Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 2021 | Patrick Trefz

This amazing documentary is a portrait of singular American artist and chef Jim Denevan, whose unique career has encompassed both monumental land art (i.e., epic geometric patterns on sand beaches) and grand dinners in beautiful natural settings. As founder of Outstanding in the Field, Denevan has hosted (and fed) 100-1000 guests seated at one long table set up in vineyards, meadows, fishing docks, city streets, et al. around the world. Instead of bringing the food...

China, Hong Kong | 2000 | Wong Kar-wai

Voted the best film of the first decade of this century by film writers for Time Out London, Wong Kar-wai’s exquisite mood piece is suffused with romantic melancholy. In 1962 Hong Kong, a lonely married man (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and a lonely married woman (Maggie Cheung), both living in the same crowded apartment building, begin a chaste affair after deducing that their oft-absent spouses are lovers. Gorgeous, stylish, spellbinding. 4K restoration! Subtitles. DCP. 98 min.

Canada | 2020 | Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt

Billy Tipton was a successful American jazz musician and bandleader who lived from 1914 to 1989. After his death, it was revealed that he had been assigned female at birth. This new documentary employs prominent figures in the trans community to paint a multifaceted portrait of this successful entertainer who has now become a transgender icon. “A compelling, often profound film.” –L.A. Times. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 83 min.

Belgium, France | 2019 | Safy Nebbou

Juliette Binoche stars in this clever comedy-drama about a 50-year-old divorced professor who creates a fake Facebook profile—that of a 24-year-old beauty—to spy on an inconstant lover. But romantic complications ensue when the man she really loves falls for her online alter ego. “Elegant, ingenious and sexy.” –The Guardian. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 101 min.

Italy | 1963 | Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical fantasy is one of the landmarks of world cinema! Marcello Mastroianni plays a hugely successful Italian film director who finds himself at a creative impasse just as he is about to embark on his most elaborate project. To escape fans, media vultures, and industry sycophants who swarm around him like flies, he retreats into private fantasies and nostalgic reveries. 8½ was voted the tenth best movie of all time by over 800...

China, Hong Kong | 2000 | Wong Kar-wai

Voted the best film of the first decade of this century by film writers for Time Out London, Wong Kar-wai’s exquisite mood piece is suffused with romantic melancholy. In 1962 Hong Kong, a lonely married man (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and a lonely married woman (Maggie Cheung), both living in the same crowded apartment building, begin a chaste affair after deducing that their oft-absent spouses are lovers. Gorgeous, stylish, spellbinding. 4K restoration! Subtitles. DCP. 98 min.

Italy | 1963 | Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical fantasy is one of the landmarks of world cinema! Marcello Mastroianni plays a hugely successful Italian film director who finds himself at a creative impasse just as he is about to embark on his most elaborate project. To escape fans, media vultures, and industry sycophants who swarm around him like flies, he retreats into private fantasies and nostalgic reveries. 8½ was voted the tenth best movie of all time by over 800...

Belgium, France | 2019 | Safy Nebbou

Juliette Binoche stars in this clever comedy-drama about a 50-year-old divorced professor who creates a fake Facebook profile—that of a 24-year-old beauty—to spy on an inconstant lover. But romantic complications ensue when the man she really loves falls for her online alter ego. “Elegant, ingenious and sexy.” –The Guardian. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 101 min.

Japan | 1989 | Shin’ya Tsukamoto

A cult hit absent from theaters for many years, Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s feature debut is a perverse, darkly comic, graphically violent and gory alloy of David Cronenberg, David Lynch, and Sam Raimi. A Japanese “salaryman” involved in a car accident with a “metals fetishist” finds himself plagued by nightmares. He gradually transforms into the Iron Man, a lusty, rusty scrapheap of tangled metal, dangling cables, and uncontrollable urges, with a large rotating drill extending from his...

Italy | 1954 | Federico Fellini

One of Fellini’s most beloved movies—and the first motion picture to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film—is a moving fable that chronicles the tragicomic relationship between a brutish, itinerant circus strongman (Anthony Quinn) and the simple-minded, love-starved waif (Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s wife) who works with him as a clown (and serves him like a slave). The title means The Road. 4K restoration! Subtitles. 108 min

United States | 2021 | Caty Borum Chattoo, Leena Jayaswal

This new documentary looks at race through a fresh lens. Two mothers—one brown, one white—set off on a journey together to explore what it means to be a bi-racial child living in a mixed-race family in so-called “post-racial America.” Insights from their family members and others illustrate America’s deep cultural ambivalence about its rapidly-changing mixed-race reality. Filmmakers Caty Borum Chattoo and Leena Jayaswal will answer audience questions after the screening. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 57 min.

