Cinematheque Film Schedule

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United States | 2020 | Rodney Ascher

The new nonfiction film from Rodney Ascher, director of Room 237 (about Kubrick’s The Shining), is an investigation of “simulation theory,” which posits that the world as we know it is not real but a computer simulation controlled—or played—by a super-intelligent, unknowable entity. Ascher dives down a rabbit hole of science, philosophy, and paranoia to explore this mind-bending idea, referencing Philip K. Dick, Minefield, and The Matrix along the way. His film also features visionary...

United States | 1976 | James Szalapski

Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Young, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle, Charlie Daniels, and others star in this stirring record of the early days of “outlaw country” music, when up-and-coming Southern singer-songwriters rejected the glitz and glamour of Nashville to return to the music’s folk and bluegrass roots. Released theatrically five years after it was made, this gem of a music movie is still too little known. Perhaps this new restoration and re-release will...

Netherlands | 2018 | Robin Lutz

The life and legacy of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972), whose surreal, psychedelic b&w drawings bridged the worlds of art and mathematics, is seen through his own words and images—and the words of surviving family members—in this new film that is both eye-opening and pleasing to the eye. With Graham Nash and the voice of Stephen Fry. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 81 min. M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed...

USSR | 1975 | Andrei Tarkovsky

Voted the 19th best film of all time in Sight & Sound magazine’s 2012 poll of int’l film critics, Andrei Tarkovsky’s exquisite remembrance blends history and autobiography. A fragmented work containing shards of dreams, memories, and newsreel footage, this gorgeous, moody reverie evokes the director’s childhood during WWII as well as his relationship with his mother and poet father, whose verse is heard on the soundtrack. Essential viewing! New restoration! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. 106...

France, Mauritania | 1970 | Med Hondo

In this gripping, groundbreaking, galvanizing classic, an educated but naïve West African immigrant in 1960s Paris encounters everything from hostility and humiliation to rejection and resentment as he seeks to improve his life. “Hondo deploys a dizzying array of narrative and stylistic techniques—animation, docudrama, dream sequences, musical numbers, folklore, slapstick comedy, agitprop—to create a revolutionary landmark of political cinema and a shattering vision of awakening Black consciousness.” –Janus Films. New restoration! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles....

Belgium, France, Luxembourg | 2019 | Filippo Meneghetti

France’s official submission for the 2021 Oscar for Best Int’l Feature Film is a moving account of two elderly women who have been neighbors for decades, as well as secret lovers. But when they talk about giving up their apartments and moving to Rome (and going public with their relationship), things take a turn for the worse. Barbara Sukowa (Hannah Arendt, Fassbinder’s Lola) stars. Has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes! “Entirely unique and...

Luxembourg, Romania | 2019 | Alexander Nanau

This 2021 Oscar nominee for both Best Int'l Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature is a gripping nonfiction thriller that serves as a potent paean to investigative journalism. In the movie, whistleblowers, newspaper reporters, government officials, and burn victims help to uncover deadly corruption within Romania’s healthcare industry in the wake of 2015’s Colectiv nightclub fire. (The Bucharest catastrophe killed or injured over 200 people.) “A full on masterpiece.” –Rolling Stone. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 109...

Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden | 2020 | Thomas Vinterberg

Mads Mikkelsen stars in this comedy-drama by Dogme 95 co-founder Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) that swept the 2020 European Film Awards (winning Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Screenplay) and won the 2021 Oscar for Best Int'l Feature Film. The movie focuses on four men, all dissatisfied high school teachers, who decide to test a prominent psychologist’s theory that human beings would be more creative, happier, and relaxed with a constant level of alcohol in their...

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United States | 2020 | Noah Hutton

This witty futuristic satire written and directed by the son of Deborah Winger and Timothy Hutton is nominated for a 2021 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. To earn money to care for his sick brother, a middle-aged man takes a job laying fiber-optic cable through remote, dangerous terrain for an advanced new computer network. Lapsis takes a darkly comic and timely look at the gig economy and the failed utopian promises of big...

France | 1945 | Marcel Carné

For Valentine’s Day: the sumptuous romantic epic that 600 French film critics and movie professionals, in a 1995 poll, voted the greatest French film of all time! Made during WWII under the German occupation, this lavish spectacle (written by Jacques Prévert) is set in the teeming theater district of 1828 Paris. There the serene, mysterious actress and courtesan Garance (Arletty) is loved and wooed by four different men—a mime (Jean-Louis Barrault), an actor (Pierre Brasseur),...

United States | 1989 | Charles Lane

This charming, little-known curiosity by African-American actor and director Charles Lane is a modern-day silent comedy, shot in b&w, about a homeless NYC street artist (Lane) who rescues and cares for a young child after her father is murdered. Evoking Chaplin’s 1921 feature The Kid, this mostly mute movie has a music score by Marc Marder. 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes! “[A] sweet, gentle sleeper.” –Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. 97 min. Sidewalk Stories, a...

Denmark | 2020 | Barbara Topsøe-Rothenborg

Three mature Danish women, girlfriends since elementary school, find their lives transformed when they take a cooking course in Italy. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 98 min. Food Club, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 2/12 thru at least 3/25 via the link below. Doing so supports the Cinematheque. Screening fee is $12, and you have 72 hours to watch it.

Hong Kong | 2019 | Ray Yeung

In this groundbreaking Hong Kong drama, two elderly, closeted gay men who are each married and have a family courageously begin a relationship. Has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes! “A rare, mature gay romance.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 92 min. Twilight’s Kiss, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 2/12 thru at least 3/4 via the link below. Doing so supports the Cinematheque. Screening fee is $12, and you...

