Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 2019 | Louie Schwartzberg

One of the most unexpected art house hits of 2019 -- and our most popular movie of all time -- is a mind-blowing, beautifully photographed look at the world of mushrooms and how they can help save the planet. With Paul Stamets, Michael Pollan, and Andrew Weil; narrated by Brie Larson. 81 min. Fantastic Fungi, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online thru 1/31 via the link below. Doing so supports the Cinematheque. Screening...

France | 2019 | Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu

In this new portrait of one of the great living photographers, the legendary Magnum shutterbug famed for his pictures of celebrities and the Civil Rights Movement (and currently represented in the Cleveland Museum of Art's Proof exhibition) returns to Cuba for the first time since his iconic Newsweek photos of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. A former assistant to this now nonagenarian artist directed the movie. Elliott Erwitt will be preceded by Tasha Van Zandt's...

South Korea | 2004 | Bong Joon-ho

This never-before-released short film from the Oscar-winning director of Parasite was made between his features Memories of Murder and The Host. Consisting solely of footage captured on some of Seoul’s ubiquitous security cameras, this ingenious half-hour thriller (about the destructive downward spiral of an unemployed young man) may be something of a stunt, but it boasts Bong’s characteristic humor, tension, twists, and violence. “Displays [Bong’s] breadth and evolution as one of the modern heirs to...

United States | 2020 | Dawn Porter

This new documentary celebrates the longtime civil rights leader and 17-term Georgia Congressman who has fought for voting rights, gun control, health care, and immigration reform during six decades of social activism and legislative action. Includes new interviews and archival film clips. “Absolutely inspiring.” –Entertainment Weekly. Cleveland premiere. 96 min. John Lewis: Good Trouble, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online from 7/3 thru 8/27 via the link below. (Doing so supports the Cinematheque.) Screening...

United Kingdom | 1954 | Frank Launder

Here’s a new restoration of one of the most popular British comedies of all time; it was followed by three sequels and by franchise reboots in 1980 and 2007. Set at a debt-ridden “school for young ladies” (where all the young ladies are secretly engaged in shady activities—here track betting and the kidnapping of a prized race horse), the film stars Alastair Sim as both the boarding school’s severe headmistress and her bookie brother. Comic...

United States | 2020 | Channing Godfrey Peoples

With a 99% critics rating and an 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, this touching new feature marks an auspicious debut for a Texas-born African American filmmaker. Nicole Beharie plays a Fort Worth single mom who has faced hardship since being crowned "Miss Juneteenth" as a teenager. Now she’s preparing her own daughter for the same pageant (and the college scholarship that accompanies it), but the rebellious 15-year-old resists. "Critic’s Pick…Explores how black women and...

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United States | 2019 | Cheryl Haines

Ai Weiwei’s 2014-15 installation inside the former federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island is the subject of this new documentary. Mounted in collaboration with San Francisco’s FOR-SITE Foundation because the dissident Ai, China’s most famous artist, was barred from leaving the country at the time, the show—entitled @Large—was an astonishing expression of socially-engaged art focused on the plight of the unjustly incarcerated. Portraits of prisoners of conscience from around the world were supplemented with an opportunity...

Canada | 2019 | Atom Egoyan

David Thewlis (Mike Leigh’s Naked) and Luke Wilson star in the new film from the director of The Sweet Hereafter. It’s a complex psychodrama that unravels the conjoined fates—and exposes the hidden secrets—of a troubled father and his equally tormented grown daughter. (He’s an overzealous food inspector; she’s a high school music teacher behind bars for abusing a student.) Cleveland premiere. 105 min. Guest of Honour, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online from...

Austria, Germany | 2018 | Nikolaus Leytner

Bruno Ganz, in one of his final film roles, plays Sigmund Freud in this handsomely photographed period piece set in 1930s Vienna before and during the Nazi occupation. The elderly psychoanalyst, who is a regular customer at a local tobacco shop, befriends an apprentice there, and even advises the young man about his feelings for a music hall dancer (though Freud admits that even he is mystified by what women want). From the novel by...

