Cinematheque Film Schedule

2011 | Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

Master Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, The Circle, Offside), currently under house arrest in Tehran while appealing a six-year prison sentence and a 20-year-ban on filmmaking, documents (via digital video) a day in his apartment-bound life. The result, which was smuggled out of Iran to the Cannes Film Festival on a flash drive hidden in a cake (!), is one of the year’s most subversive and acclaimed whatsits. “A great film…A triumph of...

Norway | 2011 | Joachim Trier

Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his celebrated 2006 feature Reprise is one of the best reviewed films of the year! Anders Danielsen Lie delivers another great performance—this time as a recovering 34-year-old heroin addict who receives a day pass from his rehab center so he can go to a job interview in Oslo. As he reconnects with people and places from his previous life, he struggles to stay clean, and it is agony. “Profound.” –Entertainment Weekly.

United States | 1982 | Alan J. Pakula

Meryl Streep won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in this poetic, moving, underrated film. Streep plays Sophie Zawistowski, a tormented Polish Catholic immigrant who survived Auschwitz and now shares a house in postwar Brooklyn with a brilliant but temperamental Jewish lover (Kevin Kline, also superb) and an aspiring Southern writer (Peter MacNicol). The writer, who’s also in love with Sophie, seeks to know why she is so tortured. From William Styron’s novel.

United States | 1982 | Alan J. Pakula

Meryl Streep won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in this poetic, moving, underrated film. Streep plays Sophie Zawistowski, a tormented Polish Catholic immigrant who survived Auschwitz and now shares a house in postwar Brooklyn with a brilliant but temperamental Jewish lover (Kevin Kline, also superb) and an aspiring Southern writer (Peter MacNicol). The writer, who’s also in love with Sophie, seeks to know why she is so tortured. From William Styron’s novel.

2011 | Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

Master Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, The Circle, Offside), currently under house arrest in Tehran while appealing a six-year prison sentence and a 20-year-ban on filmmaking, documents (via digital video) a day in his apartment-bound life. The result, which was smuggled out of Iran to the Cannes Film Festival on a flash drive hidden in a cake (!), is one of the year’s most subversive and acclaimed whatsits. “A great film…A triumph of...

2011 | Hong Sang-soo

“Hong Sang-soo does Groundhog Day” says Time Out New York about the new film by the contemporary Korean master. It’s another funny-sad compendium of pathetic behavior in which a former movie director turned provincial film professor spends a three-day weekend in Seoul. But each day’s activities—wandering around the city, drinking with bar-mates, reconnecting with an old girlfriend—are so similar that he seems caught up in an endless loop of disappointment and failure. “Among (Hong’s) very...

France | 1974 | Jacques Rivette

Here’s a new 35mm color print of an epic Jacques Rivette masterpiece that David Thomson has called“the most innovative film since Citizen Kane.” It’s a surreal fantasy in which two young Parisian women, a nightclub magician and a librarian, trade identities, enter a mysterious mansion, interact with the house’s real or imaginary inhabitants, and get caught up in a Gothic murder melodrama that’s forever unfolding there. Inspired by two Henry James stories, this dreamy,...

France | 1974 | Jacques Rivette

Here’s a new 35mm color print of an epic Jacques Rivette masterpiece that David Thomson has called“the most innovative film since Citizen Kane.” It’s a surreal fantasy in which two young Parisian women, a nightclub magician and a librarian, trade identities, enter a mysterious mansion, interact with the house’s real or imaginary inhabitants, and get caught up in a Gothic murder melodrama that’s forever unfolding there. Inspired by two Henry James stories, this dreamy,...

United States | 1966 | François Truffaut

Julie Christie and Oskar Werner star in Truffaut’s first color film (and only film in English)—an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic tale of a TV-saturated society in which books are banned and burned, and firemen start fires. Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Russia | 2011 | Andrei Zvyagintsev

The new drama from the director of The Return has the third highest overall metacritic.com rating (87 out of 100) of any movie released this year! It’s a critique of the new Russia—the haves, the have-nots, and the must-haves—as they jockey for wealth and trample moral qualms in the process. Elena is a middle-aged, proletarian nurse who has married a well-to-do older man, Vladimir, a former patient. Both have grown children from previous marriages—a...

France, Germany, United Kingdom | 2011 | Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club) celebrates the groundbreaking work of his friend and fellow German, legendary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009), in this Oscar-nominated movie that captures Bausch and her company members performing some of her most celebrated works both on stage and around the German city of Wuppertal, home of Bausch’s dance theatre since 1972. Shown in 2D. Subtitles.