United States | 2020 | Lee Isaac Chung

Film distributor A24 is offering online access—for a premium price—to one of the most acclaimed and anticipated movies of 2020. Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and now nominated for six 2021 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor, Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical film is a touching, tender work about a Korean immigrant family that relocates from California to...

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United States | 2019 | Davy Rothbart

For 20 years, the African-American Sanford family of Washington, DC filmed their daily lives in a dangerous neighborhood located only 17 blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The result is this remarkable document made in conjunction with filmmaker/journalist Davy Rothbart. In it, we meet and follow Emmanuel, a student; his brother Smurf, a drug dealer; his sister Denice, an aspiring cop; and his mother Cheryl, who battles her own demons while her family fights poverty,...

United Kingdom | 2019 | Simon Bird

After his plans to spend summer in Florida with his dad go south, a bored, belligerent, black-clad British teen who’s into heavy metal and little else must reluctantly spend his six weeks’ vacation in England with his single mom, a lonely librarian. Rob Brydon co-stars in this funny, touching comedy based on Joff Winterhart's graphic novel, with a soundtrack by Belle & Sebastian. “Laugh-out-loud funny with a big heart.” –Mark Kermode. Cleveland premiere. 86 min. ...

France, Japan, Mexico | 2002 | Olivier Assayas

In this newly restored techno-thriller from the director of Irma Vep, Summer Hours, and Personal Shopper, Connie Nielsen plays a corporate mole working to undermine a deal between two multinational conglomerates trying to control the internet market for 3-D hentai (pornographic Japanese animation and graphic novels). But industrial espionage is so rampant that she can’t trust her co-workers, or anyone really. Soon she finds herself on very dangerous ground—almost a character in a virtual reality...

Belgium, France, Luxembourg | 2020 | Zoé Wittock

A shy young woman who still lives at home with her mom and works at an amusement park becomes strangely enamored of the park’s flashing, whirling new mechanical attraction. Noémie Merlant, who played the painter in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, stars in this offbeat and erotic tale of objectophilia. “A ride worth taking.” –IndieWire. Subtitles. 93 min Jumbo, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 2/19 thru at least...

Italy, Russia | 2019 | Andrei Konchalovsky

In 16th-century Florence, tormented painter and sculptor Michelangelo finds his loyalties divided between two wealthy families and two Popes, prompting some serious soul searching. Alberto Testone stars in this lavish, Italian-language historical epic by the master Russian director of Siberiade, Dear Comrades!, and many others. “[A] sumptuously shot, rowdy, warts-and-all portrait of the artist.” –Screen Int’l. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 134 min. Sin, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 2/19 thru at least...

United States | 2019 | Shatara Michelle Ford

With national discussions around health care inequities, the #MeToo movement, policing, and race in America as a backdrop, this award-winning debut feature focuses on the relationship between a young Black woman and her white boyfriend as he drives her in search of a rape kit after she is sexually assaulted by another man. “A must-see gem…One of the year’s first true discoveries.” –IndieWire. “Offers a fresh way of examining sexual assault and its aftermath on...

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China | 2018 | Lina Wang

The plight of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority—and of families everywhere—is explored in this affecting, beautifully photographed tale of three Uyghur elementary school children in a rural farming community who are forced to adapt to China’s Mandarin-language educational system. The non-professional actors are superb. “A subtle yet incisive look at how China's Muslim minority grapples with the pressure to ditch their own culture and conform to the social norms of the day.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere....

France | 2019 | Éric Baudelaire

A class of 21 multicultural middle schoolers on the outskirts of Paris use video cameras to record their perspectives on current socio-political concerns—from ethnicity and discrimination to immigration and elections—in this refreshing nonfiction film that is both purposeful and playful. Shot over four years, this intimate, enlightening project was overseen by the 2019 recipient of France’s prestigious Marcel Duchamp prize, Éric Baudelaire. “[A] rare film that conveys the capacious lyricism we tend to associate with...

France, Italy | 1968 | Henri Georges-Clouzot

Never before shown at the Cinematheque, the final film by the director of Diabolique and The Wages of Fear is an unsettling portrait of voyeurism and sexual perversion in which a young, female film editor becomes fascinated by some sadomasochistic photographs taken by the owner of a modern art gallery. Clouzot’s only all-color movie is a trippy, erotic, Op Art explosion that echoes Antonioni’s Blow-Up while also incorporating some of the psychedelic lighting effects Clouzot...

Brazil, Denmark | 2019 | Tali Yankelevich

A celebration of the essential workers who are grocery store employees, this new documentary (filmed before the pandemic) reveals the surprising joys, fears, and dreams of some of the colorful individuals who make the baked goods, drive the forklifts, stock the shelves, scan the merchandise, paint the signs, and patrol the aisles at a large supermercado in Sao Paolo, Brazil. “You’ll look at the guy behind the bakery counter differently the next time you...

Italy | 1950 | Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada

Federico Fellini’s first film (he was actually co-director) stars Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio, and Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina. It charts how the rise of a beautiful and ambitious young dancer upsets the equilibrium within a third-rate, traveling vaudeville troupe. Felliniesque in its fondness for small-time performers of dubious talents, the film has never before been shown at the Cinematheque. New restoration! Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. 97 min. Variety Lights, a...

United States | 2021 | Will Wernick

Do you ever feel like you’re gonna scream if you have to attend another Zoom meeting? Well, watching this lockdown-inspired new thriller, set two years into the pandemic, you just might! A group of friends throws an online party with a night of music, games, drinking, and drugs. But after taking an ecstasy pill, things go terribly wrong and their supposedly secure homes become more terrifying than the raging chaos outside. Cleveland premiere. 82...