Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 1928 | King Vidor

New England’s busiest silent film accompanist (and one of the country’s very best), Jeff Rapsis, returns to the Cinematheque to play keyboard for one of the pinnacles of the American silent screen (never before shown at the Cinematheque)! King Vidor’s masterpiece chronicles the life of an ambitious young man who moves to New York City to set the world on fire, only to find himself slowly becoming one of the metropolis’s faceless multitude. In 1989,...

Australia | 2018 | Sari Braithwaite

Given access to thousands of scraps of celluloid removed from movies by Australian government censors between 1958 and 1971 (now stashed at the Australian National Archives), film archivist Sari Braithwaite thought she would “liberate” these clips by stringing them together into a feature film of her own. (Among the banned footage are scenes by Bergman, Fellini, Godard, Varda, and Polanski, as well as excerpts from B-movies, experimental films, and documentaries.) But what Braithwaite discovered instead...

New Zealand, United Kingdom | 2018 | Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson’s remarkable compilation of restored WWI-era silent newsreels (to which he has added color, sound effects, voices, and music) brings home the human tragedy of the Great War perhaps better than any other film. Suddenly, this remote, mute b&w conflict of a century ago becomes vivid and relatable—and populated by individuals just like us. Equally noteworthy is the “making of” documentary that follows the feature, in which Jackson explains his artistic choices and demonstrates...

Italy | 1973 | Ermanno Olmi

Acclaimed by critic Derek Elley as “a romantic highpoint in [Ermanno] Olmi’s oeuvre” and “his most accomplished piece of work,” this undistributed-in-America drama chronicles the crises that fracture an upper-middle-class Milanese family one summer at their country home. It also details the natural forces that might restore balance to their strained existence. Color print imported from Italy! Subtitles. 97 min.

New Zealand, United Kingdom | 2018 | Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson’s remarkable compilation of restored WWI-era silent newsreels (to which he has added color, sound effects, voices, and music) brings home the human tragedy of the Great War perhaps better than any other film. Suddenly, this remote, mute b&w conflict of a century ago becomes vivid and relatable—and populated by individuals just like us. Equally noteworthy is the “making of” documentary that follows the feature, in which Jackson explains his artistic choices and demonstrates...

Canada, United Kingdom | 2017 | Paul Anton Smith

Paul Anton Smith, an assistant editor on Christian Marclay’s cinematic found-footage timepiece The Clock, has now made a marathon montage movie of his own. Have You Seen My Movie? turns the audience’s gaze upon itself—assembling clips of moviegoers and movie theaters from over 1000 classic films of every genre into an expansive love letter to one of our favorite pastimes. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 136 min.

United States | 2018 | Pamela B. Green

French film pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) was history’s first woman film director and perhaps the first filmmaker of any sex to direct a narrative film. Head of production at Gaumont during the late 1800s and later founder of the American silent film company Solax, she experimented with color, synchronized sound, special effects, and minority casting during her groundbreaking career. So why have most movie buffs never heard of this remarkable woman, or seen her films?...

United States | 2018 | Chuck Smith

Best known for her sexually explicit 1963 experimental short film Christmas on Earth (which will show in its entirety after the feature tonight), Barbara Rubin was a sort of 1960s Zelig. She introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan to Kabbalah, and bewitched Allen Ginsberg. Before her mysterious death at age 35, she also breached the male domain of Orthodox Judaism. This new documentary restores the nearly forgotten Rubin to her rightful...

Australia | 2018 | Sari Braithwaite

Given access to thousands of scraps of celluloid removed from movies by Australian government censors between 1958 and 1971 (now stashed at the Australian National Archives), film archivist Sari Braithwaite thought she would “liberate” these clips by stringing them together into a feature film of her own. (Among the banned footage are scenes by Bergman, Fellini, Godard, Varda, and Polanski, as well as excerpts from B-movies, experimental films, and documentaries.) But what Braithwaite discovered instead...