Russia | 2011 | Andrei Zvyagintsev

The new drama from the director of The Return has the third highest overall metacritic.com rating (87 out of 100) of any movie released this year! It’s a critique of the new Russia—the haves, the have-nots, and the must-haves—as they jockey for wealth and trample moral qualms in the process. Elena is a middle-aged, proletarian nurse who has married a well-to-do older man, Vladimir, a former patient. Both have grown children from previous marriages—a...

France, Germany, United Kingdom | 2011 | Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club) celebrates the groundbreaking work of his friend and fellow German, legendary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009), in this Oscar-nominated movie that captures Bausch and her company members performing some of her most celebrated works both on stage and around the German city of Wuppertal, home of Bausch’s dance theatre since 1972. Shown in 2D. Subtitles.

United States | 1966 | François Truffaut

Julie Christie and Oskar Werner star in Truffaut’s first color film (and only film in English)—an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic tale of a TV-saturated society in which books are banned and burned, and firemen start fires. Music by Bernard Herrmann.

United States | 1961-67 | Various

Dr. Charles Bergengren, who died in July, taught in the liberal arts department of the Cleveland Institute of Art for 21 years. He was a faithful attendee of the Cinematheque for just as long. In fact, no one from CIA (outside of Cinematheque staff) attended more screenings than he did. Charlie loved all kinds of movies, but had a special fondness for “underground” cinema—and even taught a popular avant-garde film class. Tonight we remember...

France, Italy, Switzerland | 2011 | Alice Rohrwacher

This 2011 New York Film Festival selection was one of the best films at last spring’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival. A 13-year-old girl, recently relocated (with her single mother) from Switzerland to distressed southern Italy, finds herself confronting a whole series of strange things (puberty, catechism class, her working mom’s frequent absence) in a strange land where the spiritual vies with the corporeal. “An uncommonly insightful portrait of nascent womanhood…Sublime.” –Time Out New York.

1988 | Hayao Miyazaki

We open our Hayao Miyazaki series with one of the great animator’s most beloved films—which first debuted in Cleveland at the Cinematheque back in 1993! This gentle, poetic masterpiece tells of two young sisters who move with their father to the Japanese countryside, where they encounter spirits and other amazing creatures who can be seen only by children. One of them, the huge, furry, flying Totoro, takes the girls on a series of fantastic...

United States | 1958 | Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s moody, haunting masterpiece was voted the greatest movie ever made in this year’s Sight & Sound magazine poll of over 800 international film experts. (It deposed Citizen Kane after a 50-year reign.) James Stewart plays a retired San Francisco police detective who develops a romantic obsession for a beautiful and mysterious married woman (Kim Novak) he has been hired to shadow. Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Russia | 1962 | Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkvosky’s first feature, one of the most beautiful and lyrical Soviet movies of the sixties, blends realism, expressionism, and surrealism. Set during WWII, the film tells of a 12-year-old Russian boy who becomes a spy for the partisans after his family is wiped out by the Germans. Subtitles.

United States | 1958 | Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s moody, haunting masterpiece was voted the greatest movie ever made in this year’s Sight & Sound magazine poll of over 800 international film experts. (It deposed Citizen Kane after a 50-year reign.) James Stewart plays a retired San Francisco police detective who develops a romantic obsession for a beautiful and mysterious married woman (Kim Novak) he has been hired to shadow. Music by Bernard Herrmann.

1988 | Hayao Miyazaki

We open our Hayao Miyazaki series with one of the great animator’s most beloved films—which first debuted in Cleveland at the Cinematheque back in 1993! This gentle, poetic masterpiece tells of two young sisters who move with their father to the Japanese countryside, where they encounter spirits and other amazing creatures who can be seen only by children. One of them, the huge, furry, flying Totoro, takes the girls on a series of fantastic...

France, Italy, Switzerland | 2011 | Alice Rohrwacher

This 2011 New York Film Festival selection was one of the best films at last spring’s Cleveland Int’l Film Festival. A 13-year-old girl, recently relocated (with her single mother) from Switzerland to distressed southern Italy, finds herself confronting a whole series of strange things (puberty, catechism class, her working mom’s frequent absence) in a strange land where the spiritual vies with the corporeal. “An uncommonly insightful portrait of nascent womanhood…Sublime.” –Time Out New York.

1988 | Hayao Miyazaki

We open our Hayao Miyazaki series with one of the great animator’s most beloved films—which first debuted in Cleveland at the Cinematheque back in 1993! This gentle, poetic masterpiece tells of two young sisters who move with their father to the Japanese countryside, where they encounter spirits and other amazing creatures who can be seen only by children. One of them, the huge, furry, flying Totoro, takes the girls on a series of fantastic...