Canada | 2019 | Grace Glowicki

Tito is a gaunt, stooped-over young man with long greasy hair, a red emergency whistle dangling from his neck, and a crippling fear of predators. (He’s played by the film’s female writer-director in a virtuosic gender switch.) Tito mostly hides out from the world in his shuttered house, so is startled when an incongruously cheerful neighbor bursts into his abode offering breakfast and more. According to Filmmaker Magazine, this singular blend of buddy comedy and...

Albania, Kosovo | 2019 | Antoneta Kastrati

A Kozovar wife still traumatized by the Balkan wars of a decade before (her young daughter was one of the casualties) finds herself unable to conceive another child. So her meddling mother-in-law turns to witch doctors and faith healers for help. This psychological/supernatural thriller (with echoes of Don’t Look Now and Rosemary’s Baby) was Kosovo’s official submission for this year’s Oscar for Best International Feature Film. It also has a 100% critics rating on Rotten...

France | 2018-2019 | various directors

Seven recent French short films running the gamut from animation to romance to absurdist comedy are included in this new collection, part of the Young French Cinema program of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. This program showcases movies presented at major film festivals (Venice, Locarno, New York, et al.) and includes Vasilis Kekatos' The Distance Between Us and the Sky Director, winner of the Short Film Palme d'Or at Cannes 2019....

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United States | 2019 | Elizabeth Coffman, Mark Bosco, S.J.

The life, work, and legacy of Southern Gothic literary icon Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), author of Wise Blood, is explored in this new documentary narrated by Mary Steenburgen and featuring interviews with Hilton Als, Alice Walker, Tommy Lee Jones, Conan O'Brien, and others. The film looks at this shy, funny, devout, disabled author from Georgia through her own writings and cartoons, archival footage, and conversations with those who knew her best. "An extraordinary documentary that allows...

United States | 2020 | Sue Williams

This new documentary traces how an openly gay Hong Kong singer and Cantopop superstar became an ardent human rights advocate and outspoken activist for HK freedom and identity. Denise Ho's political activities have alienated her from sponsors and Chinese authorities and impeded her performance career; nevertheless she persists. "Critic's Pick!...An inspiring documentary driven by an unwavering belief in the ability of people—particularly young people—to create the world they want to live in." –NY Times. Cleveland...

Germany | 2002 | Ulrich Köhler

Never before released in the U.S., this major work of Germany’s celebrated Berlin School (also the first film from the director of In My Room, shown in January) tells of a young German soldier who goes AWOL one summer and returns to his childhood home in the country. There he falls in love with his older brother’s Danish girlfriend (Trine Dyrholm) and generally disrupts the lives of everyone around him. “A secretive and beautifully observant...

Japan | 2019 | Makoto Nagahisa

Four Japanese strangers—all poker-faced tween orphans emotionless over their parents' recent deaths—come together to form a chiptune pop band and take the world by storm. This exuberant, visually inventive comedy tears through the stages of grief as if they were levels in a video game. “Hyperstylized, hyperactive, and hyper-fun…No pulsating, psychedelic, pop-punk phantasmagoria ought to be as moving and smart…Explosively ingenious and energetic.” –Variety. “A rainbow-colored, RPG-inspired scream into the abyss.” –New York. Cleveland premiere....

France | 2018-2019 | various directors

Seven recent French short films running the gamut from animation to romance to absurdist comedy are included in this new collection, part of the Young French Cinema program of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. This program showcases movies presented at major film festivals (Venice, Locarno, New York, et al.) and includes Vasilis Kekatos' The Distance Between Us and the Sky Director, winner of the Short Film Palme d'Or at Cannes 2019....

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United States | 2020 | Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross

The final night at a Las Vegas dive bar facing its own "last call" is the subject of the fifth film by Ohio-born sibling cineastes Bill and Turner Ross (45365). An affecting mix of the staged and the unscripted, this evocative, empathetic look at the hard-drinking denizens of a local watering hole should serve as some sort of balm for barflies missing their own hangouts during the current COVID crisis. “Genuinely great, a singular and...