United States | 2020 | Connie Hochman

This new documentary revisits the glory years of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet. Former dancers remember their time with Balanchine, explaining how they tried to fulfill the vision of a genius who was at once a groundbreaking choreographer, taskmaster, mad scientist, and spiritual teacher. The film is filled with never-before-seen archival footage of Balanchine at work during rehearsals and classes in preparation for his seminal works. 88 min. In Balanchine’s Classroom, a Cinematheque streaming...

United States | 2019 | Ebs Burnough

Truman Capote’s unfinished novel Answered Prayers, an epic portrait of New York's glittering jet-set society, was meant to be the ultimate masterpiece by the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. Instead, its airing of socialites’ dirty laundry in public prompted the ostracization and downfall of one of America's most influential writers and public figures, who died in 1984. This new documentary explores the back story of Answered Prayers via vintage, never-before-heard audio...

United States | 2021 | Amalia Ulman

In this wry, deadpan, financial crisis comedy that evokes the scruffy, lo-fi indie films of 1980s NYC, a recently widowed mother and her fashion student daughter, both living in a depressed seaside town in the north of Spain, face eviction from their middle-class apartment. The two women blithely resort to scams, sex work, and sheer denial to maintain their privileged lifestyle, keeping the wolves at the door waiting. The first film by multidisciplinary artist Ulman...

France, Italy | 1962/1968 | Federico Fellini

Two short fantasies by Fellini. The first is his contribution to the 1962 portmanteau film Boccaccio ’70. Fellini’s first color movie, it’s a delightful comedy in which a prudish, self-appointed moral watchdog strenuously objects to a neighborhood billboard featuring busty La Dolce Vita star Anita Ekberg, who encourages people to “drink more milk.” Imagine this puritan’s surprise when the giant goddess comes to life! Toby Dammit, the maestro’s psychedelic segment from the 1968 French-Italian omnibus...

France, Italy | 1962/1968 | Federico Fellini

Two short fantasies by Fellini. The first is his contribution to the 1962 portmanteau film Boccaccio ’70. Fellini’s first color movie, it’s a delightful comedy in which a prudish, self-appointed moral watchdog strenuously objects to a neighborhood billboard featuring busty La Dolce Vita star Anita Ekberg, who encourages people to “drink more milk.” Imagine this puritan’s surprise when the giant goddess comes to life! Toby Dammit, the maestro’s psychedelic segment from the 1968 French-Italian omnibus...

United States | 1975 | Joan Micklin Silver

Here’s a new 4K restoration of a landmark indie film with two local connections: filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver and star Carol Kane are both former Clevelanders! Set on NYC’s Lower East Side at the end of the 19th century, the movie tells of a Russian Jewish immigrant couple whose marriage is strained by the idea of assimilation: he wants to, she doesn’t. Kane earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance, and the...

Canada, United States | 2019 | Todd Phillips

How did a struggling, emotionally unstable stand-up comic in 1981 Gotham City become the clown-faced psychopathic killer of Batman fame? This violent, unsettling, but mesmerizing origin story fills in the details. With Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, and numerous Scorsese references. Adults only! 35mm. 122 min.

United States | 1975 | Joan Micklin Silver

Here’s a new 4K restoration of a landmark indie film with two local connections: filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver and star Carol Kane are both former Clevelanders! Set on NYC’s Lower East Side at the end of the 19th century, the movie tells of a Russian Jewish immigrant couple whose marriage is strained by the idea of assimilation: he wants to, she doesn’t. Kane earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance, and the...

Canada, United States | 2019 | Todd Phillips

How did a struggling, emotionally unstable stand-up comic in 1981 Gotham City become the clown-faced psychopathic killer of Batman fame? This violent, unsettling, but mesmerizing origin story fills in the details. With Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, and numerous Scorsese references. Adults only! 35mm. 122 min.

United States | 2021 | Amalia Ulman

In this wry, deadpan, financial crisis comedy that evokes the scruffy, lo-fi indie films of 1980s NYC, a recently widowed mother and her fashion student daughter, both living in a depressed seaside town in the north of Spain, face eviction from their middle-class apartment. The two women blithely resort to scams, sex work, and sheer denial to maintain their privileged lifestyle, keeping the wolves at the door waiting. The first film by multidisciplinary artist Ulman...

