screen’s foremost character actors, with almost 150 movie and TV credits to his name. He has had many memorable supporting roles during his 50+ year film career—from Max in The Muppet Movie and stuttering defense attorney John Gibbons in My Cousin Vinny to Gurgle in Finding Nemo and William Giles in Oz—and has worked with such directors as Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder, Alan Pakula, Otto Preminger, Barbra...

United States | 1972 | Peter Bogdanovich

Actor Austin Pendleton, who appears in person at the Cinematheque this Saturday at 2:00 pm, gives one of his most memorable screen performances in this classic farce inspired by Bringing Up Baby and other great screwball comedies of the 1930s. Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, and Madeline Kahn star in Peter Bogdanovich’s frantic follow-up to his The Last Picture Show, about four identical overnight bags that cause endless confusion and complications for their assorted owners when...

Iran | 1976 | Abbas Kiarostami

A new suit ordered for a young boy attending his aunt’s wedding is “borrowed” by some other boys shortly before the ceremony. Preceded at showtime by three Kiarostami shorts: Two Solutions for One Problem (Dow Rahehal Baraye yek Massaleh, 1975), in which a young boy tears another’s book; So Can I (Man ham mitounam, 1975), in which two boys imitate animals; and The Colors (Rang-ha, 1976), a catalog of differently colored objects. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles....

United Kingdom | 2019 | Oliver Murray

Bill Wyman, founding member and bassist for the Rolling Stones, reflects on his three decades as part of “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” Famously private and normally reticent, Wyman opens up his vast personal archive of home movies, photographs, and memorabilia to shed new light on a whirlwind era of pop music history. Cleveland theatrical premiere. DCP. 105 min.

United States | 1935 | Mark Sandrich

Often cited as the best of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals, this dance classic features a mistaken-identity plot, a lovely Irving Berlin score (“Cheek to Cheek,” et al.), and stunning Art Deco sets. Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Lucille Ball co-star. The film is co-presented by The Musical Theater Project and will be introduced starting at 3:30 by TMTP Artistic Director Bill Rudman and Cinematheque Director John Ewing. Both will also lead a post-film...

Mexico | 2017 | Issa López

Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King are all big fans of this new horror fantasy that has won over 50 festival awards around the world. The movie explores the plight of children orphaned by Mexico’s brutal drug wars by focusing on one ten-year-old girl who is followed around by the ghost of her late mother. Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 83 min.

Iran | 1976 | Abbas Kiarostami

A new suit ordered for a young boy attending his aunt’s wedding is “borrowed” by some other boys shortly before the ceremony. Preceded at showtime by three Kiarostami shorts: Two Solutions for One Problem (Dow Rahehal Baraye yek Massaleh, 1975), in which a young boy tears another’s book; So Can I (Man ham mitounam, 1975), in which two boys imitate animals; and The Colors (Rang-ha, 1976), a catalog of differently colored objects. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles....

France | 2018 | Louis Garrel

Louis Garrel stars in and directs this funny, clever French comedy about a single guy pursued by two women (Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp), one of whom he already had a relationship with—until she left him for his best friend (now deceased). This delightful bauble was one of the best films we saw at this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival. “A beguiling bedroom farce and a playful inversion of the patriarchal tropes of the French New...

United Kingdom | 2018 | Richard Billingham

In one of the most acclaimed movies of the past year, British artist and photographer Richard Billingham re-creates and dramatizes his troubled childhood during the Thatcher era, when he lived in a West Midlands council flat with his alcoholic father Ray, overweight, chain-smoking mother Liz, and younger brother Jason. As harsh and harrowing as it is blackly funny and bleakly beautiful, Billingham’s feature debut (shot on 16mm color film) is a heartfelt, emotional kitchen sink...

Iran | 1979 | Abbas Kiarostami

Banned for 30 years, this docudrama is a two-part case study on classroom discipline. When a rude noise interrupts and irritates a teacher when his back is turned, the instructor expels a group of students until the culprit identifies himself. In the first case, no student steps forward. But in the second, one rats on a classmate. Kiarostami then interviews the education minister and politicians from various parties to get their opinions about both scenarios...

France | 1962 | Jean Renoir

The final theatrical film by the great Jean Renoir has similarities to his 1937 masterpiece Grand Illusion. Set, like that earlier movie, in a German POW camp (but during WWII, not WWI), this humanist comedy focuses on a charming French army officer (Jean-Pierre Cassel) who, with the help of a colorful cross-section of working-class campmates, repeatedly attempts to escape. “Wry, touching and entertaining.” –Holt Foreign Film Guide. Imported print courtesy of the Institut Français. Approx....

Mexico | 2018 | Lila Avilés

The empathy generated for a Mexican domestic in Roma also animates this acclaimed new movie about a maid in a Mexico City luxury hotel. A series of clear-eyed observational vignettes (shot in impeccable widescreen ‘scope) places the audience in the shoes of this often invisible working-class woman, who dreams of money and privilege while picking through wastebaskets and perusing closets for clues about how the other half lives. “[This] film is a rare and special...

Mexico | 2018 | Lila Avilés

The empathy generated for a Mexican domestic in Roma also animates this acclaimed new movie about a maid in a Mexico City luxury hotel. A series of clear-eyed observational vignettes (shot in impeccable widescreen ‘scope) places the audience in the shoes of this often invisible working-class woman, who dreams of money and privilege while picking through wastebaskets and perusing closets for clues about how the other half lives. “[This] film is a rare and special...

Iran | 1979 | Abbas Kiarostami

Banned for 30 years, this docudrama is a two-part case study on classroom discipline. When a rude noise interrupts and irritates a teacher when his back is turned, the instructor expels a group of students until the culprit identifies himself. In the first case, no student steps forward. But in the second, one rats on a classmate. Kiarostami then interviews the education minister and politicians from various parties to get their opinions about both scenarios...

France | 1962 | Jean Renoir

The final theatrical film by the great Jean Renoir has similarities to his 1937 masterpiece Grand Illusion. Set, like that earlier movie, in a German POW camp (but during WWII, not WWI), this humanist comedy focuses on a charming French army officer (Jean-Pierre Cassel) who, with the help of a colorful cross-section of working-class campmates, repeatedly attempts to escape. “Wry, touching and entertaining.” –Holt Foreign Film Guide. Imported print courtesy of the Institut Français. Approx....