Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 1940-47 | George Pal, Arnold Leibovit

From producer-director Arnold Leibovit (The Puppetoon Movie) comes a new program of fully-restored, stop-motion Puppetoon shorts (in Technicolor) made during the 1940s by Oscar-winning special effects wiz George Pal (1953’s The War of the Worlds, 1960’s The Time Machine). There are 10 classic puppet films in this all-ages program, including three Oscar nominees (Tubby the Tuba, Rhythm in the Ranks, Dr. Seuss’ 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins) and Ray Harryhausen’s first animation job, Western Daze....

Japan | 1972 | Kenji Misumi

In addition to kicking off the long-running Zatoichi film series (see 8/16 at 7:00), Kenji Misumi also directed the first three martial arts movies in the six-film Lone Wolf and Cub series (1972-74), inspired by a popular manga. The second installment is perhaps the best. In it, pram-pushing hired assassin (the “lone wolf”) and his three-year-old son (the “cub”) pursue a traitor and battle a band of female ninjas. In 1980, the movie was re-cut,...

United Kingdom, United States | 2010 | Christopher Nolan

A thief engaged in corporate espionage (Leonardo DiCaprio) is able to infiltrate and extract information from his targets’ dreams. But can he also enter a subconscious mind and implant an idea? Christopher Nolan’s dazzling, dizzying mindbender co-stars Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe, and Michael Caine. 35mm scope. 148 min.

Belgium, France | 2023 | Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon

The former activist’s past finally catches up with him when a mysterious stranger appears at the bar, armed and wanting revenge. The appearance of a double, the depressed and solitary Dom, provides Boris’ cunning partner Kayoko (Japanese dancer Kaori Ito, playing a strong and hilariously unpredictable femme fatale) and their faithful friend Tim with the perfect escape plan. But they haven’t accounted for Dom’s ex-wife, Fiona, a suspicious detective on their trail. Gordon-Abel's (The Fairy,...

United States | 2023 | Monica Sorelle

While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood. As her feature debut, Monica Sorelle’s exploratory, naturalistic family drama deals with the inner conflicts of its protagonists and the intergenerational fissures that open in the face of an eroding American Dream. “Mountains is a stirring, joyful requiem for a disappearing community” (John Fink,...

United States | 2023 | Monica Sorelle

While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood. As her feature debut, Monica Sorelle’s exploratory, naturalistic family drama deals with the inner conflicts of its protagonists and the intergenerational fissures that open in the face of an eroding American Dream. “Mountains is a stirring, joyful requiem for a disappearing community” (John Fink,...

United States | 1984 | Walter Hill

In “another time, another place,” Walter Hill’s (The Warriors, 48 Hrs.) high-style “rock n’ ‘roll fable” follows the soldier-for-hire Tom Cody (Michael Paré) battling through dangerous cityscapes, determined to save the kidnapped rock singer Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who is also his former lover. “Walter said we’re going to make a high school movie that's also going to be a comic book and also going to be a musical” (Larry Gross, co-writer.) This dreamy, mythic...

United States | 2024 | Jesse Moss & Tony Gerber

In this timely documentary, a bipartisan group of U.S. defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations participate in an unscripted role-play exercise set on January 6, 2025, in which they confront a political coup backed by rogue members of the U.S. military in the wake of a contested presidential election. The gripping against-the-clock political thriller from this year’s Sundance Film Festival is supported by Moss (Boys State) and Gerber’s (We Will Rise) skillful...

Canada | 1985 | Brigitte Berman

Brigitte Berman’s 1986 Oscar-winning documentary, for years unavailable in the U.S., but now being released throughout North America in a crisp new 4K restoration, illustrates the tumultuous, complicated, and remarkable legacy of a man who brought numerous innovations to jazz and swing music during the big-band era. This in-depth examination of the life and career of clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw also features an all-star list of interviewees including Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich and Evelyn...

France, Germany, United Kingdom | 1984 | Wim Wenders

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier. Wim Wenders' (Wings of Desire) melancholic telling of the odyssey of a broken man (Harry Dean Stanton), burdened by guilt, despair, and longing presents one of the most beautiful pieces of filmmaking on loss and...