Australia, China, United States | 2020 | Natalie Erika James

During her 25-year movie career, Emily Mortimer has appeared in almost 50 movies, including Mary Poppins Returns, The Bookshop, Hugo, Shutter Island, Match Point, Lovely and Amazing, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Notting Hill. She has also done voice roles in such animated films as Howl’s Moving Castle and Cars 2. Tonight this British actress appears in person at the Cinematheque to answer audience questions about her films and career (which also encompasses TV and the...

Spain | 1979 | Iván Zulueta

Unknown in the U.S., this trippy Spanish underground classic is Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite horror film. (It had a lasting influence on him.) A dimension-shattering blend of substances and cinemania, the film focuses on a heroin-addicted horror movie director who one day receives a Super-8 film, an audiotape, and a door key. Together they erase the boundaries of time, space, and sexuality. “A genuine cult title…A hallucinatory, claustrophobic examination of the secret potency of film itself…A...

Nigeria | 2020 | Arie and Chuko Esiri

This widely heralded debut film by Nigerian twin brothers is set in Lagos, where two distantly connected strangers—a mechanic and a hairdresser—each pursue their dream of starting a new life in Europe. Vibrantly shot on 16mm film. “Critic’s Pick…The rare social realist drama that conveys critique without didacticism and empathy without pity.” –NY Times. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 116 min.

Japan | 2020 | Kiyoshi Kurosawa

In this elegant WWII-era period piece and Hitchcockian thriller, a Japanese merchant travels to Nippon-occupied 1940 Manchuria, where he documents evidence of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese. His activities and ties to the West cause the nationalistic military police, and even his wife, to question his loyalties. The mysterious murder of an associate doesn’t help his case. From the director of Cure. “Critic’s Pick…Linear narrative perfection, with every scene perfectly calibrated.” –NY Times. Cleveland premiere....

Nigeria | 2020 | Arie and Chuko Esiri

This widely heralded debut film by Nigerian twin brothers is set in Lagos, where two distantly connected strangers—a mechanic and a hairdresser—each pursue their dream of starting a new life in Europe. Vibrantly shot on 16mm film. “Critic’s Pick…The rare social realist drama that conveys critique without didacticism and empathy without pity.” –NY Times. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 116 min.

Spain | 1979 | Iván Zulueta

Unknown in the U.S., this trippy Spanish underground classic is Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite horror film. (It had a lasting influence on him.) A dimension-shattering blend of substances and cinemania, the film focuses on a heroin-addicted horror movie director who one day receives a Super-8 film, an audiotape, and a door key. Together they erase the boundaries of time, space, and sexuality. “A genuine cult title…A hallucinatory, claustrophobic examination of the secret potency of film itself…A...

United States | 2006-2014 | Rob Lucas

Rob Lucas, who died in July 2020 at the age of 41, was a pillar of the Northeast Ohio movie community. An independent filmmaker whose short documentary Stella Walsh played at Cannes and around 40 other int’l film festivals, Rob also founded the Akron Independent Film Festival and co-established Akron’s Nightlight Cinema. Tonight we remember Rob with excerpts from American Stories, his 2006 comedy feature in which stranded musicians relate outrageous tales, and the complete...

Austria, Bosnia, France, Germany, Herzegovina, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Turkey | 2020 | Jasmila Žbanić

The movie released this year with the highest overall Metacritic.com score (97 out of 100 as of 8/6) was one of the five nominees for this year’s Academy Award for Best Int’l Feature Film. Quo Vadis, Aida? is a gripping Bosnian War drama in which a Bosnian woman working as a United Nations translator tries to protect her family from Serbian soldiers who have entered the town of Srebrenica (a UN “Safe Area”) in July...

France, Italy | 1965 | Federico Fellini

Fellini’s first color feature, made right after 8½, is a psychosexual phantasmagoria in which he trades his own fantasies for those of his wife (Giulietta Masina). Masina plays a neglected, middle-aged Roman housewife who suspects her husband is cheating on her. She consults psychics and seers and escapes into her imagination. Nino Rota’s bouncy score is among his most distinctive and memorable. 4K restoration. Subtitles. DCP. 145 min.

France, Italy | 1965 | Federico Fellini

Fellini’s first color feature, made right after 8½, is a psychosexual phantasmagoria in which he trades his own fantasies for those of his wife (Giulietta Masina). Masina plays a neglected, middle-aged Roman housewife who suspects her husband is cheating on her. She consults psychics and seers and escapes into her imagination. Nino Rota’s bouncy score is among his most distinctive and memorable. 4K restoration. Subtitles. DCP. 145 min.

