Cinematheque Film Schedule

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South Korea | 1998 | Tsai Ming-liang

This poker-faced, apocalyptic masterpiece that was one of the most original films of the 1990s has a new relevance for our polarized, pandemic-paralyzed age. In an unnamed city emptied out by an epidemic and assailed by endless rain, a lonely young man living in a crumbling apartment building begins a tentative, initially adversarial relationship with the solitary woman residing below him through a hole in his floor/her ceiling. The movie's drab, damp atmosphere is buoyed...

United States | 2020 | John Leguizamo

In this inspiring comedy-drama based on a true story, John Leguizamo (making his theatrical directorial debut) plays a Cuban-American teacher in Miami who leads a group of underprivileged Black and Latinx high school students to the U.S. National Chess Championship. Cleveland premiere. 117 min. Critical Thinking, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/4 thru at least 9/24 via the link below. (Doing so supports the Cinematheque.) Screening fee is $6.99, and after...

Bangladesh, Denmark, France, Portugal | 2019 | Rubaiyat Hossain

Norma Rae meets Satyajit Ray! A multiple award winner at numerous festivals, this humanistic movie focuses on a Bangladeshi textile worker who tries to organize a union at her RMG (Ready Made Garment) factory. “An urgent cry for workers' rights, and a vision of feminist solidarity in the face of overwhelming opposition.” –CinemaScope. Cleveland premiere. Bengali with subtitles. 95 min. Made in Bangladesh, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/4 thru at...

France | 1999 | Claire Denis

Here’s a new 4K restoration of the film now widely regarded as Claire Denis’ masterpiece. Inspired by Melville’s Billy Budd and set among French Foreign Legionnaires in Djibouti, East Africa, the movie focuses on a drill sergeant (Denis Lavant) obsessed with a sterling young recruit (Grégoire Colin) whom he’s trying to destroy. Balletic and sensual, fraught with repressed desire and ruinous jealousy, the movie exposes military and masculine codes of honor and the legacy of...

Canada, Italy | 2019 | Sean Cisterna

In this uplifting celebration of heritage and happiness, a beleaguered CEO (veteran character actor Joe Pantoliano) quits the corporate rat race and impulsively moves to his childhood hometown in Italy—where his grandfather’s neglected vineyard awaits. “Pantoliano gives a curious edge to the film, turning a stock hero into something a titch more complicated and compelling.” –Toronto Globe and Mail. Cleveland premiere. Some subtitles. 94 min. From the Vine, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed...

France, United States | 2019 | P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes

The new documentary by the directors of Room 237 and Mansfield 66/67 takes an in-depth look at storied designer Pierre Cardin, now 98, and his decades-long impact on fashion and society. With Naomi Campbell, Sharon Stone, et al. Subtitles. 95 min. House of Cardin, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/4 thru at least 9/24 via the link below. Enter the code “cleveland.” (Doing so supports the Cinematheque.)...

United States | 2020 | Dan Partland

In this new film, mental health professionals analyze the behavior, psyche, condition, and stability of Donald Trump as they try to gauge whether he is fit to hold the office of President of the United States. Maybe you’ve already answered that question for yourself and feel you don’t need to see this movie. But do you know about the Goldwater Rule from 1964? Or the Tarasoff Rule? Or how Trump behaves on the golf course?...

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Canada | 2020 | Paul Saltzman

In 1968, future Emmy-winning filmmaker Paul Saltzman was a lovelorn young man who traveled to Rishikesh, India, to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and to heal his broken heart. By chance, his stay at the ashram overlapped with the time the Beatles were there (at the height of their worldwide fame), so he spent several days hanging out with the Fab Four and their extended party, which included Mia Farrow, Donovan, and Mike...

United States | 2018 | Saila Huusko, Jasper Rischen

In this eye-opening, often humorous documentary, Moroni Benally, a young, gay, Mormon academic with radical ideas, runs for the presidency of the Navajo Nation. His long-shot quest to become arguably the most powerful Native American in North America reveals surprising parallels with the U.S.’s current political climate. “A compelling look at the LGBTQ community within the Navajo nation, and how politics are navigated from a community being controlled by the outside." –The Advocate. Cleveland premiere....

Iran | 2019 | Mona Zandi Haghighi

In this humanistic Iranian gem that has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a middle-aged married woman learns that her children have moved their father (her former husband) into a nursing home. Taking pity on her ex, she decides to care for him in her own home—though her second husband has misgivings about this. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 93 min. African Violet, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/11...

Australia | 2019 | Rodd Rathjen

This taut thriller, Australia’s official entry for the 2020 Oscar for Best International Film, tells of a Cambodian teen who sneaks away to Bangkok to make money working in a factory, but ends up an abducted, abused slave on a Thai fishing trawler. "An edge-of-your-seat adventure tale with social punch." –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Khmer and Thai with subtitles. 93 min. Buoyancy, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/11 thru at least...