Belgium, France | 2023 | Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon

The former activist’s past finally catches up with him when a mysterious stranger appears at the bar, armed and wanting revenge. The appearance of a double, the depressed and solitary Dom, provides Boris’ cunning partner Kayoko (Japanese dancer Kaori Ito, playing a strong and hilariously unpredictable femme fatale) and their faithful friend Tim with the perfect escape plan. But they haven’t accounted for Dom’s ex-wife, Fiona, a suspicious detective on their trail. Gordon-Abel's (The Fairy,...

United States | 1984 | Walter Hill

In “another time, another place,” Walter Hill’s (The Warriors, 48 Hrs.) high-style “rock n’ ‘roll fable” follows the soldier-for-hire Tom Cody (Michael Paré) battling through dangerous cityscapes, determined to save the kidnapped rock singer Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who is also his former lover. “Walter said we’re going to make a high school movie that's also going to be a comic book and also going to be a musical” (Larry Gross, co-writer.) This dreamy, mythic...

United States | 2024 | Jesse Moss & Tony Gerber

In this timely documentary, a bipartisan group of U.S. defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations participate in an unscripted role-play exercise set on January 6, 2025, in which they confront a political coup backed by rogue members of the U.S. military in the wake of a contested presidential election. The gripping against-the-clock political thriller from this year’s Sundance Film Festival is supported by Moss (Boys State) and Gerber’s (We Will Rise) skillful...

Belgium, France | 2023 | Benoît Chieux

From the distributor of Studio Ghibli films comes a psychedelic fairy tale that took years to make. Winner of the Annecy Festival Audience Award, the film tells the story of two sisters’ adventures in a Seussian fantasy world where they turn into cats and discover Sirocco, a terrifying wizard feared for his power over the wind. Impressive in its world-building and charming throughout, the film will delight both families and animation lovers. Subtitles (Thu. 9/12);...

Canada | 2023 | Pascal Plante

The high-profile case of a serial killer has just gone to trial, and model Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the case’s puzzle. Reminiscent of Assayas’ Demonlover, this fresh take on the tech-thriller/psychological horror genre has impressed critics and won the Cheval Noir Award for Best Feature at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival. Red Rooms delves deep into our...

United States | 1996 | Bridgett M. Davis

An aspiring actress has lost considerable weight to land her first movie role, but what the director didn’t tell her was that it includes a nude scene. Presented by Julie Dash, and celebrated as a key film in the canon of Black independent cinema of the ‘90s, Naked Acts explores Black female sexuality and identity and tells the story of self-reclamation in the face of histories of exploitation and objectification through images. Cleveland revival premiere....

France, Italy | 1969 | Jean-Pierre Melville

Melville’s (Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge) epic of the French Resistance was the winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film 36 years after it was made. Adapted from Joseph Kessel’s 1943 book, Melville tells the story of the underground through the tension between loyalty and betrayal, never compromising his acute perspective. It is one of Melville’s most personal films, replaying the memories of his youth as a Resistance...

Slovakia, United States | 2023 | Shira Piven

Based on an Arthur Miller short story, Harold May is an American Jew and gifted tap dancer. While on tour in Europe, Harold and the rest of his troupe are scouted by a German attaché who leads the troupe to an exclusive performance for Hitler himself. In partnership with Cleveland Jewish Film Fest. Cleveland premiere. 112 min.

Belgium, France | 2023 | Benoît Chieux

From the distributor of Studio Ghibli films comes a psychedelic fairy tale that took years to make. Winner of the Annecy Festival Audience Award, the film tells the story of two sisters’ adventures in a Seussian fantasy world where they turn into cats and discover Sirocco, a terrifying wizard feared for his power over the wind. Impressive in its world-building and charming throughout, the film will delight both families and animation lovers. Subtitles (Thu. 9/12);...

Canada | 2023 | Pascal Plante

The high-profile case of a serial killer has just gone to trial, and model Kelly-Anne is obsessed. When reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path to seek the final piece of the case’s puzzle. Reminiscent of Assayas’ Demonlover, this fresh take on the tech-thriller/psychological horror genre has impressed critics and won the Cheval Noir Award for Best Feature at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival. Red Rooms delves deep into our...