Russia | 1962 | Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkvosky’s first feature, one of the most beautiful and lyrical Soviet movies of the sixties, blends realism, expressionism, and surrealism. Set during WWII, the film tells of a 12-year-old Russian boy who becomes a spy for the partisans after his family is wiped out by the Germans. Subtitles.

2011 | Takashi Miike

The acclaimed new film from the prolific director of Audition, Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins, et al. is a 3D remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s great 1962 samurai drama Harakiri, which starred Tatsuya Nakadai. And it will be shown in 3D when the Cinematheque returns to the Capitol Theatre tonight! Set in 17th-century Japan, the film tells of a penniless samurai who goes to the house of a feudal lord to commit ritual suicide. But...

United States | 2011 | Whit Stillman

Whit (Metropolitan) Stillman’s first film in 13 years is a delightful, literate—and strange—campus comedy about a quartet of proper, perky coeds (led by Greta Gerwig) who are committed to saving the suicidal and civilizing the barbaric (mostly dumb frat boys). They also want to start a new international dance craze. This is one of the funniest and most original films of the year—though some people can’t stand it. With Adam Brody, Analeigh Tipton, and...

France | 2011 | Gérard Hustache-Mathieu

In this clever comic thriller that evokes both Twin Peaks and Fargo, a French crime novelist looking for his next story investigates the mysterious death of a young provincial model and starlet who saw herself as a reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. “[A] particularly droll and satisfying French murder mystery.” –Entertainment Weekly. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles.

Austria, Germany | 2010 | Felix O. and Percy Adlon

In this sly period piece that opened the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival, Gustav Mahler seeks help from Sigmund Freud when his frustrated and much younger wife Alma begins an affair with dashing young architect Walter Gropius. Filled with Mahler music conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. “Very witty and erotic…[A] delightful, artistically vigorous and occasionally loony fantasia about Vienna's cultural elite 100 years ago.” -The Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles.

United States | 2011 | Whit Stillman

Whit (Metropolitan) Stillman’s first film in 13 years is a delightful, literate—and strange—campus comedy about a quartet of proper, perky coeds (led by Greta Gerwig) who are committed to saving the suicidal and civilizing the barbaric (mostly dumb frat boys). They also want to start a new international dance craze. This is one of the funniest and most original films of the year—though some people can’t stand it. With Adam Brody, Analeigh Tipton, and...

France | 1962 | Chris Marker & Jean-Luc Godard

Two French masterpieces made 50 years ago. La Jetée (The Jetty or The Pier) is a unique, haunting, post-apocalyptic fantasy about memory, time travel, and destiny. It was the only fiction film by the great ciné-essayist Chris Marker (who died in July at age 91) and inspired Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. Pauline Kael called it “the greatest science-fiction movie I’ve ever seen.” My Life to Live, Jean-Luc Godard’s fourth feature (and one of his...

France | 2011 | Gérard Hustache-Mathieu

In this clever comic thriller that evokes both Twin Peaks and Fargo, a French crime novelist looking for his next story investigates the mysterious death of a young provincial model and starlet who saw herself as a reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. “[A] particularly droll and satisfying French murder mystery.” –Entertainment Weekly. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles.

1984 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s breakthrough animated movie is an epic post-apocalyptic fantasy set in the harmonious Valley of the Wind, whose ecosystem survived the devastating “Seven Days of Fire.” But when two warring clans, and giant insects in the surrounding toxic jungle, threaten destruction of the Valley once again, young princess Nausicaä must stop them. Subtitles.

Austria, Germany | 2010 | Felix O. and Percy Adlon

In this sly period piece that opened the 2011 New York Jewish Film Festival, Gustav Mahler seeks help from Sigmund Freud when his frustrated and much younger wife Alma begins an affair with dashing young architect Walter Gropius. Filled with Mahler music conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. “Very witty and erotic…[A] delightful, artistically vigorous and occasionally loony fantasia about Vienna's cultural elite 100 years ago.” -The Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles.

1984 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s breakthrough animated movie is an epic post-apocalyptic fantasy set in the harmonious Valley of the Wind, whose ecosystem survived the devastating “Seven Days of Fire.” But when two warring clans, and giant insects in the surrounding toxic jungle, threaten destruction of the Valley once again, young princess Nausicaä must stop them. Subtitles.

France | 1962 | Chris Marker & Jean-Luc Godard

Two French masterpieces made 50 years ago. La Jetée (The Jetty or The Pier) is a unique, haunting, post-apocalyptic fantasy about memory, time travel, and destiny. It was the only fiction film by the great ciné-essayist Chris Marker (who died in July at age 91) and inspired Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. Pauline Kael called it “the greatest science-fiction movie I’ve ever seen.” My Life to Live, Jean-Luc Godard’s fourth feature (and one of his...