Belgium, France | 2019 | Justine Triet

Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Color) and Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann) star in this blackly comic, supremely entertaining character study about a psychotherapist, Sibyl (Virginie Efira), who decides to quit her practice and take up fiction writing, mining her patients’ problems for lurid details. But overall she flounders for inspiration until she meets a sultry but insecure young actress who’s shooting a movie and having an affair with her male co-star. The action of...

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Mexico, United States | 2019 | Zachary Cotler, Magdalena Zyzak

In this social satire that wryly reverses current political concerns, a wealthy Mexican-American family living in the American Southwest builds a massive wall around their ranch, in order to safeguard their artesian well from poor white people in the area. “[A] provocative fable.” –Hollywood Reporter. With Jackson Rathbone, Esai Morales, Xander Berkeley, Moises Arias. Cleveland premiere. 110 min. The Wall of Mexico, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 9/18 thru at least...

Ireland, United Kingdom | 2019 | Peter Mackie Burns

This sensitively written and beautifully acted drama boasts a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After his toxic father dies and his emotional life begins to unravel, a middle-aged Dublin dockworker with an upstanding wife and two teen children turns for solace to a male hustler less than half his age. With Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Tom Glynn-Carney; Mark O’Halloran adapted his award-winning play Trade. “An intimate portrait of masculine crisis, illuminated by two extraordinary central...

United States | 2020 | Rémi Anfosso

In this mouth-watering new documentary, James Beard award-winning chef David Kinch (who also won an Emmy for The Mind of a Chef) and a team from his Michelin 3-star restaurant Manresa travel from California to France to collaborate with three legendary French chefs at their iconic restaurants in Paris, Provence, and Marseille. But with customs and security, jetlag, deadlines, and a language barrier, how difficult can it be to bring gourmet California cuisine to...

Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain | 1994 | Jan Švankmajer

The second feature (after 1988’s Alice) by the great Czech animator and surrealist Jan Švankmajer is a witty, macabre version of the famous story of a man who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for years of material gain. Borrowing from both Marlowe and Goethe, Švankmajer tells the tale through a singular combination of claymation, stop-motion animation, life-size puppets, live action, and special effects. It’s not appropriate for children. “Galvanizes the mind and...

Israel | 2019 | Itay Tal

In this gripping and surprising new drama, Anat (Naama Preis), a concert pianist who has failed to live up to the expectations of her competitive, musically accomplished family, takes desperate measures to assure that her newborn son does not grow up to do the same. "This stylish first feature negotiates its themes—the overlap between parental ambition and borderline abuse, what it means to be labeled ‘gifted’—with the same control and precision that Anat and her...

United States | 2019 | Ric Burns

This new documentary explores the life and work of the legendary British neurologist who wrote and published popular case studies like Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Though an internationally beloved figure by the end of his life (he died in 2015), Sacks battled drug addiction, homophobia, and a resistant medical establishment earlier in his storied career. “Deeply affecting.” –Hollywood Reporter. 114 min. Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, a Cinematheque...

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Argentina | 1951 | Pierre Chenal

Richard Wright himself plays Bigger Thomas in this long-forgotten first film version of his literary landmark, which has been restored to its original length by the Library of Congress and released uncut for the first time in America. (An “adults only” movie in 1951, it was heavily cut by assorted state and local censor boards.) The film tells of a Black man, Bigger Thomas, who takes a job as chauffeur to a wealthy white family...

United States | 2020 | Alan Govenar

Conventional wisdom holds that a lack of racism is what prompted so many Blacks—including prominent African-American artists like Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, among others—to emigrate to Paris during the 20th century. But was France really as colorblind as its reputation? This nonfiction film employs historical footage and new interviews to delve into how people of color have really fared under the Tricolour, both then and now. Some subtitles. 86 min. Myth of...

United States | 2020 | Sarah Colt, Josh Gleason

A laid-off factory worker from Lorain is one of the three subjects of this new nonfiction film by two documentarians whose previous credits include American Experience, This American Life, and All Things Considered. (The other two main characters are a Kansas farmer trying to hold on to his multi-generation farm and a female Uber driver in Florida.) Shot prior to the coronavirus pandemic (when the economy was robust), the movie finds that these middle-class individuals...

United States | 2019 | Tom Dolby

Lena Olin and Bruce Dern star in this new drama co-written and directed by the executive producer of Call Me by Your Name. It focuses on a celebrated painter (Dern) married to an artist (Olin) who had suspended her own career to support his. But when he begins to suffer from dementia, she must suddenly deal with both his unfinished work and his estranged daughter from an earlier marriage. Cleveland premiere. 95 min. The Artist’s...