United States | 1996 | Bridgett M. Davis

An aspiring actress has lost considerable weight to land her first movie role, but what the director didn’t tell her was that it includes a nude scene. Presented by Julie Dash, and celebrated as a key film in the canon of Black independent cinema of the ‘90s, Naked Acts explores Black female sexuality and identity and tells the story of self-reclamation in the face of histories of exploitation and objectification through images. Cleveland revival premiere....

Japan | 1993 | Shinji Sômai

Grappling with her parents’ divorce, Renko, an energetic 6th grader, negotiates the realities of growing up in this tender coming-of-age tale. Somai’s patient and perceptive vision captures the world seen through the eyes of a rebellious young girl who is thrown into an odyssey of self-discovery despite her desire for everything to stay the same. Tomoko Tabata’s lead performance centers this emotional family drama. "After seeing it, I had confirmation that Shinji Somai was the...

Argentina, Spain | 2023 | Víctor Erice

The masterful Victor Erice’s (Spirit of the Beehive) long-awaited (for more than three decades) new feature film deals with an aging director called upon to recount his memories of working on his final and still unfinished film, where during its production, the lead actor and the filmmaker’s close friend mysteriously disappeared. Erice’s ode to cinema rejects teary-eyed recollections and instead pushes us to consider the bridge that film is between the past and the present...

France | 1976 | Catherine Breillat

Catherine Breillat’s first feature film dives straight into the misadventures of blossoming female sexuality. Alice, our protagonist - a bored teenager spending another boring summer vacation - discovers and expands the domain of her sexual fantasies as she lusts for the local sawmill worker and copiously writes in her diary. Never one to aim for the audience’s comfort or to shy away from being controversial, Breillat’s later work follows the themes - exploration of female...

Argentina, France, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom | 2023 | Lisandro Alonso

Argentinian filmmaker Lisandro Alonso (Jauja, Los Muertos) presents an elliptical meditation on the experiences of indigenous communities across the Americas in four interconnected stories across centuries and spanning multiple genres. This ambitious reflection on indigeneity and the history of colonization rewards a patient viewing. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 147 min.

France | 1988 | Catherine Breillat

Lili - another one of Breillat’s restless teens testing the limits of their own volition when it comes to sex - hesitates then decides to lose her virginity to an aging playboy. Breillat clinically observes her character’s emotional vacillations and the perception she has about virginity as a limit to competence and power. Traversing uncomfortable terrain, Breillat subverts the coming-of-age tropes to reveal an honest, yet provocative, awakening. Adults only. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. 88...

United States | 1997 | Curtis Hanson

Based upon James Ellroy’s best-selling novel of the same title and recently proclaimed as the best movie of all time by Rotten Tomatoes to many people’s surprise, this neo-noir masterpiece set in the ‘50s tells the story of three LA cops who investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice in the quagmire of corruption. Starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Danny DeVito, and Kim Basinger,...

Japan | 1993 | Shinji Sômai

Grappling with her parents’ divorce, Renko, an energetic 6th grader, negotiates the realities of growing up in this tender coming-of-age tale. Somai’s patient and perceptive vision captures the world seen through the eyes of a rebellious young girl who is thrown into an odyssey of self-discovery despite her desire for everything to stay the same. Tomoko Tabata’s lead performance centers this emotional family drama. "After seeing it, I had confirmation that Shinji Somai was the...

Argentina, France, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom | 2023 | Lisandro Alonso

Argentinian filmmaker Lisandro Alonso (Jauja, Los Muertos) presents an elliptical meditation on the experiences of indigenous communities across the Americas in four interconnected stories across centuries and spanning multiple genres. This ambitious reflection on indigeneity and the history of colonization rewards a patient viewing. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 147 min.

France | 1976 | Catherine Breillat

Catherine Breillat’s first feature film dives straight into the misadventures of blossoming female sexuality. Alice, our protagonist - a bored teenager spending another boring summer vacation - discovers and expands the domain of her sexual fantasies as she lusts for the local sawmill worker and copiously writes in her diary. Never one to aim for the audience’s comfort or to shy away from being controversial, Breillat’s later work follows the themes - exploration of female...