United States | 1971 | Howard Alk

Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party who was played by Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya in the Cleveland-shot Judas and the Black Messiah, was killed in his Chicago apartment by police officers during a notorious predawn raid on 12/4/69. He was 21. This hard-hitting documentary is both a portrait of Hampton and his community activism as well as an investigation of his controversial death. It even contains revelatory footage of the unsecured...

Austria, Bosnia, France, Germany, Herzegovina, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Turkey | 2020 | Jasmila Žbanić

The movie released this year with the highest overall Metacritic.com score (97 out of 100 as of 8/6) was one of the five nominees for this year’s Academy Award for Best Int’l Feature Film. Quo Vadis, Aida? is a gripping Bosnian War drama in which a Bosnian woman working as a United Nations translator tries to protect her family from Serbian soldiers who have entered the town of Srebrenica (a UN “Safe Area”) in July...

China, Hong Kong | 1997 | Jia Zhangke

The debut film of master Chinese director Jia Zhangke has never before been released in the U.S. (though we showed it once). Shot in 16mm with a non-professional cast, Jia’s movie traces the downward trajectory of a petty thief in a provincial small town as his country transitions to a free-market economy. Has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes (as of 8/6). Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 108 min.

Japan | 2020 | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

The new film from the director of Happy Hour and Asako I & II tells three contemporary love stories that explore the complex workings of the human heart. The first tale chronicles an awkward love triangle; the second charts the path of an attempted seduction; and the third connects past feelings with present ones. “Full of understated, melancholy poetry…Emotionally authentic and consistently absorbing…Rueful ruminations on love, loss and longing.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP....

Taiwan | 2019 | John Hsu

Inspired by a video game that also spawned a Netflix series with a different plot, this chilling melodrama is set at a Taiwanese high school in 1962, during a repressive time of martial law. When a rebellious teacher who leads a subversive “banned book” club suddenly disappears, two student members of the group launch a search that eventually takes them into a spooky spirit realm of ghosts and monsters. This visual stunner won the 2020...

Italy, Spain | 1966 | Sergio Leone

For his second selection in his year-long “carte blanche” series, retiring Cleveland Institute of Art President + CEO Grafton Nunes has picked the most famous of all spaghetti westerns. Set during the Civil War, the film follows three desperadoes—a bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef), a bandito (Eli Wallach), and a mysterious Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood)—as they battle each other and the U.S. Army for a cache of buried Confederate gold. Ennio Morricone’s score...

Japan | 2020 | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

The new film from the director of Happy Hour and Asako I & II tells three contemporary love stories that explore the complex workings of the human heart. The first tale chronicles an awkward love triangle; the second charts the path of an attempted seduction; and the third connects past feelings with present ones. “Full of understated, melancholy poetry…Emotionally authentic and consistently absorbing…Rueful ruminations on love, loss and longing.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP....

Italy | 1973 | Federico Fellini

Amarcord, which means “I Remember,” is a magnificent dream/memory piece in which Federico Fellini recalls his youth in the small Italian seaside town of Rimini during the 1930s Fascist era. This Oscar-winning movie overflows with colorful characters and funny, bawdy, melancholy vignettes. The movie’s cinematographer was the great Giuseppe Rotunno, who died in February, and Nino Rota (of course) composed the lilting music. 4K restoration. Subtitles. DCP. 124 min.

United States | 1975 | Arthur Penn

This shattering but rarely shown post-Watergate neo-noir from the director of Bonnie and Clyde was a flop when first released but has since grown in stature. Gene Hackman is superb as an L.A. private eye whose search for a runaway teenager (Melanie Griffith) leads him to the edge of an unfathomable moral abyss. With Jennifer Warren and James Woods. “A key film of the ‘70s…Essential viewing.” –Time Out Film Guide. 35mm. 100 min.

United States | 1975 | Arthur Penn

This shattering but rarely shown post-Watergate neo-noir from the director of Bonnie and Clyde was a flop when first released but has since grown in stature. Gene Hackman is superb as an L.A. private eye whose search for a runaway teenager (Melanie Griffith) leads him to the edge of an unfathomable moral abyss. With Jennifer Warren and James Woods. “A key film of the ‘70s…Essential viewing.” –Time Out Film Guide. 35mm. 100 min.

Italy | 1973 | Federico Fellini

Amarcord, which means “I Remember,” is a magnificent dream/memory piece in which Federico Fellini recalls his youth in the small Italian seaside town of Rimini during the 1930s Fascist era. This Oscar-winning movie overflows with colorful characters and funny, bawdy, melancholy vignettes. The movie’s cinematographer was the great Giuseppe Rotunno, who died in February, and Nino Rota (of course) composed the lilting music. 4K restoration. Subtitles. DCP. 124 min.