Denmark, Sweden | 2018 | Pella Kågerman, Hugo Lilja

In this thoughtful science fiction film based on an epic 1956 poem by Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson, a spaceship transporting people from an ecologically devastated Earth to a permanent colony on Mars is knocked off course—perhaps doomed to drift through the cosmos forever. The passengers deal with this news in dramatically different ways. “A narrative as satisfying as its conception is ambitious...Both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature...

Chile | 2017 | Raúl Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento

Shot by late master filmmaker Raúl Ruiz in 1990 but left unfinished until his widow and frequent collaborator Valeria Sarmiento completed it in 2017, The Wandering Soap Opera is a dreamily interconnected series of absurdist vignettes that spoof telenovela conventions. Political intrigue, romance, and melodrama blend with assorted fourth wall breaches in this irreverent, imaginative work that also encapsulates Ruiz's feelings upon returning to his native Chile, post Pinochet, after more than 15 years in...

Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Sweden | 2018 | Carlos Reygadas

The visually stunning new film from the director of Silent Light and Battle in Heaven stars the filmmaker himself, along with his real-life wife, as a successful couple who operate a Mexican ranch and have an open marriage. The latter arrangement is put to the test when she begins an affair with an American horse trainer and her spouse has considerable trouble accepting it. “A soul-searching work of scorching honesty that functions both as an...

United States | 2017 | Thomas Piper

This popular documentary explores how Piet Oudolf, the revolutionary Dutch landscape designer of New York City’s High Line and Chicago’s Lurie Garden in Millennium Park, upends conventional notions of nature, public space, and beauty itself. DCP. 75 min.

Italy | 1983 | Ermanno Olmi

Ermanno Olmi’s follow-up to his 1978 Cannes Palme d’Or winner The Tree of Wooden Clogs is an epic road movie: an almost three-hour retelling of the journey of the Magi, incorporating both New Testament stories and the legends that have built up around them. Olmi is no sanctimonious pedant, so his film, cast with non-professionals, is a down-to-earth, humanistic, even irreverent account of a tale long lost to piety. Color print from Italy! Subtitles. 171...

United States | 1928 | Buster Keaton, Charles Reisner

Here’s a new 4K restoration of Buster Keaton’s final silent feature for his own company, released one year after The General, just before he went to work for MGM. Buster plays the foppish, city-educated son of the gruff owner of a struggling Mississippi River paddlewheel steamer. He also happens to love the daughter of a more successful steamboat operator who is his dad’s rival. The movie’s cyclone finale is breathtaking! New music score by Carl...

United States | 1928 | Buster Keaton, Charles Reisner

Here’s a new 4K restoration of Buster Keaton’s final silent feature for his own company, released one year after The General, just before he went to work for MGM. Buster plays the foppish, city-educated son of the gruff owner of a struggling Mississippi River paddlewheel steamer. He also happens to love the daughter of a more successful steamboat operator who is his dad’s rival. The movie’s cyclone finale is breathtaking! New music score by Carl...

Chile | 2017 | Raúl Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento

Shot by late master filmmaker Raúl Ruiz in 1990 but left unfinished until his widow and frequent collaborator Valeria Sarmiento completed it in 2017, The Wandering Soap Opera is a dreamily interconnected series of absurdist vignettes that spoof telenovela conventions. Political intrigue, romance, and melodrama blend with assorted fourth wall breaches in this irreverent, imaginative work that also encapsulates Ruiz's feelings upon returning to his native Chile, post Pinochet, after more than 15 years in...

Denmark, Sweden | 2018 | Pella Kågerman, Hugo Lilja

In this thoughtful science fiction film based on an epic 1956 poem by Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson, a spaceship transporting people from an ecologically devastated Earth to a permanent colony on Mars is knocked off course—perhaps doomed to drift through the cosmos forever. The passengers deal with this news in dramatically different ways. “A narrative as satisfying as its conception is ambitious...Both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature...

