Cinematheque Film Schedule

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Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands | 2020 | Burhan Qurbani

An undocumented West African immigrant in present-day Berlin falls in with a drug dealer, a sex worker, and other societal outcasts in this update of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel that was also the basis for Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15-hour 1980 miniseries. This new version is 12 hours shorter than RWF’s and was featured in CIFF45 Streams. “Unimpeachable craft and performances.” –Variety. Subtitles. 183 min. Berlin Alexanderplatz, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from...

Netherlands | 2019 | Ivo van Aart

A female newspaper columnist fed up with death threats and other nasty comments on social media turns “trollhunter” and takes revenge on her critics. This savage horror comedy was recently included in CIFF45 Streams. “A blackly funny satire exploring the limits of obscenity and hateful discourse in our new mediated age.” –Sight & Sound. Adults only! Subtitles. 86 min. The Columnist, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 5/7 thru at least 5/27...

United States | 2020 | Noah Hutton

In his new nonfiction work, Lapsis filmmaker Noah Hutton documents an ambitious, ten-year project in which a brilliant neuroscientist, Henry Markram, aspires to replicate the brain via supercomputers. But this unprecedented, costly undertaking with its big philosophical, ethical, and scientific questions is soon sabotaged by equally big egos. “A bold and insightful film, a film that has the courage to change course of its basic hopes and beliefs…I have never seen anything like this.” –Werner...

United States | 2021 | Wendy Apple

The recently deceased humorist Emily Levine, a successful TV writer and producer and Ted Talk superstar, explores the universe and the human condition through the lens of science, pop culture, and recent events in this film version of one of her hilarious live performances. Levine’s presentation here is augmented by animation, with celebrities providing the voices for cartoon versions of famous scientists and thinkers (John Lithgow as Sir Isaac Newton, Lily Tomlin as Ayn Rand,...

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United States | 2020 | John Carlucci, Brandon LaGanke

For his first feature film, Kent State grad Brandon LaGanke found inspiration in his own experience as a bus driver who transported wasted KSU students back to campus after late nights of drinking and partying downtown. LaGanke’s new Ohio-set comedy stars Charlie Tahan (Ozark) as such a shuttle driver, holding down this inglorious, Sisyphean job after graduating from college—and after his girlfriend has moved to New York. A tattooed, 300-lb., punk-rock Samoan security guard who...

Germany | 2020 | Oskar Roehler

The turbulent career of New German Cinema wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his scruffy circle of misfit friends and artistic collaborators is brought to gritty life in this new dramatization. As of 4/30, the film had a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Vividly conjures up the shabby, cigarette-ashy world: the West Germany of radical chic and revolutionary paranoia.” –The Guardian (UK). Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 134 min. Enfant Terrible, a Cinematheque streaming...

United States | 2020 | Marcia Jarmel, Ken Schneider

Two brothers born in Cuba during the 1970s, both virtuoso musicians, exist on opposite sides of the U.S.-Cuban divide. Pianist Aldo lives in Havana and violinist Ilmar lives in New York. But the two remain united in music. This uplifting new documentary captures the momentous reunion of these estranged siblings and their electrifying first performances together. It demonstrates that music and family bonds can indeed transcend politics. With Joshua Bell and the Harlem Quartet. “A...

India | 2021 | Rajat Kapoor

Veteran actor, writer, and director Rajat Kapoor (b. 1961) has been called “the godfather of Indian independent cinema.” The latest film he wrote, directed, and stars in is a comic “meta-movie” à la Being John Malkovich or The Purple Rose of Cairo—about the disenchanted main character in an unfinished motion picture who suddenly disappears from the rushes, even the negative, and turns up in the real world! This fictitious figure meets the film’s director (both...

Czech Republic, Germany, Iran | 2020 | Mohammad Rasoulof

The latest movie by Iranian master Mohammad Rasoulof (The White Meadows, Manuscripts Don’t Burn) won the top prize at last year’s Berlin Film Festival. Shot in secret and smuggled out of Iran, it is currently banned there, and Rasoulof has been barred from making films and leaving the country off and on since 2010. But court orders and prison sentences have not stopped him. This new work is actually one of his most subversive movies,...

France | 1968 | Melvin Van Peebles

Made three years before his explosive Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Melvin Van Peebles’ first feature is a quieter (if no less pointed and angry) work. Shot in France and based on a novel that Renaissance man Van Peebles wrote during the years he lived there, the movie focuses on an African-American soldier in Europe who spends a weekend leave in a whirlwind romance with a white French woman. New 4K restoration! “Among the great American...

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United States | 1979 | Wieland Schulz-Keil

Orson Welles narrates this newly remastered history of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, a USA government agency (established in 1935) that supported writers, theater people, painters, sculptors, and photographers during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, after the dissolution of the WPA in 1943, many of the creatives helped by the program were accused of being communists by the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Culture wars and political polarization are nothing new.) Features interviews with John Houseman,...

Croatia, Norway, Sweden, United States | 2020 | Johan von Sydow

The unlikely career of the stringy-haired, falsetto-voiced, ukulele-plinking “freak” whose novelty song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” rose to the top of the 1968 pop charts and whose wedding on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show became “must-see TV” is chronicled in this new documentary. Born Herbert Khaury, Tiny Tim was a ubiquitous pop culture presence who stood out even during the outlandish hippie era, and whose unique persona paved the way for David Bowie, Prince, Iggy Pop,...

France | 2020 | Johan von Sydow

Suzanne Lindon, the 20-year-old daughter of French actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain, makes her directorial debut with this charming, original romance selected for last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Lindon also stars in her movie, playing a 16-year-old high school student, bored by her peers, who becomes fascinated with a 35-year-old actor she sees daily. He is equally lonely, so the two of them begin a chaste relationship—sharing soft drinks, music, and dance moves....

United States | 2020 | Zeshawn Ali

Filmmaking brothers Zeshawn Ali (director) and Aman Ali (producer) hail from Columbus. Their latest work is a moving portrait of a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer in Newark, NJ, who takes two local teens under his wing, training them in his work and imparting hard-won life lessons to keep them on the straight and narrow. But mentorship proves a two-way street. Has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “A poetic meditation on...

Romania | 2016 | Paul Negoescu

Three desperate Romanian men launch a bumbling cross-country search for a winning lottery ticket that was stolen from one of them. This shaggy-dog story of a screen farce introduces us to the next generation of Romanian New Wavers. “A scrappy, uproarious Romanian comedy shot to look like a faded Polaroid photograph that evokes summers long gone.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 86 min. Two Lottery Tickets, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online...

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