United States | 2019 | Karen Maine

Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things) plays a Midwestern Catholic school girl during the late 1990s or early 2000s whose guilt-ridden discovery of masturbation sends her on a church retreat looking for redemption. Karen Maine's debut feature, an expansion of her 2017 short, was a hit at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival. "An upbeat comedy about a Catholic school girl’s struggle to make sense of her sexuality...Fun and entertaining." –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. 78 min. Yes, God,...

Germany | 2020 | Gero von Boehm

Did Helmut Newton immortalize or objectify women in his bold, provocative, controversial pictures? This and other questions are addressed in this new portrait of the late German-born photographer who was obsessed with the female form and whose visual imagination seemed beholden to Weimar Germany. Includes interviews with some of Newton's notable celebrity subjects (Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Isabella Rossellini, Anna Wintour, et al.) as well as home movies, archival footage, and (natch) photographs. Adults only!...

Canada, France, Malaysia, Morocco, United States | 2020 | various directors

The Sundance Film Festival is widely considered the premier American showcase for new short films. For over 30 years, it has been the launchpad for many now-prominent independent filmmakers (Taika Waititi, Dee Rees, Debra Granik, Damien Chazelle, et al.). The Sundance Film Festival Shorts Tour 2020 gives moviegoers a taste of the festival through six acclaimed mini-movies from around the world encompassing fiction, documentary, and animation. One of them is Sofia Alaoui's So What If...

United Kingdom | 1987 | various directors

Ten of the hottest directors of the 1980s—including Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Franc Roddam, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, and Julien Temple—unleash their unbridled imaginations on ten visualizations of famous opera arias by Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and others (including “Nessun Dorma”). Often irreverent and over the top, with little spoken dialogue, this anthology film also boasts a cast of notables—from Tilda Swinton and Theresa Russell to John Hurt, Beverly D’Angelo, and Buck...

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United States | 2020 | Eli B. Despres, Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

ACLU lawyers battle the Trump administration over voting rights, abortion, parent-child separation, and the loss of a soldier's military career in this moving and inspiring new documentary. The Fight offers a revealing, behind-the-scenes look at unsung heroes who protect our freedoms and civil rights. Cleveland premiere. 96 min. The Fight, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online from 7/31 thru 8/20 via the link below. (Doing so supports the Cinematheque.) Screening fee is $12,...

Belgium, France | 1980 | Yvan Attal

Charlotte Gainsbourg and her husband Yvan Attal star in Attal's comic film version of a story by American cult novelist John Fante (1909-1983), about a struggling writer whose also-floundering family life is transformed when a big, smelly, ill-mannered dog turns up one day. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 99 min. My Dog Stupid, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online from 7/31 thru 8/20 via the link below (coming soon). (Doing so supports...

France, Japan | 2017 | Kôji Fukada

A beloved home healthcare worker who is almost a member of the family finds her life upended when she becomes unwittingly involved in a kidnap drama. This fractured, psychological mystery-thriller is the latest feature from the celebrated director of 2016's Harmonium. "Deft and absorbing...A satisfying slow-burn drama expertly told." –Screen Daily. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 112 min. A Girl Missing, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be watched online from 7/31 thru 8/20 via the link below....

United Kingdom | 2019 | Oliver Krimpas

Well received at the 2019 Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, this Rohmeresque romantic drama with a sci-fi subtext revolves around a film location scout (Gethin Anthony of Game of Thrones) and the young real estate agent (Cara Theobold of Downton Abbey) who shows him around a neglected 17th-century chateau in Normandy. As they tour the place, she informs him that it was where 18th-century French man of letters Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle set a famous...

France, Italy | 1993 | Nanni Moretti

Nanni Moretti's' breakthrough film won him the Best Director Prize at Cannes (beating Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction). It's a funny, rueful, semi-autobiographical triptych in which the wry Italian writer-director—an ardent film buff—tools around summertime Rome on his Vespa, then travels to the Aeolian Islands near Sicily in search of peace and quiet, then asks doctors about a persistent rash that's bothering him. With Jennifer Beals. "For all his apparent casualness, Mr. Moretti is a...