Brazil, France, Portugal | 2018 | Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt

A dim, disgraced Portuguese soccer star and int’l sex symbol turns his attention to the European migrant crisis, adopting an African refugee who isn’t what he seems. This lands the athlete into a madcap maelstrom of political intrigue, illegal surveillance, and scientific skullduggery. This sweet, funny fantasy that has its humanist heart in the right place was one of the highlights at this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival. Subtitles. DCP. 92 min

Denmark, Germany, Sweden, United States | 2018 | Marcus Lindeen

In 1973, decades before Big Brother and reality TV, five men and six women of differing ages and nationalities spent 101 days drifting across the Atlantic on a raft. They were part of a scientific experiment studying the dynamics of aggression, violence, and sexual attraction. This award-winning new documentary looks back at this singular expedition (dubbed “The Sex Raft” by the sensation-hungry media)—reuniting surviving crew members and mining a wealth of archival 16mm footage from...

France, Russia | 2018 | Kirill Serebrennikov

Shown in this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival, the new film from the director of Student re-creates the oft-circumscribed underground music scene in Leningrad during the early 1980s. It does this by dramatizing the early career of Viktor Tsoi, a Soviet singer and songwriter who co-founded the influential rock band Kino in 1982 and later starred in the 1988 Kazakh film The Needle (shown in 1989 at the Cinematheque). The movie’s award-winning soundtrack includes Russian...

Japan | 1950 | Akira Kurosawa

In 12th-century Kyoto, four witnesses to a rape/murder give contradictory testimony about the incident, illustrating the subjective nature of truth. Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated masterpiece always turns up on lists of the 100 best films of all time. Rashomon was also the movie that introduced the West to postwar Japanese cinema and helped make its two leads, Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyō, international stars. Masayuki Mori and Takashi Shimura co-star. Subtitles. 88 min.

Japan | 1950 | Akira Kurosawa

In 12th-century Kyoto, four witnesses to a rape/murder give contradictory testimony about the incident, illustrating the subjective nature of truth. Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated masterpiece always turns up on lists of the 100 best films of all time. Rashomon was also the movie that introduced the West to postwar Japanese cinema and helped make its two leads, Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyō, international stars. Masayuki Mori and Takashi Shimura co-star. Subtitles. 88 min.

Italy | 1987 | Ermanno Olmi

Ermanno Olmi’s surreal, allegorical comedy (one of his best films) is set in a crumbling castle where a group of naïve young people work as hired help for an elaborate (and somewhat sinister) formal dinner party attended by members of society’s cultural elite and hosted by the manor’s mysterious, cadaverous matron. “Italy’s most brilliant film comedy.” –Dennis Grunes. Color print from Italy! Subtitles. 115 min.

Australia | 1979 | George Miller

This modest (but thrilling) Aussie movie—about a cop (Mel Gibson) in a dystopian future who seeks revenge on the outlaw bikers who murdered his wife and son—kick-started one of the most successful action franchises in history. Original, uncut, Australian-language version! DCP. 93 min.

Denmark, Germany, Sweden, United States | 2018 | Marcus Lindeen

In 1973, decades before Big Brother and reality TV, five men and six women of differing ages and nationalities spent 101 days drifting across the Atlantic on a raft. They were part of a scientific experiment studying the dynamics of aggression, violence, and sexual attraction. This award-winning new documentary looks back at this singular expedition (dubbed “The Sex Raft” by the sensation-hungry media)—reuniting surviving crew members and mining a wealth of archival 16mm footage from...

Australia | 1979 | George Miller

This modest (but thrilling) Aussie movie—about a cop (Mel Gibson) in a dystopian future who seeks revenge on the outlaw bikers who murdered his wife and son—kick-started one of the most successful action franchises in history. Original, uncut, Australian-language version! DCP. 93 min.