United States | 2011 | Alison O'Daniel

Alison O’Daniel, a former Cinematheque ticket seller and CIA grad who won the school’s top traveling scholarship in 2003, is now a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Tonight Alison returns to Cleveland with her first feature film, a dreamy, surreal tale of two women wandering through the desert after their car breaks down, and a hula hoop that becomes a portal to a parallel world. Alison will answer audience questions after the screening,...

2012 | Yung Chang

The Chinese-Canadian director of 2007’s Up the Yangtze returns with another acclaimed documentary about the new China. This time the focus is on two prospective pugilists, young men plucked from their poor provincial towns by a master trainer and offered a chance at fame, prosperity, and Olympic gold. As in Chang’s previous feature (which addressed economic inequities during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam), China Heavyweight has a lot to say about contemporary...

1962 | Yasujiro Ozu

The final film by the great Japanese director whose 1953 Tokyo Story was recently voted the third best film of all time (see 10/27 & 28)is another magnificent work—and one of only six Ozu movies in color. The great Chishu Ryu plays a widower who marries off his daughter (despite her objections), leaving him alone except for his drinking buddies. This serene, autumnal work was in production when Ozu’s mother died; he had lived...

1962 | Yasujiro Ozu

The final film by the great Japanese director whose 1953 Tokyo Story was recently voted the third best film of all time (see 10/27 & 28)is another magnificent work—and one of only six Ozu movies in color. The great Chishu Ryu plays a widower who marries off his daughter (despite her objections), leaving him alone except for his drinking buddies. This serene, autumnal work was in production when Ozu’s mother died; he had lived...

2012 | Yung Chang

The Chinese-Canadian director of 2007’s Up the Yangtze returns with another acclaimed documentary about the new China. This time the focus is on two prospective pugilists, young men plucked from their poor provincial towns by a master trainer and offered a chance at fame, prosperity, and Olympic gold. As in Chang’s previous feature (which addressed economic inequities during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam), China Heavyweight has a lot to say about contemporary...

United States | 1959 | Lionel Rogosin

Shot secretly in South Africa in 1959 by independent American filmmaker and activist Lionel Rogosin (On the Bowery), this eye-opening classic dramatizes the difficulties faced by a Zulu family living on the outskirts of Johannesburg under apartheid. Miriam Makeba, who sings in the film, became internationally famous because of it. "A heroic film of terrible beauty.” –Martin Scorsese. Cleveland revival premiere.

2011 | Ann Hui

Winner of five 2012 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress, and Actor (it was also Hong Kong’s official entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film), this deceptively simple but emotionally rich movie charts the relationship between an elderly family servant (Deanie Ip) and the middle-aged man (Andy Lau) she helped raise from birth. Only now the roles are reversed: the elderly housekeeper has suffered a stroke and...

1992 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s rarest major feature, which we’ve wanted to bring back ever since premiering it in Cleveland in 1999, follows a decorated WWI flying ace-turned-pig (the result of a mysterious spell) who battles sky pirates over the Adriatic Sea in the years prior to WWII. This high-flying adventure was Japan’s highest grossing film of 1993. “As stirring as Casablanca and sophisticated as Only Angels Have Wings…A sublime chivalric fable.” –Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles.

2011 | Ann Hui

Winner of five 2012 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress, and Actor (it was also Hong Kong’s official entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film), this deceptively simple but emotionally rich movie charts the relationship between an elderly family servant (Deanie Ip) and the middle-aged man (Andy Lau) she helped raise from birth. Only now the roles are reversed: the elderly housekeeper has suffered a stroke and...

1992 | Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s rarest major feature, which we’ve wanted to bring back ever since premiering it in Cleveland in 1999, follows a decorated WWI flying ace-turned-pig (the result of a mysterious spell) who battles sky pirates over the Adriatic Sea in the years prior to WWII. This high-flying adventure was Japan’s highest grossing film of 1993. “As stirring as Casablanca and sophisticated as Only Angels Have Wings…A sublime chivalric fable.” –Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles.

United States | 1959 | Lionel Rogosin

Shot secretly in South Africa in 1959 by independent American filmmaker and activist Lionel Rogosin (On the Bowery), this eye-opening classic dramatizes the difficulties faced by a Zulu family living on the outskirts of Johannesburg under apartheid. Miriam Makeba, who sings in the film, became internationally famous because of it. "A heroic film of terrible beauty.” –Martin Scorsese. Cleveland revival premiere.