France | 1988 | Catherine Breillat

Lili - another one of Breillat’s restless teens testing the limits of their own volition when it comes to sex - hesitates then decides to lose her virginity to an aging playboy. Breillat clinically observes her character’s emotional vacillations and the perception she has about virginity as a limit to competence and power. Traversing uncomfortable terrain, Breillat subverts the coming-of-age tropes to reveal an honest, yet provocative, awakening. Adults only. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. 88...

United States | 1949 | George Cukor

George Cukor’s witty battle of the sexes comedy bursts with the chemistry between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. They play a husband and wife working as opposing lawyers in a case involving a woman who shot her husband where the tension in the courtroom spills into the one in the domestic realm. 35mm. 100 min.

France | 1991 | Catherine Breillat

Breillat co-wrote the script to Maurice Pialat’s Police (1985). Some sources claim that the script to Dirty Like an Angel is Breillat’s original script before Pialat’s rewrites. The film deviates from Breillat’s usual work in that it centers a male protagonist, however continues intertwining the threads of power and desire into themes of justice and crime. A depressed cop on a self-destructive streak falls for his partner’s wife. Subtitles. 102 min.

France, Germany | 1990 | Claire Denis

Two Beninese immigrants coach their rooster for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant. The second feature film by Claire Denis (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day) - known for her daring inspection of how bodies navigate themselves and ‘learn’ their place in a violent world - puts its focus on the two men working to carve out their own space, identity, and masculinity within the French imperial core marked by divisions of race...

South Korea | 2023 | Jason Yu

Newly-wed and recently pregnant, Soo-jin is soon thrown into vigilant anxiety and terror as her husband’s sleepwalking takes on a nightmarish quality. With a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week, this modern horror tale stands out from the crowd thanks to an attentive examination of paranoia. As the first person to read Yu’s screenplay and to see its rough cut, Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) lauded the film as "the most unique horror film and...

France | 1991 | Catherine Breillat

Breillat co-wrote the script to Maurice Pialat’s Police (1985). Some sources claim that the script to Dirty Like an Angel is Breillat’s original script before Pialat’s rewrites. The film deviates from Breillat’s usual work in that it centers a male protagonist, however continues intertwining the threads of power and desire into themes of justice and crime. A depressed cop on a self-destructive streak falls for his partner’s wife. Subtitles. 102 min.

United States | 2022 | Joe Gross, Jeff Krulik, & Joseph Pattisall

You might recognize Jeff Krulik as the director of the infamous Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986). His new film - explicitly billed as a non-documentary - is created to commemorate the 20 years that have passed since DC-based post-hardcore band Fugazi’s last live appearance (November 4, 2002, at The Forum in London), and is composed of crowd sourced, fan recorded live shows and rare archive footage. Organized like a set, the film captures the fleeting...

South Korea | 2023 | Jason Yu

Newly-wed and recently pregnant, Soo-jin is soon thrown into vigilant anxiety and terror as her husband’s sleepwalking takes on a nightmarish quality. With a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week, this modern horror tale stands out from the crowd thanks to an attentive examination of paranoia. As the first person to read Yu’s screenplay and to see its rough cut, Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) lauded the film as "the most unique horror film and...

Germany | 1918 | Ernst Lubitsch

This early Lubitsch adaptation casts the silent film tragedienne Pola Negri as the spell-binding, wonderfully wicked Carmen. The film retells Prosper Merimée’s classic tale of a Romani woman who seduces a military officer and sends each of them on a trajectory of dramatic self-destruction. 4K Restoration by the F.W. Murnau Stiftung. English intertitles. 94 min. Co-presented by the Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium.

United States | 1924 | Raoul Walsh

Freely adapted from One Thousand and One Nights, the film tells the story of a thief falling in love with the Caliph of Bagdad’s daughter, who promises him the princess on the condition that he brings back the rarest treasure of the seven moons. The epic fantasy-adventure, considered to be one of the greatest silent films, impressed audiences with its spectacular production design and imaginative special effects. Starring Douglas Fairbanks. 149 min. plus intermission. Co-presented...

France, Germany | 1990 | Claire Denis

Two Beninese immigrants coach their rooster for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant. The second feature film by Claire Denis (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day) - known for her daring inspection of how bodies navigate themselves and ‘learn’ their place in a violent world - puts its focus on the two men working to carve out their own space, identity, and masculinity within the French imperial core marked by divisions of race...