Brazil, France, Portugal | 2018 | Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt

A dim, disgraced Portuguese soccer star and int’l sex symbol turns his attention to the European migrant crisis, adopting an African refugee who isn’t what he seems. This lands the athlete into a madcap maelstrom of political intrigue, illegal surveillance, and scientific skullduggery. This sweet, funny fantasy that has its humanist heart in the right place was one of the highlights at this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival. Subtitles. DCP. 92 min

United States | 1989-1999 | Phil Solomon

Philip S. Solomon, who died in May at age 65, was a disciple of Stan Brakhage. He went on to become one of America’s most acclaimed and accomplished experimental filmmakers himself. Before transitioning to digital, Solomon made supremely beautiful 16mm films, and we show four of them tonight. These poetic works ponder death and dying, decay and remembrance, and “the dusk of cinema.” Program includes: Remains To Be Seen (1989/1994), dedicated to the memory of...

Germany | 2018 | Thomas Stuber

One of the best films we saw at this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival is a touching, poignant, and humanistic portrait of workplace camaraderie. Franz Rogowski of Transit and Sandra Hüller of Toni Erdmann play shy, reticent co-workers at a German big box store. They slowly fall for each other—that is, when he’s not learning how to operate a forklift or there’s not some other crisis at the supermarket. Subtitles. DCP. 125 min.

Australia | 1981 | George Miller

One of the greatest action films ever made! In a post-apocalyptic desert where gasoline is the most coveted commodity, vengeful ex-cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) aligns himself with a colony of besieged settlers trying to protect their oil refinery from crazed, marauding bikers. 96 min.

Poland | 1937 | Michal Waszynski

The most celebrated Yiddish-language film of all time is an adaptation of S. Ansky’s famous play. A 19th-century Jewish bride is possessed by the soul of a dead person, or dybbuk. In this case, it’s that of her deceased true love—but the village rabbi must exorcise it regardless. This ethereal fantasy, steeped in the superstitions and folklore of Eastern European shtetl life, depicts a culture that would soon be eradicated by the Nazis (along with...

Australia | 1981 | George Miller

One of the greatest action films ever made! In a post-apocalyptic desert where gasoline is the most coveted commodity, vengeful ex-cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) aligns himself with a colony of besieged settlers trying to protect their oil refinery from crazed, marauding bikers. 96 min.

Germany | 2018 | Thomas Stuber

One of the best films we saw at this year’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival is a touching, poignant, and humanistic portrait of workplace camaraderie. Franz Rogowski of Transit and Sandra Hüller of Toni Erdmann play shy, reticent co-workers at a German big box store. They slowly fall for each other—that is, when he’s not learning how to operate a forklift or there’s not some other crisis at the supermarket. Subtitles. DCP. 125 min.

United Kingdom | 1973 | Jack Hazan

Painter David Hockney plays himself in this fictionalized documentary about the traumatic break up with his longtime boyfriend (Peter Schlesinger). This rupture left the artist depressed and unable to paint—until a backyard swimming pool reignited his imagination. A unique, singularly stylish art film. Cleveland revival premiere. DCP. 106 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...

2018-2019 | various directors

The Sundance Film Festival's Short Film Program has long been one of the world’s premier showcases for miniature movies, as well as the career launch pad for many now-prominent indie filmmakers. (Alums include Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Andrea Arnold, Damien Chazelle, Debra Granik, Todd Haynes, Spike Jonze, Dee Rees, and Taika Waititi, among others.) The seven international films in this touring program, all selected from the 2019 festival, include fiction, documentary, and animation. For...

United Kingdom | 1973 | Jack Hazan

Painter David Hockney plays himself in this fictionalized documentary about the traumatic break up with his longtime boyfriend (Peter Schlesinger). This rupture left the artist depressed and unable to paint—until a backyard swimming pool reignited his imagination. A unique, singularly stylish art film. Cleveland revival premiere. DCP. 106 min.

2018-2019 | various directors

The Sundance Film Festival's Short Film Program has long been one of the world’s premier showcases for miniature movies, as well as the career launch pad for many now-prominent indie filmmakers. (Alums include Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Andrea Arnold, Damien Chazelle, Debra Granik, Todd Haynes, Spike Jonze, Dee Rees, and Taika Waititi, among others.) The seven international films in this touring program, all selected from the 2019 festival, include fiction, documentary, and animation. For...

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.