Cinematheque Schedule

Austria, France, Germany | 2022 | Ulrich Seidl

In the latest grotesque comedy by inveterate envelope-pusher Ulrich Seidl, an aging, washed-up pop star (a brilliant Michael Thomas) tries to recapture his past glory as a lounge singer in the wintry, off-season Italian seaside resort of Rimini, where he performs (sexually as well as on stage) for older tourists. The crooner’s hardscrabble life is complicated by a father with dementia and by the unexpected appearance of his long estranged grown daughter, who demands past...

South Korea | 2022 | Hong Sang-soo

A novelist who’s disenchanted with her writing goes on a trip to visit a former colleague, now a bookstore owner. During her sojourn, she has a chance encounter with a famous actress who’s also at an artistic crossroads. Their meeting leads to a kind of renewal for both women. Hong’s 27th feature finds his regular actors once again playing wryly funny, self-absorbed S. Korean creatives whose human connections and epiphanies come via a lot of...

Iran | 1984 | Amir Naderi

Maybe the first masterpiece of the Iranian New Wave, Amir Naderi’s moving, semi-autobiographical drama tells of an 11-year-old orphan boy who struggles to subsist in an Iranian port city by taking various odd jobs (delivering ice, scavenging bottles in shark-infested waters, etc.). Likened to such childhood classics as Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and De Sica’s Shoeshine, this beautifully filmed and inspiring classic is an unforgettable hymn to human survival and aspiration. “A work of astonishing...

Bahamas, France, Switzerland, United States | 1987 | Jean-Luc Godard

Woody Allen, Molly Ringwald, Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith, and Jean-Luc Godard appear in Godard’s English-language film inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy. But you should expect more Godard than Shakespeare. The work is a fractured essay film and avant-vaudeville show in which a descendant of the Bard, William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth (theater director Peter Sellars), tries to restore the play’s text in a culture-deprived, post-Chernobyl world. King Lear is one of Godard’s worst reviewed films—as well...

United Kingdom | 1982 | Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway’s brilliant breakthrough film is an elegant 17th-century tragicomedy about a cocky young British artist (Anthony Higgins) who contracts to do a series of drawings of a splendid country estate in exchange for sexual favors from his employer (Janet Suzman). But there’s more lurking beneath the surface of his impeccably rendered sketches than meets his eye. And it’s sinister. Michael Nyman composed the unforgettable music. Cleveland revival premiere! DCP. 104 min.

Angola, France | 1972 | Sarah Maldoror

Set in 1961 at the beginning of Angola’s War of Independence from Portugal, this landmark African film focuses on the wife of an arrested Angolan freedom fighter who goes from prison to prison to locate her husband. It’s an anti-colonialist classic (in gorgeous color), directed by a woman. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. Restored DCP. 97 min.