Belgium, France | 2016 | Julia Ducournau

The only other theatrical feature from the female director of this year’s top prize winner at Cannes, Titane, is this grisly, graphic (but critically lauded) thriller about a young vegetarian woman who develops a craving for meat—and other primal hungers—during her first year at veterinary school. “Disgusting fun.” –Irish Times. Adults only! Subtitles. DCP. 98 min.

United States | 1995 | Rusty Cundieff

Spike Lee produced this urban-themed comedy-horror anthology film, in which a strange funeral home director (Clarence Williams III) regales three drug dealers with four scary stories relating to issues still plaguing African Americans: domestic abuse, police brutality, racism and white supremacy, and gang violence. With David Alan Grier, Corbin Bernsen, et al. DCP. 98 min.

United States | 2020 | Todd Chandler

Such longtime high school traditions as homecoming, prom, football games, and morning announcements have recently been supplemented by new rituals like metal detector screenings, lockdown drills, and firearms training for teachers. The unending plague of school shootings has prompted these changes while engendering the rise of an industry devoted to school safety. This new documentary looks at this shocking new reality. “Chilling…Candid and heartbreaking…A keenly observational film that depicts the day-to-day normalization of the unspeakable.”...

United States | 1995 | Rusty Cundieff

Spike Lee produced this urban-themed comedy-horror anthology film, in which a strange funeral home director (Clarence Williams III) regales three drug dealers with four scary stories relating to issues still plaguing African Americans: domestic abuse, police brutality, racism and white supremacy, and gang violence. With David Alan Grier, Corbin Bernsen, et al. DCP. 98 min.

Belgium, France | 2016 | Julia Ducournau

The only other theatrical feature from the female director of this year’s top prize winner at Cannes, Titane, is this grisly, graphic (but critically lauded) thriller about a young vegetarian woman who develops a craving for meat—and other primal hungers—during her first year at veterinary school. “Disgusting fun.” –Irish Times. Adults only! Subtitles. DCP. 98 min.

United States | 1943 | Mark Robson

Though not as well-known as other Val Lewton-producer horror films of the 1940s like Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, this tale of devil worshipers in Greenwich Village has been called Lewton’s “masterpiece” by the Time Out Film Guide. They describe the thriller as “a remarkably effective mix of menace and metaphysics—half noir, half Gothic.” With Kim Hunter. 35mm. 71 min

United Kingdom | 1945 | Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer

The granddaddy of all horror anthology films tells of a group of friends, gathered at an English country house, who spend an evening sharing five ghost stories. Michael Redgrave excels as a schizophrenic ventriloquist in perhaps the movie’s creepiest episode. “Still spooky after all these years…The most effective example of the portmanteau style.” –Time Out Film Guide. DCP. 102 min.

France, West Germany | 1981 | Andrzej Zulawski

Shorn of over 40 minutes when first released in the U.S. (and banned outright for a number of years in Britain), this bloody, over-the-top exercise in Grand Guignol stars Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a married couple going through a traumatic break-up. Arguments and furniture-smashing soon give way to self-mutilation, killings, and sex with doppelgangers (and with a tentacled monster created by Oscar-winning F/X master Carlo Rambaldi of E.T. and Alien fame). Adjani won...

United Kingdom | 1945 | Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer

The granddaddy of all horror anthology films tells of a group of friends, gathered at an English country house, who spend an evening sharing five ghost stories. Michael Redgrave excels as a schizophrenic ventriloquist in perhaps the movie’s creepiest episode. “Still spooky after all these years…The most effective example of the portmanteau style.” –Time Out Film Guide. DCP. 102 min.

United States | 1943 | Mark Robson

Though not as well-known as other Val Lewton-producer horror films of the 1940s like Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, this tale of devil worshipers in Greenwich Village has been called Lewton’s “masterpiece” by the Time Out Film Guide. They describe the thriller as “a remarkably effective mix of menace and metaphysics—half noir, half Gothic.” With Kim Hunter. 35mm. 71 min

France, West Germany | 1981 | Andrzej Zulawski

Shorn of over 40 minutes when first released in the U.S. (and banned outright for a number of years in Britain), this bloody, over-the-top exercise in Grand Guignol stars Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a married couple going through a traumatic break-up. Arguments and furniture-smashing soon give way to self-mutilation, killings, and sex with doppelgangers (and with a tentacled monster created by Oscar-winning F/X master Carlo Rambaldi of E.T. and Alien fame). Adjani won...